tropiavera | "An American prisoner of war has been turned." (Reply)

meredith asked me last weekend to sum up my Homeland feelings, so, uhm here we go! Homeland! Is this the show the most ridiculous "super attractive people" to "super depressing content" ratio?? Homeland has a lot of complicated internal politics, which is part of what I find interesting about it, but as the show moves toward its resolution it's becoming a rapidly more simplistic story*, which is both boring and aggravating.

The first bunch of episodes laid out this incredibly fascinating premise, but one that seemed laced with some deeply problematic seeds: an American prisoner of war (Brody aka Damien Lewis) has returned to the United States, and his family, after eight years. A CIA operative (Carrie aka Claire Danes) suspects that he was turned while being held, and is secretly and just-this-side-of-legally starts surveilling him. Inherent to this, obviously, is that only one of them can be right, but the way the show frames it is pretty problematic. So, if Carrie is right and Brody was turned, then all of this Patriot Act shit has been justified by her preventing a large-scale terrorist attack, possibly including an assassination attempt on the president. If she's wrong, then we have this overzealous lady with mental health issues, working with a Jewish guy with connections to various judges who are perpetuating some kind of conspiracy/character attack. Which, YIKES TO ALL OF THOSE OPTIONS. Why are you being so weird about this, Homeland?? It's a weirdly simplistic dynamic (that Showtime is really playing up with their advertising, for whatever that's worth) when you look at the much more complex way they're clearly trying to present a variety of Muslim and Middle Eastern characters.

I don't want to spoil too much in case people are debating picking this up, and it's certainly not the worst or most upsetting show that I'm currently watching (Glee, BOARDWALK EMPIRE), but there's definitely a lot going on that's pretty messed up and upsetting (both Brody and Carrie are dealing with various levels of PTSD, Brody has frequent flashbacks to his torture and captivity, the CIA uses various interrogation techniques that are "not torture"), though to the show's credit they do engage with that (I've seen Homeland described as a redemption for 24, which is certainly an interesting idea). I go back and forth on how they're dealing with Carrie's mental health, but at the end of the day I think it's pretty respectful.

I'm not especially invested in the Abu Nazir plotline (or Claire Danes's Arabic accent, jesus h), but I do admire the show for not pulling any punches wrt how horrific security practices are. The CIA is racking up a hell of a body count in their dogged pursuit, and at least half of the dead are their allies and indentured informants. I am much, much more into all of the complicated character relationships they've got going on, because everything is very messy, but the characters all seem to be doing their best to act in mature ways, they're just in terribly fucked-up situations.

P.S. if you do watch this show, I can tell The Good Soldier-The Weekend was my absolute favorite part of the show so far, and I am super into Carrie-as-Generalissimo.

* which has of course been renewed for another season already. I mean, really? JUST LEAVE IT AT ONE, JESUS. Not everything needs to be auto-renewed into perpetuity.