Homeland leaves a lot to be desired - review

smoontjes
2025-01-30T00:27:28Z

Homeland - 5/10

First paragraph works as both the tldr as well as the beginning of the review.

This show is all over the place. Some parts are really good, some parts are really bad, most parts are just meh. This show lends itself to be picked apart too easily. There are plot holes, convenient coincidences, contrived nonsense, and so often intelligent characters behaving like idiots over and over again which leaves you wanting to yell at the screen. So many eyeroll moments, cheesy stuff, questionable story writing, a lot of times that they tell, not show - it should be show, don't tell of course - and that classic trope that everything would have been solved if they just talked to each other, and another about just doing one single simple thing instead of getting distracted for dumb reasons. It is also pretty unrealistic despite trying to appear grounded. A lot of this show is too reminiscent of Jason Statham movies, if that makes sense. However I was entertained enough by it to keep watching, and it worked fine to pass the time when I was bored. Despite never really getting all that into the show as a whole, the good parts or episodes were worth the wait.

Family drama in this show was not good. It was just kind of something you had to sit through to get to those good parts. Monica Baccarin was fine and Damian Lewis was incredible, but I really just didn't care all that much about their relationship nor their children. It's a show that is being sold as an action spy thriller, but too large a part of it is this sort of more or less regular drama. It reminds me of The Americans where you of course don't watch it for the family stuff with the children, but because they were super cool undercover Soviet spies. This type of show's biggest weakness is this stuff. It just acts as filler and drags things out unnecessarily. And this goes for the main character's family too. The relationship with the sister was alright, but when the main character gets a daughter? Just kind of felt like a waste of time.

Most characters are pretty run-of-the-mill spy show stereotypes. Not great, not terrible. The main character, Carrie, was quite unique with a lot of depth, but she ends up going through way too many unbelievable situations. She and her tiny team, or even she all alone, saves the world half a dozen times. Her character at best decent, and that was only in the first few seasons. But then she goes completely down the drain and off the rails in season 4 and never recovered. I am probably in the minority with this opinion but I can't imagine most people see it this way since it's the star of a show that ran for 8 seasons so I guess take this opinion with a grain of salt.. but she just does not land for me after seasons 1-3.

She is highly unlikable. She is one of the worst mothers I have ever seen in any show or movie. She is very neglectful and abusive mother, she is also a mass murderer who practically never repents or regrets what she has done, she disobeys orders constantly, mostly making things worse, she uses people all the time, and she has such a massive victim complex so 90% of the time she blames someone else for her often fatal fuckups - of which there are a lot. By far the biggest problem with all this is that it is quite clear that the creators of the show want the audience to sympathize with her and are trying to pass her off as the reluctant hero. She was never that good a character, nor do I think actor Claire Danes is very good in the role - just alright. However season 4 and onwards she just in no way works. Just impossible to root for, which is of course a big problem when it's the main character. She's not a cool antihero, it just became a chore to watch her scenes. The best summation is something Saul said to her in season 2: "You're the smartest and the dumbest fuckin' person I've ever known." Characters that are supposed to be intelligent who then do such truly dumb things.. characters are only as smart as their writers. So it's just bad writing.

On a more positive note, there are a few characters I really liked: Astrid, Quinn, Saul, Max. Astrid was not in the show very much but she was great as the German spy counterpart in the BND. She just had a way about her and I felt the relationship she had with Quinn was quite interesting. She was a joy to watch, just like Quinn, played by Rupert Friend whom I recently saw in Hitman: Agent 47 which was an awful movie, so I was kind of nervous when he first appeared here in Homeland. Turns out though that he was just horribly miscast in the former because in this show, he is great! There's no nonsense with him, it's the "competency porn" feeling while watching him. Same goes for Saul and Max. Saul's actor Mandy Patinkin (who also played Inigo Montaya, couldn't believe it when I looked him up lol) steals most scenes he's in. He is great as the older, experienced spy, the mentor for our main character. His voice is both soothing and dramatic to listen to and even though half his face is invisible because of his huge beard, he still has such good expressions and body language that he really draws you in. As for Max, he was a very minor character to begin with but his role became bigger towards the final two seasons and like I said, it was a joy to watch him on screen and great that he was given more screentime.

Not much of a joy however was all the nonsense that they had to implement in order to make the show work - they took the easy route to explain things away instead of actually implementing them well. For example they practically never have surveillance drones or satellites available, nor nightvision or thermal cameras, so they constantly lose track of people that they are following. Nor do they have much more than pistols most of the time. The agency does have these things available, and more, so it's just dumb that they pretend it doesn't exist in this show - some special ops guys had nightvision one time in one of the first seasons but I think season 7 was the first time a thermal camera was used and then we saw it maybe twice more. There are also often no contingency plans. Back-up being nonexistent 90% of the time, handwaved or ignored with a quick line or reason that wouldn't really make sense. Plus, everytime they needed to make something thrilling, they added a time constraint element to do it.

