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Children of the Damned

by HELEN SCHUMACHER

Homeland
creators Howard Gordon and Alex Gansa

As the premiere of the third season of Homeland approached, Showtime released a trailer that left me fretting over not only the ratio of Nick Brody to Carrie Mathison airtime but also how much more fun than her he looked to be having (jungle shootouts beat being handcuffed to a hospital bed every time). Thankfully Abu Nazir’s Sherif Meshad’s shadowy network stepped in and leaked the first episode, because piracy funds terrorism, and it’s Brody-free! Here are some minor spoilers.

As the season begins, it’s approximately two months following the bombing at Langley and there’s no place like home — where Carrie’s assembling more wall-sized collages, Dana Brody is returning from an inpatient treatment program, and Saul Berenson, now the acting head of the CIA, is overseeing the planning of an Oz-codenamed mission that has Peter Quinn in Caracas building bombs for the season’s opening scene.

Our first look at Carrie is as she is beginning her testimony before a Senate committee investigating the attack that wants to know why Congressman Brody had been given immunity (and what from) by the CIA in exchange for information and to account for her whereabouts the 14 hours after the bombing that she was missing. Because of Carrie’s track record for respecting authority, we know this is going to go pleasantly. Also the committee’s chairman, a Senator Andrew Lockhart, is like Arlen Specter hell-bent on character assassination, but more smug about it. Carrie, who no longer fears the skepticism of her superiors after last season’s validation, really gives the committee something to tut-tut over when she tells them that she thinks Brody is innocent.

Between her testimony and erratic notes (which look exactly like the ones I take for writing these recaps), the agency lawyer decides Carrie should plead the Fifth. Her dad is worried too; she’s off her lithium and boozing hard. The station chief appointment Carrie was given at the end of last season apparently never materialized, and her current role at the CIA is ambiguous. Unfortunately it’s looking like the role might be that of scapegoat, as leaks from inside the agency threaten to out her as the disgraced congressman’s mentally unstable lover and hold her culpable in the attack.

Is it worth pointing out that Carrie’s constant “I missed something” self-flagellation is seen as a sign of her mental instability while at the same time everyone in the government is champing at the bit to blame her for not preventing the bombing? She’s crazy to hold herself accountable for the actions of terrorists, but it’s not crazy for those in charge to do the same.

Meanwhile, the only other person who believes in Brody’s innocence, his daughter Dana, is completing her last day of therapy after attempting suicide. And even though the Brody family is still hounded by the press and receiving death threats, she seems like any other moody and horny teen who experiments with sexting, instead of one whose father is America’s most wanted and who was an accomplice to vehicular manslaughter.

As the season progresses we’ll see whether or not tensions at home will derail Dana’s recovery. With the family’s military paycheck and benefits revoked, Jessica considers dusting off the accounting degree to provide financially for the family and get time away from her mother, who has moved in (apparently devoted “uncle” Mike Faber is no longer so devoted). 

With Carrie running around D.C. in a frenetic search for Brody, last year’s black ops supervisor Dar Adal has cozied up to Saul, advising him on how to repair the CIA’s reputation. Catering to Capitol Hill politics has never been his forte (but it is why he’s so likable!) and the pressure of it has paralyzed Saul’s decision-making abilities as it comes time for him to move forward on an operation that, if successful, would wipe out the six individuals (minus Brody) responsible for planning and executing the Langley attacks for professional terrorist Majid Javadi, or the Magician, as he’s known in espionage parlance.

At home, bringing the same gravitas to drinking whiskey as he does to eating peanut butter, Saul gets drunk and mulls over the decision while his estranged wife Mira, returned from Mumbai, puts him to bed. For the second time in the episode we hear a character talk about “taking it one day at a time” in the wake of the bombing. Here it’s Saul and Mira’s strategy for reconciling their marriage; earlier it was Dana in group therapy discussing how to cope once she returns home. 

The next day, Saul authorizes the mission (which neither Carrie nor agent Danny Galvez, who we’re assuming died at Vice President Walden’s funeral with director Estes last season, are involved in) and for 20 minutes the fate of America’s clandestine service depends on whether or not Peter Quinn can assassinate his target, codenamed Tin Man. During the operation, Quinn accidentally shoots the Tin Man’s son, a boy who looks like Brody’s surrogate one, Issa. I hope this is a passing coincidence and not the show setting us up for some message about civilian deaths in drone versus on-the-ground strikes. Also, terrorists, stop having kids! Things wrap up with Saul’s turn in the Senate committee hotseat.

The episode made good use of the show’s talented cast by focusing on how the characters grappled with the consequences of the Langley attack and the void left by Brody’s disappearance. It has me especially anticipating how the dynamic of Carrie and Saul’s relationship, which has always been more interesting than the relationship between her and Brody, shifts.

While my investment in the Brody family is modest, Dana’s maturing sense of self and intimacy could make for an engaging comparison to the adult relationships in the show. In my idealized version of Homeland, this season provokes thoughtful discussion of the idea that one “hysterical” woman’s sexuality could endanger an entire nation. But I’ll settle for suspenseful, plausible cloak-and-dagger drama.

Helen Schumacher is the senior contributor to This Recording. She is a writer living in Brooklyn. She tumbls here and here. You can find an archive of her writing on This Recording here. She last wrote in these pages about the opal ring.

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