A New Home

There will be spoilers.

So the second season of Homeland just ended wth "The Choice." The first season won a bunch of Emmys, and everyone wondered if the second could compare.  I guess it did.  It was less consistent, and, for that matter, less believable.  But the high points were just as high, maybe higher, and the low points weren't that low, and didn't last too long.  Also, it delivered.  There was so much teasing, so much frustration in the first season--ultimately, so much unsettled. Not season two.  Things happened, and happened quickly.  And the final episode leaves us with a whole new dynamic.

Much of season 2 was built around an absurdity--the Carrie/Brody relationship.  I don't buy it for a second.  It's hard to believe he'd care, as screwed up as he is, but Carrie still in love with him?  I know she's crazy, but this guy is a major terrorist and the one who completely screwed her over.  Even if she felt something for him in the past, that should be over.  This is why so much of the best of season two was the first four or five episodes, before their post-arrest relationship developed.

It was since that moment that things went off in weird directions.  The basic terrorist plot worked, but the rest was questionable.  The best thing about the finale was even as it doubled down on Carrie's love affair with Brody, it explained the other things I didn't buy. It was way too easy to get Abu Nazir--all the moves up to an including his capture seemed ridiculous. Unless he had a bigger plan, which he did.  And which has thrown so much of the show as we knew it out the window and allowed the producers practically a reset.

It even made me forgive Quinn's reversal on killing Brody. It didn't make sense (and if Quinn is the mole, as some suggest, that makes even less sense) and I felt the same letdown I did in the first season finale, where it made sense that Brody die but the show wasn't willing to do it.  To add to the silliness, Quinn threatens Estes--does he think he can get away with that?  I was a bit surprised that we didn't see Quinn's reaction to the explosion.  It would have been a good moment.  Did they not have time, or is he hiding something?

One scene we got that we've been waiting for a long time was Brody finally opening up to Dana.  And then there was another moment that was always threatening to happen--his wife (and everyone in the world) discovering Brody was (at least at one time) a terrorist.

Anyway, good season. And it'll be good to have Saul and Carrie back next season. (We don't need Brody back, but the show has made it all too clear they won't go ahead without him.)

PS  A number of fans seemed to think Saul was muttering Arabic over the blown-up bodies, thus showing he's the mole.  I'm shocked more people didn't recognize Kaddish.