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I wrote this a couple of months back, after the first few episodes of Homeland this season. The storyline didn’t include Brody, but rather Brody’s incredibly stale and annoying family. Carrie wasn’t out in the field doing awesome espionage stuff. Instead, she was being locked away in the loony bin after going full Carrie.
This is a mea culpa for writing that. I was wrong about season three of Homeland. It took a while to get going, and while I was upset at the stagnant nature of the show’s first few episodes (DANA), that all changed when Saul revealed his brilliant long con of getting Carrie close to Javadi, thus putting Saul’s ultimate power play into motion. God damn it, if Saul isn’t back next season, I’ll quit TV. I’ll just quit it. That’s a lie.
Then we come to the killing of Brody at the end of the episode. As much as it killed me to watch that scene, it was one of those bittersweet moments that you knew had to happen. As badass as post-Jihadi Brody was, the story had reached a critical point. Brody and Carrie were never going to be together. Brody’s family was dragging the show down and the producers did the right thing by cutting that storyline quite hastily. The Brody family disappeared before I could fire off 50 negative tweets about how no one cared about Dana Brody’s teenage angst. But I tried my best. That was the beginning of the shift the series needed to take, which was eliminating the character and storyline of Nicholas Brody.
The death of Brody signified the end to one of TV’s most polarizing, painfully sympathetic characters. Nick Brody, the anti hero at the center of it all. In the end, there were just too many questions surrounding the character of Brody. Was he still a terrorist? Would he and Carrie really be able to be together? How the hell was he going to be perceived back home?
The writers had the balls to kill him off and go in a different direction, ending one of the most original, intriguing storylines that I’ve ever seen. Now, what happens next?
Carrie is going to head up the CIA’s headquarters in Istanbul, where I assume she’ll be bringing Quinn and all of his badassery along with her. New characters will likely be introduced. Javadi remains in play as a CIA asset, placed atop the IRGC. Dana Brody is cleaning hotel rooms and Mrs. Brody is probably off boning Mike somewhere, boring someone else with her sob story.
Last night’s episode, while somewhat disappointing and lengthy, was a brilliant stroke of closure to one (or two?) of the show’s central characters. It almost felt like the series finale, but for me, it felt like the end of a chapter of the story. Where will they go now? What kind of crazy shenanigans will Carrie get into in Turkey? How will she balance being a mother, high-ranking CIA officer and crazy person at the same time? I don’t know, but I can’t wait to find out.
How long until Game of Thrones starts?
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Brian McGannon
What do I love? I love happy hour, a good golf tan, and getting moderately drunk during dinner.
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Joffrey will die this season in Game of Thrones.
Kinda wish it was Dana Brody getting hanged in the last episode
Never watched the show yet I read the whole column. That probably shows how bored I am at work.
I thought the season finale was great. However, I could have done without the “4 months later” part. Yes, it was nice to see how everyone was doing post Brody, but it would’ve been a terrific ending if they had just cut it after the Brody hanging.