Homeland Season One in Review

First and foremost let me just say, I thought this first season of Homeland, Showtime's newest and hottest series,  was amazing. It captured your attention from the very beginning and rarely let you off the edge of your seat. The storyline was believable, the characters were developed, the drama was intense and most of all, I thought the season finale did an almost near perfect job of wrapping up the season while still leaving enough grey area that future seasons can go a number of different directions.

• Will Carrie's controversial treatment work and if so, will she be able to get back with the agency?
• Will Saul continue to loop her in if she's unable to get her job back?
• What exactly is Brody? Still a terrorist threat or working to get out from under the control of Nazir?
• Which love of Brody's will win out, his love for his family or his love for Nazir (and in turn hate for the Vice President)?
• Who has the flash drive of his confession and how long until it's used to blackmail him (because you know it will eventually)?
• Does Dana trust her dad more or less after what happened?
• Who is the mole inside the agency?

Oh there's so much more, but I digress back to what's actually happened instead of thinking about the future. The season opened with side by side revelations that an American POW (Nicholas Brody played by Damian Lewis) who'd been captured in 2003 had been rescued, while at the same time CIA operative (Carrie Mathison played by Claire Danes) receives word from a CI who's about to be executed that an American POW has "been turned" by Al-Qaeda. I don't know about you but if that one sentence is all I know about an upcoming show, it's enough. Add in the fact that Brody's wife, after holding out hope for his rescue/return for years, is sleeping with his best friend and their on the verge of moving in together and that Mathison has hidden the fact that she's bipolar from the CIA and you've clearly got the recipe for an explosive and riveting series. Credit the writers, directors, cast and production crew for taking a solid set of ingredients and working up a masterpiece. There's no need to provide an episode by episode synopsis, you can get much better written versions elsewhere I'm sure, so instead I'll try to sum up this first season in my own special way:

The Good

• Bookends are very important to me. In other words, I need great series/season premiere and perhaps even more importantly, I need a gripping, intense, edge of your seat finale that leaves me craving more. Homeland can hang a gigantic "Mission Accomplished" banner on both fronts. The series premiere episode, while not explosive, laid so much groundwork for the season to come while keeping the viewer intensely wrapped up in the story that they were about to tell. And as for the finale, as a good friend of mine would say "I hope you didn't pay full price for your seat, because you only needed the edge." Not only was it a special 90 minute finale (something I absolutely love), it gave you uncomfortable drama, action, cold blooded kills and enough grey area to allow for plenty of intrigue in season 2.
• I will also add, I've heard criticism that the vest malfunctioning was a bit of cop-out but you knew something had to happen. There's no way he was actually going to detonate the bomb and Homeland would kill of it's key figure in the very first season. It just couldn't happen and I certainly prefer this outcome to him being caught (which I initially thought might happen).
• The chemistry between Brody and Carrie is amazing, believable and uncomfortable all at the same time. 'The Weekend' might have been my favorite episode of the season because of the raw connection between the two. They are both broken individuals and, even if just for a second, they both feel some semblance of peace with the other. For Brody, you've got to imagine this is the first time he's felt such peace since his capture and for Carrie, considering her mental state, she may never have felt this before. For a second, as they were walking through the woods (which I've got to think was a some sort of symbolism to them both being lost in their personal lives) talking to each other about feeling "comfortable," I totally forgot about every other story line up to that point. Great writing and great execution.
• I really like that this season had a clear and distinct plan of attack. I never felt like they were floundering or simply adding something to keep me interested that didn't pertain to the storyline. Need proof? While Carrie and Brody are at the cabin, he has a nightmare and his mumbling wakes her up. We can't really understand what he's saying but in the finale, right before going under anesthesia and into shock therapy, Carrie has a flashback and realizes that Brody was crying out for Nazir's dead son. Great tie in, pretty good cliff hanger heading into season two and proof that these writers have a plan.
• Call me a sucker for uncomfortable drama but this first season had loads of squirm in your chair type moments. Brody shooting a deer for eating their flowers (during the middle of a party no less), electro-shock therapy, Saul throwing himself into his work so much following his divorce that he ends up eating peanut butter straight out of the jar with a ruler late at night in his office and so many others. The depth of the characters really draws you in as a viewer and it's one of my favorite things about this show.

The Bad (I clearly love this show so anything here is more or less just nitpicking)

• I had some question about the polygraph in the 'Good Soldier' episode but I'm not sure if I've just watched so much television/movies that I assume just about everyone with military and/or CIA training can easily beat a lie detector. Brody was clearly lying but only he and Carrie knew it (him staring into the camera and saying "no, I've never cheated on my wife" was a chilling moment), but the more I thought about it in the days following, I kept bugging me that maybe it wasn't such a big deal that be beat it. Maybe he'd been trained and could have answered any question with ease.
• It's clear no one likes teenage angst in their TV drama but young Dana Brody didn't bother me as much as some others I've read (someone was actually wishing her harm going into the finale). Still though, I could have done without the couple scenes of cliche acting out (getting drunk and high, boyfriend that dad doesn't like), but again credit Homeland's writers for turning Dana into a primary character. She's the only one in the family who's really caught on to her dad's bizarre behavior to the point that she's actually asking questions.

The Ugly

• I saved this until the end because I wanted to talk about it somewhere so I'll just shoehorn it in here. First let me say, I really like Carrie's character so far, but it raises some questions both initially and on a go forward basis. How does someone with her mental instability get into the CIA? I'd have to think there are countless background checks, drug screens and interviews that someone in her mental state would have trouble passing. How many of her 'pills' does she have to stock up when she goes into the field? Isn't she overseas for months at a time and she's basically borrowing pills from her sister? They've implied that she can't go more than a day without breaking into a manic frenzy so I have a hard time believing she's been able to survive this long without breaking down. Secondly, where does she go from here? I have a really hard time believing there is any way she gets back into the agency at this point after the destruction she's caused and if she's not in the CIA or at least connected in some way, what's her role going forward? I suppose Saul could just use her as an operative off the books but can the co-lead maintain such a prominent role in the show with such a detachment? That's really my main worry going forward but if we've learned anything from the first twelve episodes, they'll find a way to pull it off.

Well that's enough of my long winded analysis, what did you think of the show? Likes, dislikes?