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:
