Long-term Homeland fans will remember the bad old days very well. The bad old days began in the first series, specifically the final episode of the first series. Until that point, Homeland had been nothing but startling. After years of 24’s blunt force trauma, here was a series that revelled in shades of grey. It was subtle, it was sophisticated, and it hinged on a giant question: was Nicholas Brody a terrorist?
But in that last episode, Homeland’s confidence wavered and Brody didn’t die. This is where the bad old days began. Unsure of what to do with Brody, the next two series got sillier and sillier. There were untraceable helicopters. There were horror movie chase sequences. There was a cartoon paedophile in an obliterated Venezuelan apartment block. And there was Dana, the useless teen who bobbed about from disaster to disaster for no reason whatsoever. These were Homeland’s bad old days. God, they were stupid.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that I miss the bad old days.
Because, yes, on the surface Homeland has got its act together. Brody is dead, thank goodness, and the show has reverted back to being a serious look at how the war on terror affects one potentially unstable intelligence operative. But as time goes on, it’s becoming clear that Homeland has overcompensated. Now it’s too serious, too subtle. It feels like it was so stung by the criticism of series two and three that it’s retreated from any sort of drama whatsoever.
If you’ve been watching this latest series, you’ll know exactly what I mean. We’re six episodes in over here – seven in America – and barely anything has happened. Entire episodes have passed in a daze. There was that one where Quinn followed a van around for half an hour. There was that one where Saul squinted off into the distance, practising his ventriloquy for about 45 minutes. There was that entire stretch where Carrie did nothing but endlessly fret about childcare. Homeland isn’t even a drama series this year. It’s the world’s most mundane CCTV feed.
Most frustratingly of all, there are kernels of great ideas here. The focus on Quinn’s new journey, as a killer destroyed by his job, was a smart move that’s been badly executed. Actually letting Carrie be a mother, as opposed to a spy with an unlimited babysitter budget, would have been interesting had it been better handled. And episode five, where Quinn finally snaps and takes hostages, was an actively good television episode. It actually felt like Homeland for once.
But aside from that, the whole thing has been one giant shrug. Homeland has hampered itself by cutting Carrie off from everyone. The best bit about Homeland was always the testy but affectionate relationship between Carrie and Saul, but they’ve barely shared any screen-time this year. Together, they’re effortlessly watchable. Apart, they’re two boring people doing two boring things.
For some reason, Carrie has been left to drift along on her own currents this series. There’s a terrorist plot, as there always is, but so far Carrie has been three steps behind everyone else. Her mental health issues have mysteriously vanished, too, perhaps because it’s Quinn’s turn to be the unstable one this year. Homeland has stopped being a show about Carrie, and more a show that happens around her. Unless something happens very quickly – to paraphrase Crazy Ex-Girlfriend – she’s in danger of becoming the Dana of her own story.
But hope springs eternal. Maybe this series of Homeland has been deliberately muted so far, so it’ll be all the more exciting when it bursts into life towards the end. Perhaps all the disparate threads will come smacking back together, and we’ll see Carrie and Saul team up and thwart some global conspiracy like they used to.
Let’s hope so, because right now Homeland is deathly boring. Whisper it, but it’s even worse than the bad old days.