Something I did like was the representation of mental illness. You really see the ugly side of Carrie's bipolar and even though I don't have it, and so can't actually speak to whether or not it's actually a good portrayal, it seemed good. I feel it's important to show regular people what it looks like, and I felt the same way with Max's neurodivergency - that he was quiet and forward added a lot to his character. He could have definitely just been the kind of techy nerd stereotype that is seen everywhere, but I'm glad they didn't go that route.

And another great thing, I think the best even, was Damian Lewis. It was such a shame that he was written out but it does make sense that they couldn't do all that much with his character. I have only seen him in Band of Brothers, but he was one of the highlights in that show too, so it's not surprising that I liked him in this one too. The best scene of the show for me was the one where he is wearing the bomb vest in the bunker next to all the high ranking officers. The up close shot of his trembling and shivering face.. I have no idea how he was able to even do that. He has won awards which is well deserved.

Bingewatching the show over about a month instead of watching it week to week across 8 years probably did not do this show any favours. I think maybe it's easier to see through the formula then. Better shows barely even have formulas, but this one certainly does, and I'm not a fan of it. Every single season has ways that they can't trust anyone anywhere. It's always this small team versus the world. That's not unique to this show but it stands out because it's often the same way they do it - they think they can't trust anyone, there's a mole, they're on their own because reasons, etc. In any case, the show was an alright use of my time but definitely not going to watch it again.

Some kinda pointless nitpicks but I still wanted to post them lol

Despite them remaking it a couple of times, this show's intro is awful. Instantly skipped every time.

Carrie always has loose hair which anyone with long hair would know is impossible when you move around that much

I'm pretty sure that they had at least one writer who stuck with the show throughout its whole run. This same line that I don't think I've really heard it before this show appeared at least once, often multiple times, per episode: "[pronoun] did thing, [name] did". For example "He killed them, Brody did". This exact same line is used multiple times per episode throughout the series' entire run and it really sticks out, like I couldn't unhear/unsee it. I'm pretty sure there isn't even ever an instance where it's not obvious who they're talking about, like there's never a reason to say the last part, it just stuck out like a sore thumb and sounds so clunky every time.

Carrie constantly does this shiver with her chin and when you notice it you can't unsee it. It is whenever she in any way gets emotional and it's countless times every single episode

Aaand a ton of other tiny things I could criticize.

Disorganized thoughts and notes taken while watching season by season

Homeland season 1 - 6/10

Had kind of stayed away from this show since judging the book by it's cover name, it reeked of patriotism and such. But I'm glad I started watching it.

The season is a bit slow and has too much filler. It could have been probably 4 episodes shorter - yes some time with characters is lost, but it doesn't seem all that important to be honest. There are also a bunch of flashbacks which felt kind of like the CW show Arrow which safe to say is not a compliment.

Overall a decent watch. The ending though.. the only plot device worse than memory loss is that it was all a dream. Brought my rating of the season down by a full point. Hopefully season 2 and on becomes better because I had been looking forward to 8 seasons of what I assumed to be a pretty high quality show.

Homeland season 2 - 6/10

They thankfully quickly moved on from that memory loss thing, and they upped the pace a lot which is much appreciated. Also, Rupert Friend and Seth Gilliam! Nice surprises.

Still a lot of eyeroll moments. Just nonsensical stuff like nobody hearing a helicopter before it's like 50 meters over their heads but CIA apparently can't track a helicopter nor do they have a single satellite. Cliffhangers without fail every episode. A lot of like minute long establishing shots that add nothing. Constant arguments between agents where it's always two sides wanting to go in completely different directions which gets really old. 12-episode seasons ought to be a lot tighter than this.

Carrie always assuming the worst. "He's dead!", "It's all over!", "We lost!", etc.. her character is not written very well to be honest.

Cool detail I like is that you can hear Brody's breathing most of the time it's especially well done in scenes where tension needs to be created.

Too many scenes of one agent storming ahead for little reason, not waiting for backup. Most egregious being when they look for Nazir in the penultimate episode. An FBI agent gets killed right behind Carrie, lying dead on the ground, and she - a former soldier, a highly experienced field agent - just walks up to take a look even though Nazir would obviously be right there. Just.. who are you kidding with this? Does anyone find this believable??

Set up for season 3 seems cool. Lots of interesting ways it can go

Homeland season 3 - 7/10

Bald Damian Lewis looks so badass.

Mental illness and psych ward stuff. She does a really great job - I mean I'm totally convinced that she does have that disorder. Twist about Carrie was nuts! Loved it. The following recruitment of the IRGC officer was a great storyline too.

Schadenfreude when Quinn shot Carrie - what you get for always disobeying orders and going alone..

Javadi storyline culminating in the assassination of Akbari was really well done.

Killed the top general and got captured, then sentenced to death. Carrie then talks to Saul about Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. I mean, fucking really? Again with the intelligent character acting super dumb.

