Warning the following contains major spoilers regarding events that take place in the season 3 finale of Homeland, If you’ve not finished the series yet you may want to avoid.
Well the season finale of the 3rd season of Homeland has been and gone, and I think we all knew really that we would see the death of Brody in this season. But the question is now where can the show go on from here without him, and actually does there even need to be a 4th season…
Previously on Homeland…
Season 3 of Homeland was actually very clever. It started off pretty frustrating and slow, Carrie going mental, crying every episode and a lot of pointless story filler using Brody’s family. At one point it felt like Homeland was building Dana up to be the new star of the show, and I hated it. But I stuck by it. Eventually we were spoiled with an appearance and a whole episode featuring just Brody and learning of his whereabouts from the end of season 2. This is where things picked up for me. I couldn’t see how they would ever link Brody, Carrie and Saul back together again. Then suddenly outfield we find out that Saul and Carrie have been in on something the whole time, and the ‘mental’ Carrie is actually part one of Saul’s play. Having her play the role of potential rogue CIA agent who could and would spill the beans on everything to have her approached by enemies of the USA was pretty damn clever. And it worked. Saul’s first part of the plan went off without a hitch. Iranian intelligence officer Majid Javadi falls for it hook, line and sinker.
With their new asset the CIA find out the Langley bomber is still in the USA, this leads Carrie to believe she can get Brody off the hook, of course leave it to Carrie to potentially ruin things by letting her emotions for Brody get the better of her, almost blowing months of work by trying to apprehend the Langley bomber after being told numerous times specifically to stay put. On this instance she deserved the bullet to the shoulder that Quinn delivered and I think even she later realizes that she could have lost everything they’d worked for.
So the plan is still continuing to work brilliantly. Saul now has a huge capture in sending Javadi back to Iran working for the CIA, and all thanks to ‘Crazy Carrie’. However none of this sits well senator Lockheart who will shortly be taking over Saul’s position of director of CIA.
And so here’s phase 2, towards the end of an episode we see Saul approach a derelict apartment building that looks familiar to that which we saw Brody in a few episodes back. Hold the phone… it is the same apartment building. Saul is in Venezuela visiting a heroin addicted Brody… You sly dog you Saul, you knew all along. And so we have it, Saul had intentionally had Brody hauled up away from the world for the next part of his plan. He’s successfully played Carrie into the ‘she’ll leak info to our enemies’ character and that’s worked as Javadi has approached her for information. He’s successfully got enough dirt on Javadi to see that he sees publicly executed if he doesn’t work for the CIA… so there’s one piece left, and here it is. Nicholas Brody to try to redeem himself and assassinate the leader of the Revolutionary Guard, Danesh Akbari so that Javadi can eventually take his place. What a genius he is, it’s all going to plan. Except Brody is not the marine he once was. It takes a few weeks to get him back to the lean mean killing machine he once was. Saul’s got a problem in that Senator Lockheart doesn’t like this plan one bit, and doesn’t like the time scales that Saul’s asking for, in fact, this plan will run way past Saul’s exit from the CIA. Fortunately this isn’t Saul’s first rodeo and he has evidence that Lockhart’s been doing some off the record espionage himself which could jeopardize his career.
With the new additional window bought from Lockhart, Brody is trained up and deployed to Iran with the plan of asking for political asylum in the country and admit he was the bomber of Langley which should please most of Iran.
A few hitches arise when he’s dropped onto the Iraq / Iran boarder, but eventually it falls into play and he’s accepted into the country.
He then very cleverly lets Akbari know the CIA’s plan and tell him that Javadi is in on it, but before the Akbari can make a call, Brody has smashed his head with an ashtray and suffocated him.
The plans worked. Now it’s all about Brody’s extraction from Iran. However by now Lockhart is in full control of the CIA and has given Carrie and Brody’s location away to Javadi to again further assist him in becoming the next leader of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. Brody is sentenced to death and is publically executed by hanging the next day with Carrie watching on.
So what now… what next for the series? Well it’s already been confirmed that Saul will be in series 4 which is a plus, and Carrie is being sent to Istanbul, so I’m sure she’ll continue to get her hands dirty in diplomatic affairs. But where will they go without Brody? Could there be another terrorist attack close to home? And would it ever been released that Brody was not guilty of Langley? Will we see any of the Brody’s family or see them come to terms with what their father / husband did in Iran.
We saw in the first half of the season that the series can cope without Brody in every episode, but they did have to fill the show in with some rather tedious and pointless Dana story line. I assume at least 1 episode in season 4 will feature the family but can’t seem them being a main part of the series. I wonder if Javadi will continue to feature in season 4 and will cracks begin to appear in his placement as Iranian Revolutionary Guard leader, will secrets begin to slip that could jeopardize Lockhart & Javadi? Perhaps Javadi himself tries to close any lose ends and go after Carrie with a secret mission of his own?
I’m just hoping we get to see some more cold blooded Quinn, who was a highlight in series 3.
In honesty they could have ended the Homeland series altogether with the way they ended the 3rd season. It was a good finish knowing Saul was happily retired, Carrie was off to better things and that Brody finally had peace and a star although via unofficial means on the memorial at Langley.
Here’s hoping that there are some decent plots in line for season 4 and that it’s not in production purely for money for Showtime.
