“Homeland” arrived on Showtime in October 2011 with a premise built to unsettle: a decorated Marine comes home after eight years as a prisoner of war, and one CIA officer is certain he was turned.
That officer is Carrie Mathison, played by Claire Danes. She has bipolar disorder, and the show never treats it as a gimmick. Her conviction that Nicholas Brody (Damian Lewis) poses a threat to the United States drives the story, and so does her volatility. Mandy Patinkin’s Saul Berenson, her mentor and the CIA’s Middle East division chief, is the steady counterweight.
Trailer, via SHOWTIME.
A premise from Prisoners of War
“Homeland” was developed by Howard Gordon and Alex Gansa and based on the Israeli series “Prisoners of War,” created by Gideon Raff, who also served as an executive producer. The first episode went online more than two weeks before the broadcast, with viewers required to complete game tasks to gain access. That stunt now reads as a preview of how television would learn to chase an audience.
The casting was its own drama. Danes was first to sign on; Robin Wright, Maria Bello and Halle Berry were considered for Mathison. Laura Fraser was initially cast as Jessica Brody and was replaced by Morena Baccarin after the pilot. Gansa pushed for Lewis as Brody over hesitation from producers who favored Ryan Phillippe, Kyle Chandler and Alessandro Nivola.
Carrie and Brody carry the run
The series ran eight seasons and 96 episodes, from October 2, 2011, to a finale on April 26, 2020. The cast grew across that span:
- Claire Danes as Carrie Mathison
- Damian Lewis as Nicholas Brody
- Mandy Patinkin as Saul Berenson
- Morena Baccarin as Jessica Brody
- David Harewood as David Estes
- Maury Sterling as Max Piotrowski
Brody’s arc ends earlier than the show does. Lewis starred in seasons 1 through 3 and returned as a guest in season 4. Carrie keeps moving — out of the CIA, to Berlin, then New York — and the show keeps rebuilding itself around her.
What the awards confirmed
The first two seasons drew near-universal praise. “Homeland” won the 2011 and 2012 Golden Globe Award for Best Television Series – Drama, and the 2012 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series for its first season. Danes won the Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series twice, from five nominations.
That is the record, and it matches the reputation. The early seasons are the ones that earned it.
The later seasons are a different argument. A show that begins with one question — is Brody a threat? — has to find another once that question is answered, and “Homeland” spends years searching. The rebuild works more often than it fails, largely because Danes never lets Carrie settle into a type. She is brilliant and unreliable in the same scene, and the show trusts the audience to hold both.
The premise was never really about Brody. It was about whether the person who sees the threat clearly can be trusted to say so.
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