Can't believe they actually killed off Damian Lewis! I guess I have come not to expect too much from this show, so I thought there was going to be some kind of deus ex machina to save him or somesuch. But there wasn't, which was great. Good ending to season 3 and overall a stronger season than the first two.

Season 4 - 4/10

Weird change in Carrie's character. Went from literally always moaning about human rights and innocents to now being completely cynical about killing 40 innocent people at a wedding. Previous seasons she was on the verge of tears almost every episode, and now she's a coldblooded killer. Where did all this come from?

I liked the storyline about Quinn breaking down.

Quinn loves Carrie now. Since when..?

What's with people constantly looking around but never seeing the person who is shadowing them? The person shadowing is almost always completely out in the open, just staring. You would instantly notice that when you look around all the time especially when checking for someone shadowing you!

Carrie's source gets shot by terrorist holding Saul hostage, and then she wants to just bomb him anyway. Saul, who is her mentor. Again, just the wildest shit, completely out of character. She is written awfully this season.

A bit too many plot holes about the Taliban prisoner exchange and the embassy attack. An unguarded tunnel, every soldier in the embassy deployed elsewhere - this would absolutely never happen. It's against the norm of any military in any country anywhere in literally all of history.

Ending to the season felt pretty weak. Set up a huge twist in the penultimate episode, then addressing it with barely 2 scenes and the rest of it filler.

Season 5 - 6/10

Germany, nice!

Miranda Otto!

Storyline with Quinn recovering at Hussein's place was thrilling.

Finding it very hard to root for Carrie ever since how much her character changed in season 4. Also, she found God. When the fuck did that happen???

TV channels transmitting full terrorist messages and even the video of Quinn being exposed to the gas. Would never happen.

Always somehow ending up as the underdog, lone agent or small team against giant threats. Cavalry goes somewhere else and star of the show saves the day - sorry, is this a 1990's cop show?

The Laura and Numan storyline was pretty annoying. Very irritating characters.

Season 6 - 7/10

Again hard to root for Carrie. She's been kind of unlikable since season 4. Does dumb things over and over, feels bad, cries about it, and then we the audience are supposed to feel sorry for her. For example, she takes credit for saving Quinn even though she just happened to be the one that randomly happened upon him and the BND did the rest.

Another example, Sekou is clearly inciting hatred and violence but Carrie is defending him - why do they portray it like Carrie is the good guy here? Because it's some free speech principle? Sekou is very much a terrorism sympathizer and we're supposed to root for him/Carrie? I don't think so.

I like that there is a focus on high level politics - Elizabeth Marvel is great.

Loved the Quinn storyline. The drama in Carrie's house with the 'hostage' situation, the stuff in the lake house with Astrid, then the sacrifice in New York. Sucks that he's written out - one of the best characters in the show.

Dar Adal's actor is starting to grate on me a little bit - he's not very convincing. And the character is a bit too comically evil this season.

Loved that Javadi was back

Love more screentime for Max

Political conspiracy and the spy game stuff is almost all of it great

Season 7 - 4/10

Worst season yet. It had all the right ingredients to make for a great story, but the way they get from A to B was just not pulled off very well. So many instances where I was sitting there like "this is not how [thing] works". It's still an entertaining show, but that's only because of a select few characters that I really enjoyed when they're on screen - and because the spectacle was still pretty cool. But most of the side plots and especially Carrie's family drama? Bored out of my mind. I didn't care about any of the characters involved and, again, I'm not able to root for the one character that the creators are clearly trying to make me sympathize with.

Season 8 - 4/10

Seemed like it would be an improvement over season 7 in the beginning of the season, but too many manufactured twists later and it became more of the same. It's a back to basics in a war zone, which also is not a good thing because they reused a lot of plot points from other seasons - down to the exact same things happening to the same characters!

President dies in a very predictable way. He travels by helicopter to visit a frontline military base, using only two helicopters. Even when he travels in the safest countries in the world, there will be a lot more security than that.. and he would not sit in a helicopter that hadn't undergone thorough maintenance and double and tripple checks. Idiotic writing.

Several out of character moments and even arcs. The Russian agent behaves completely differently from season 7. The Taliban leader is also almost entirely different from when we saw him last.

Carrie is on trial/accused of a dozen things, among them many counts of murders, several counts of being a terrorist accomplice, and even a traitor double agent. Is she taken into custody? Ankle monitor? Shadowed? Nope! Just allowed to roam free and continue to betray her country (that part does prevent a war, but literally nobody knew at the time what she was doing)

Saul's sister who he has seen once in 15 years holds his deepest secret? And Carrie just guesses this? No. And the very final scene.. an American defector would not in a million years be able to have access to top secret knowledge about Russian missile systems. A very unsatisfying ending to this show.

Would love to hear anyone's thoughts about either the show or what I have written here!

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