Homeland

Today I watched the first episode of a new series on Showtime.  It’s called Homeland.  It’s a psychological thriller that is based on the Israeli TV series Prisoners of War.  The story is this – Carrie Mathison is an American CIA officer [played by Claire Danes] who thinks an American POW, Marine Sgt. Nicholas Brody [played by Damian Lewis (Band of Brothers)] has been turned into an al-Qaeda operative who poses great risk to national security.   Think The Manchurian Candidate…  The tagline for this series is “Someone is lying, but who?”

The series follows Carrie from the time when she conducted an unauthorized operation in Iraq.  During this operation she was told by an “asset” that there was an American POW who had been turned by al-Qaeda.  Carrie’s operation got her into much trouble with her superiors so she was reassigned to desk duty at CIA Headquarters.  The only person at Langley that Carrie trusts is Saul Berenson [Mandy Patinkin], the CIA’s Middle East Division Chief and Carrie’s old boss and mentor.   When Carrie found out during a briefing that Sgt. Brody was alive, her thoughts immediately went back to what that Iraqi “asset” told her in that Baghdad jail about the American POW being “turned.”  She confided to Berenson to try to get surveillance on Brody, but he wouldn’t go for it because she didn’t have any proof.  Not to be deterred, she hired some “experts” at the surveillance game and bugged Brody’s house.  She’s not the kind to take “no” for an answer.  Besides being on probation and tied to a desk instead of working in the field, Carrie has other problems to deal with.  She has a guilt complex about not connecting the dots before 9-11.  She takes anti-psychotic drugs without the CIA’s knowledge.  She could lose her clearance and her job if they find out.  Plus, Berenson found out about her extra-curricular surveillance of Brody’s home, for which he promises her jail time.

Sgt. Nicholas Brody was part of a two-man sniper team when he and his partner went missing.  His partner died while in captivity.  His wife Jessica [Morena Baccarin- V] had given him up for dead and started a relationship with Marine Capt. Mike Faber, who was Brody’s best friend.  Jessica and Faber had just finished doing the wild thing when Jessica got the phone call from Brody to tell her he was still alive.  Carrie asked to be part of Sgt. Brody’s debriefing.  During the debriefing Carrie tried asked Brody if he recognized a certain individual, an al-Qaeda bigwig named Abu Nazir.  Brody looked at the picture, recognized Abu Nazir, and then lied about it to his debriefers.  Carrie asked him why he was held captive for eight years.  Brody said he didn’t know.  When the Deputy Director of the CIA asked her why she’s asking this of Brody, she replied that actionable intelligence obtained by a captured POW would be good for only 72 hours, so al-Qaeda keeping him for eight years wouldn’t make any sense.  The Deputy Director got pissed, and so Carrie is at the top of his “shit list.”

Brody was supposed to go home and have a barbeque with buddies from his unit.  He called Jessica to tell him he would be late because his debriefing went longer than expected.  He lied.  The rent-a-spook hired by Carrie told called her and told her.  Carrie thought Brody was going to make his first contact.  Carrie and her rent-a-spooks followed Brody, who didn’t meet with a contact.  He met with the widow of his partner.  She asked him how her late husband died.  He told her he was beaten to death and that he didn’t see it happen.  In one of his flashbacks we see that not only was Brody present when his partner died, Brody was the one who beat him to death.  After he did the deed he broke down sobbing while he leaned on Abu Nazir’s shoulder.  Such was the effectiveness of his brainwashing.  This is very much like when Raymond Shaw shot one of his fellow prisoners in The Manchurian Candidate.

Carrie figured she is toast.  Her career is shot and she figured she was going to jail.  But while she was on a date she realized something.  Something clicked in her mind between music and behavior that Brody exhibited while being filmed during his homecoming.  She noticed twitches in his hands that follow a pattern.  These twitches weren’t spastic or random, but of a pattern that might mean that he’s trying to contact somebody via television.  She told Berenson what she thought, showed him the video and he believed her – for the time being.  The last scene cuts to Brody going for a jog in DC.  While he ran past the Tidal Basin had had those flashbacks [again] of him beating his partner to death.  He stopped his jog on The Mall, looking at the Capitol Building.  This makes one wonder “will this be his target?”

Since Homeland is based on an Israeli TV series, I have to wonder this - why does all the good stuff have to be based on something that was created overseas first?  But I digress…Claire Danes is very good playing a CIA agent who is on the verge of coming unhinged.  Even though the story has the look and feel of The Manchurian Candidate, this show still makes for TV viewing that gets my attention and holds my interest.  Damian Lewis is equally good as Sgt. Brody.  Mandy Patinkin had limited screen time, but I like his character [as long as he doesn’t sing].  So far, I really like the show.  My only hope is that this show will be allowed to run its course and won’t get canceled prematurely [HBO’s Deadwood, anyone?].