Homeland

2 February 2012

From the Emmy® Award winning Executive Producers of 24 Howard Gordon and Alex Gansa comes Homeland,  the double Golden Globe award winning  contemporary thriller starring Claire Danes, Damian Lewis, Mandy Patinkin, and David Harewood. 

Loosely based on Gideon Raff's Israeli television series "Prisoners of War", it centres on an American soldier taken prisoner during the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Left for dead, the soldier (Damian Lewis) miraculously returns to the U.S. after years in captivity. Danes, in her return to series television, plays Carrie Mathison, a driven CIA officer battling her own psychological demons who becomes convinced that the intelligence that led to his rescue was a setup, and that this national hero may be connected to an Al-Qaeda plot to be carried out on American soil.

 

Episode 1-3 Synopsis:

Episode 1- Pilot

CIA Agent Carrie Mathison's unorthodox investigation of threats to US security in Iraq leads to a serious diplomatic incident, and Carrie is stripped of her field status and assigned to a desk job. While her investigation was cut short, she did manage to learn from her condemned Iraqi source that an American prisoner of war had been "turned."

Carrie becomes convinced that this information has alarming significance to the return of Sergeant Nicholas Brody, who was missing in action for eight years (and presumed dead). After receiving intelligence on an al-Qaeda safe house in Afghanistan, Navy Seals stormed the house, killed 13 terrorists, and found Brody in a locked cell.

The CIA is treating this as a hero's return from war, but the timing is too suspicious for Carrie to ignore. Already on thin ice after the incident in Iraq, she is forced to break protocol in order to prove her theory that Brody is working for al-Qaeda, and now poses a major threat to his own country.

Meanwhile, Brody receives a hero's welcome at home, but it's clear that the years of torture and abuse at the hands of al-Qaeda have taken their toll. He is physically scarred, and emotionally plagued by harrowing flashbacks of his captivity; all of which hampers his ability to reconnect with his wife and teenaged kids, who feel that a stranger has returned to them.

 

Episode 2 - Grace

Brody continues to struggle with life at home with his family. He suffers from post-traumatic stress, which manifests itself in violent nightmares where he repeatedly asks his captors to kill him and hallucinations where he relives the torture he was put through. Jessica begins to become fearful, as he unknowingly grabs onto her during his nightmares. Brody has a vision of Walker's death, which shakes him to his core. Carrie watches this all play out on the surveillance camera and tries to get a handle on what's going through his head: fear, shame...

Saul manages to get Carrie four weeks of surveillance on the record, so she doesn't have to hide what she's doing anymore. Saul still isn't sold on Brody working for Al Qaeda, noting that he'd be playing the hero card and talking to the press. Carrie thinks he's still struggling with the fact that he's become a terrorist. She catches a break when a CIA Agent passes on a new piece of evidence she hopes to tie to Brody. Meanwhile, Estes is pushing Mike to get Brody in front of the cameras, as they want him to be the face of the war - reminding everyone that it's far from over.

 

Episode 3- Clean Skin

The CIA is buzzing with the information from Carrie's asset: Lynne - girlfriend to Prince Farid of Saudi Arabia. She videotaped a meeting between Farid and Abu Nazir in Cypress. Immediately after the meeting, Farid came to the states. Carrie believes he did so in order to fund a terrorist attack in the U.S. She now hopes to trace the money to a specific Al Qaeda operative - perhaps even Brody himself.

Meanwhile, Brody has surprisingly agreed to a network interview with Lawrence O'Donnell. An interview with the entire family is to follow, but Dana isn't interested in pretending for the cameras that they're the perfect family. She makes this clear to Jessica, as well as letting her know that she knows what's going on.

Lynne is getting increasingly nervous and tells Carrie that she wants out. Carrie assures her that she'll be protected. However, when Carrie attempts to get approval for a team, Estes denies her permission. Not wanting to lose access to Farid, Carrie lies and tells Lynne that she's got agents following her at all times.