What the hell are they going to do for the third season?
Third Season == “The Mole”
Anyone remember the movie Contact, where Jodie Foster looks around like a scared nervous bird for the last 20 minutes of the movie? Probably not but it irritated me enough to remember it.
Well that is where I am at with Homeland, Carrie did that same annoying mannerism for the entire second season. I get it, she is bipolar, move on, get her some meds.
Or was her bipolar disease the only reason she could find hidden doors like a D&D elf, where dozens of trained spec ops guys couldn’t.
Still like the show, but the Carrie thing is getting silly. SNL did a spoof of Homeland that I maybe shouldn’t have watched, it jaded me a bit:)
I imagine her reactions and words whenever a new script arrives for her perusal.
Danes: I think in this scene in which Carrie is confronted with a latte made with 2 percent and not skim milk, I should put a little Marty Feldman in my reaction.
Writer: Why not just look annoyed for a second and move on?
Danes: Nah, I think this deserves a little extra Feldman.
Writer: Fine…whatever. Now, about the scene in which you get cut off in traffic…
Danes: Oh yeah, that’s gettin’ a Feldman.
Writer: Ummm…okay…but why not just roll your eyes or flip the other driver the bird?
Danes: Nah…that’s a Feldman moment if ever there was one.
Writer: Okay, okay…fine. Just to sum things up then, are you okay with this week’s script?
Danes: Yeah, looks good. I’m gonna Feldman the fuck out of it!
This last episode really jumped the shark with that scene where Carrie and the one guy suddenly get separated from the rest of the tac team. I mean come on, are these guys professionals or not?
And before that, am I supposed to believe that the medics on the scene at Carrie’s rescue early in the episode wouldn’t have cleaned her up some and dressed the scrapes and such on her face? Really?
The Big Twist in the finale did manage to redeem the goofiness of the last couple of episodes. It also provided a great ending to the story of the confession tape, and set up a fairly interesting premise for the next season. (I liked Mandy’s Inspector Javert crack - yeah, guess who’s Inspector Javert now?)
Though I do wonder what they’re going to do about a supporting cast now that most of them were, um, sidelined in this episode, in one way or another.
But before we got to the Big Twist we had to put up with the very lame conclusion to the hitman subplot. His heart just grew three sizes that day, and that’s it? And it’s all fine by F. Murray Abraham?
They just don’t make stone cold killers like they used to.
The finale was a better end to this season than I expected but I’m not thrilled with the setup for next season right now. I don’t really want all the same characters going through all the same trust issues about Brody, even if they actually keep Brody off screen.
When Saul was praying at the end, was that Hebrew or Arabic?
Hebrew.
Quinn: Oops.
It is becoming increasingly clear that the writing team for Season 1 of Heroes was engaged to work on Homeland Season 1.
If not, the same problems that lead to the flaming out of Heroes is now front and centre on Homeland. The writers do not understand the genre and so painted themselves early into a corner they cannot get out of. It made Season 1 great, but the consequences of not knowing where they were going to take the series were severe.
This could EASILY have been avoided. All they had to do from the very start was tell the story from the perspective of Carrie/Surveillance and Brody’s family – both of which were unreliable narrators. If they NEVER showed the viewer Brody on his own (unless he was under surveillance). this would have left the viewer with fundamental questions about Brody. This would have left those questions inherently unresolved and always somewhat in doubt.
At the very least, in S02E12, why not put Carrie with Saul at Sea when the incident occurs – and have Brody leave the room to take a call just before the event happened? It would have reignited suspicion of Brody and re-ignited that fundamental tension from Season 1 back into the show.
But no, the writers didn’t take that exit the past few times it presented itself – and they won’t take it now, either. This is a love story we do not care about, a family drama that has ceased to be a family drama – and a CIA procedural which has become so far removed from anything resembling a real-life procedural that it is closer to Get Smart than the Jason Bourne series.
All of which is a god-damned shame. The acting and direction is top notch and in abundance. The production values are there, too. The writing manifestly is not. It is, indeed, Heroes all over again - and for the same reasons.
These writers do not understand the genre and do not know what they are doing.
The only thing that can save season 3 (let’s just go ahead and put it on record that season 2 was a fiasco of the highest screw-itude) is if they frequently have shots of Brody hitchhiking along a lonely highway while the theme from the 70’s tv version of The Hulk plays in the background.
I didn’t like a lot of season two, and couldn’t have imagined myself defending it, yet here I am scratching my head at both of your reactions and wondering if we were watching the same show.
I like the thinking, but if Schrodinger never took the box off that stupid cat, you’d either get irritated about the ambiguity or cease to care.
The real solution would be to have Brody’s involvement end with Season 1: his story was beautifully concluded. Then the writers would have done some real work to make Carrie as enjoyable to watch as Saul, but that wouldn’t have been impossible.
We must not have been if you’re scratching your head over it. Season 2 became a cheap 24 knockoff almost right out of the gate.
Yeah, there are plenty of valid criticisms for this show but checking in on this thread and finding pretty much pure bile mystifies me.
Well, there was the initial groupings that people didn’t mind the endings (hell did you even see the post where one post said basically they thought it saved the latter half of the season?), then there was this page’s truly hateful rants that I’m not quite getting either. Apparently the creators got away from the “genre” of this show. What exactly was the genre? What type of show is this anyway?
The creators have made it pretty clear they didn’t want to pigeonhole the show into a specific genre or category, and these shifts in strategy pretty much point to this notion. Why this makes the show terrible… I dunno. It wasn’t horrible, it was just another game changer and again looks to shift the focus of the show (perhaps). As for the attacks on the creators making this into a love story, it’s a contention that the show has always been a love story.
— Alan
What? No – boo. The show, at the outset, was created to explore the premise of Nick Brody. Carrie’s obsession with him veering into infatuation was a natural outgrowth of that. We did not begin with it.
I just watched the pilot (my brother lent me the first season). I must watch everything with Damian Lewis. He’s so good. Life was a great show, as was Band of Brothers, so I have to watch this too.
But man, I have a hard time not turning away from the TV when Claire Daines is on the screen. Her nervous energy makes me itch in places, and makes me sick in the pit of my stomach. Every scene. Oh my god, just calm down Carrie! Fuck. I don’t know how long I can take that.
Hopefully she’ll tone it down a little after the pilot episode.