Carrie must return but is not reluctant for long. (
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Abu Nazir (Navid Negahban) can’t be caught. (
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Brody is a congressman when the show begins. (
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Few TV series last year had the water-cooler impact of Showtime’s “Homeland,” a nail-biting, breathless excursion into the politics and paranoia of the nation’s security apparatus that quickly became the cable network’s hottest show since “Dexter” — and the most talked-about show of the year, sweeping last week’s Emmy awards. But with a finale that laid bare some jagged truths — that POW Marine sergeant Nicholas Brody (Damian Lewis) almost killed Vice President Walden (Jamey Sheridan), and that brilliant-but-bipolar CIA analyst Carrie Mathison (Claire Danes) had been forced out of the spook business due in part to a manic episode — the question was, how to ramp up again for Season 2?
“With humility,” says executive producer Alex Gansa, smiling, before adding that repeating themselves with another Brody/terrorist attack story line would be mission impossible as a creative plan.
Speaking in a conference room at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, Gansa says, “It’s still going to be a psychological thriller, but it’s going to have a whole new set of questions and answers,” he says.
Executive producer Howard Gordon articulates what was left hanging at the end of last year: “What did Brody mean when he told Abu Nazir, ‘You can kill a man but not an idea’? Was he trying to get him off his back? We knew that because of his conversation with his daughter, Dana, he lost his nerve. But did he merely lose his nerve? Has he changed his mind? These are questions we should answer.”
The stakes do escalate quickly in tonight’s premiere episode, which sees a post-manic Carrie taking her meds, teaching English and living peacefully at her sister’s house — until a tense situation in the Middle East puts her in the CIA’s sights once again. Brody, meanwhile, is a congressman who finds himself being asked to do the bidding of Abu Nazir (Navid Neghaban, who has been promoted to series regular), even while campaigning with Walden when he decides to run for the presidency and asks him to be his running mate.
Brody may think he’s doing something morally rational by exposing what he sees as US state-sponsored terrorism, when in reality he’s being manipulated by someone evil. For Lewis, the concern in fleshing out his character this year lies in the consequences of graduating from playing a scarred puppet to someone more willfully scheming.
“The strength of the first season was that anytime Brody lied or behaved badly, or any time Carrie lied or behaved badly or compulsively or selfishly, it was always born of their condition,” says the British-born actor, referring to Brody’s emotional trauma, and Carrie’s bipolar disorder. “It’s the desperation to get something done. It was motivated by their character. So I’m just keen that Brody continue to be stretched.”
The last thing Lewis wanted was to see Brody edging into “mustache-twirling villainy.” In other words, he notes, “How do you keep Brody still a victim of his circumstance, so that everything he does is out of confusion, from an irrational place? That’s difficult to do when he has to function every day as a working congressman.”
Danes, reached by phone in Charlotte, NC, where “Homeland” is primarily filmed (the city stands in for Washington, DC), says about the evolution of her Lewis’s character: “I think people’s expectations of Brody are going to be changed this season.”
As for her role, she reveals that Carrie will “take responsibility for her mental condition, so she’s not as erratic as she was last year.” So she’ll stay on her meds. And yet, the re-emergence of Carrie’s employer makes her realize, says Danes, “her passion for her work can’t be ignored, and she’s going to have to reconcile looking after her mental well-being and her enthusiasm for work.” Is it like getting called again by an old lover? She agrees, but adds, “two old lovers, her job and Brody.”
As for how the Carrie/Brody dynamic will be explored this season, Gansa acknowledges that last year their parallel stories were always juiced whenever they appeared together.
“That strategy is going to stay the same,” he says of those strategic convergences, “although they come together for different reasons and in different ways,” he says. “And to further different ends.”
What you won’t be seeing this season: Danes’ growing baby bump. So far the production has been able to conceal it fairly easily, but now that she’s starting to show, today’s technology has come to the rescue. “We’re able to manipulate it in post-production through CGI,” says Danes, who has been married to actor Hugh Dancy (NBC’s upcoming “Hannibal”) since 2009. “So we’ll create the illusion of a non-pregnant Carrie.”
It’s probably best that Danes gets to focus on acting rather hiding her pregnancy, since, as she indicates, “Homeland” this season will be as gripping as ever. “As engrossing as it is to watch, it is to make,” she says. “It’s intense. But it’s a lot of fun, too.”
HOMELAND
Today, 10 p.m., Showtime