Homeland Seasons 2 and 3

In a way, what this week’s Homeland was about was one of the most simple things imaginable for a complex piece of television: Allowing a love story to unfold. Which is a storytelling goal that will, I’m pretty sure, annoy nearly as many viewers as it pleases.


SPOILER ALERT.


By the end of this hour, Abu Nazir was dead, and so was Brody’s marriage. The killing of Nazir, a narrative event that by any measure should have felt surprising, climactic, dramatic if not wildly dramatic, ended up being a fascinatingly airless, deflated scene. In that way, it seemed more realistic. This was not a triumphant, “we got the bastard!” moment, a movie moment, a SEAL Team Six: The Raid on Osama Bin Ladin moment. No, we were as dazed, as shell-shocked, as Carrie looked to be. Estes’ congratulations to her (“Good work”), were appropriately bureaucrat-flat; indeed, the real drama for Estes, one sensed, was that he thinks he’s gotten rid of one problem (that would be Saul, framed by his own words in an Estes-manipulated lie-detector test) and not able to rest until he’s finished with another problem (that would be the continued existence of Brody).
The exceptional scene of the week was the one in the car between Brody and Jessica, as they finally semi-articulated that they are over as a couple. Morena Baccarin has never been better, playing Jessica’s by-now-resigned betrayal, emotional exhaustion, and mixture of anger and guilt beautifully. Her performance enabled you to believe her character’s sincerity when she said, “I tried, Brody, I really tried” as much as when she said of Carrie, “you must love her a lot.” These moments were like something out of a good John Updike short story — the disintegration of a suburban marriage, no matter the military/espionage trappings surrounding it. (Also, earlier: great Dana moments. Morgan Saylor, you’re fantastic.)
Brody’s declaration of devotion to Carrie by the end was also wincingly convincing — saying that when it came down to “you or Walden,” “it wasn’t even close” — well, I, you, and Carrie should hope so, given the context up to this point. Yet that moment was all the more touching, more real-seeming, for just this awkwardness.

So what can Gansa tease about next week’s season finale? “The final episode is called ‘The Choice,’ and what I can say about it is Walden is dead. Nazir is dead. So we’ve sort of left the thriller aspects of the show behind and now we come to a very personal story about Carrie and Brody and all the obstacles that lie in the way of them being together. That is what the finale is about. It’s a real character study of these two people, where they’ve come from, how they regard each other, and whether or not there’s a future for them.”

In Slate’s Homeland TV Club, June Thomas will IM each week with a different partner—policy experts, intelligence researchers, critics, and even Slate commenters. This week she chats with Fred Kaplan, Slate’s “War Stories” columnist and author of the forthcoming book The Insurgents: David Petraeus and the Plot to Change the American Way of War.

June Thomas: Fred, thanks for joining me again. That was an odd, tense episode, full of genuine surprises and emotional payoff. The killing of Abu Nazir seemed almost anti-climactic after last week's high drama and two years of chasing him. His end was more Saddam "Spider Hole" Hussein than Osama "Abbottabad Crash Pad" Bin Laden. If I had to boil this week's episode down to one theme, I'd say it was "the things we choose not to say or hear." Which of those things did you find most dramatic?

Fred Kaplan: June, I'm sorry, did you say "dramatic"? The most notable thing about this episode is how un-dramatic it was. That says it all, to my mind, about the weird direction the series has taken this season—that what should have been the climax should be so banal. I still can't suspend my disbelief; it's been violated too often. Nazir is down in these tunnels, like Orson Welles in The Third Man, all by himself? The FBI guy who gets killed separates from his partner—even after one character has noted, five minutes earlier, that they always work in pairs? Emily Nussbaum came up with a very clever theory explaining all the improbable plot points from last episode, but her theory was wrong. The scriptwriters just don't know how to write their way from one point to another. I'd say that next season, they should hire Emily.