Review of Homeland ‘State of Independence’

(CHANNEL 4)

SPOILERS: Do not read this if you have not seen episode 3, series 2 of ‘Homeland’

It may have taken until the third episode of the series but the big news from this week’s instalment of Homeland is that the jazz is back.

Just as devotees of the first series were beginning to wonder whether Carrie’s penchant for parpy, syncopated music had been electro-shocked out of her, it appears she has found her old CDs and is now listening to them at every available opportunity.

In other news, this week it was revealed that the Lebanese government is threatening to sue the makers of Homeland after the less than flattering portrayal of Beirut in the series so far. The fact the scenes were actually filmed in Haifa in Israel, a country that Lebanon is still technically at war with, only added insult to injury.

While Beirut makes only a fleeting appearance in episode 3, it seems unlikely that the Lebanese tourist board will be frightfully happy about the scene nevertheless, as a customs official is seen flouting international diplomatic laws in order to retrieve the vitally important memory card from Saul’s briefcase.

Fortunately Saul proves once again that while he may look like a kindly, bearded and slightly inept maths teacher, he is in fact a calculating super-spy, one step ahead of his enemies, and so the real memory card, with Brody’s suicide video on it, is in fact safe.

However, Saul is not the only one concealing a secret personality, so too is Brody. Unfortunately though it is that of someone wildly incompetent but cleverly disguised as a sensible, straight-laced congressman. So it proves once again in this week’s episode that everyone’s favourite redheaded ex-marine doesn’t get a lot of luck it has to be said.

Just as he appears to have truly won his wife back over and is reaping the rewards in the kitchen, not only does his daughter come home from school early and interrupt him, but then he’s sent to rescue the tailor in Gettysburg – he of the exploding waistcoat fame in series one – from the clutches of the CIA.

The mission is nothing short of a total disaster for Brody, who despite being sent as a reassuring face for the chain-smoking seamster of sartorial suicide devices, manages to appear so completely distrustful that the terrified tailor considers escaping at practically every opportunity. His nightmare day continues when he gets a flat tyre and discovers there is no jack in the car to replace it. Fortunately, utilising some log skills that even Ray Mears would be proud of, he does eventually manage to get the spare on.

However the gods, or in this case the scriptwriters, are not content with just depriving Brody of getting frisky with his wife and severely inconveniencing his fundamentalists’ road trip, they really want to ruin his day. So to make things much worse he manages by freakish misfortune to accidentally rugby tackle the fleeing tailor onto a spear-like tree stump, grievously wounding him in the process. While there was a certain inevitability that Brody was never going to make his wife’s fundraiser, his decision to kill the tailor – and bizarrely while on the phone – comes as something of a shock.

Carrie also has a day she would probably almost entirely like to forget, as her somewhat naïve hopes of being ‘re-integrated’ Kevin Pietersen-style, into the CIA, are coldly dashed by Estes, leading her to attempt suicide before fortunately changing her mind in the nick of time.

After last week’s thrilling cliffhanger of an ending, the writers clearly decided to mix things up this week, opting instead for one of redemption and vindication for Carrie as, for the second week running, the episode ends with someone watching Brody’s suicide video.

It is only at this point, when presented with an almost identical ending to last week, do we realise that nothing has really progressed in terms of Brody getting found out. However given that his most zealous pursuer now knows the truth about his double life, he surely can’t get away with it much longer can he?

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• http://twitter.com/Bruce_M_W Bruce MW

  Clearly Saul is going to get killed next week and Carrie will be left being the only one that knows the truth. And we all know how crazy they already think she is. Pah.

• Argovius

  Great review – much more entertaining than yesterday’s episode. Series 1 was really scary and tense, series 2 is slowly but surely turning into comedy.

• creggancowboy

  Claire Danes is a Goddess and must be worshipped.

• Emily Thorne

  Thank you Charles Reynolds, for another enjoyable and amusing Homeland review.

  may i just say here, since i don’t know where else to put it;the quality of the reviews in the Indy are just brilliant i think. Jonathan Romney, Anthony Quinn & Nicholas Barber and now yourself are all writers i really enjoy reading for the quality of the writing and the often found humour therein. Oh and Thomas Sutcliffe too.

  p.s i too find Homeland unwittingly amusing. even though it takes itself so very seriously..
  Where did Gruffalo alike Saul hide the chip? i missed that bit. Also loving the hilarious old school spy tropes:”The key is in the bird feeder”! I actually thought poor obviously doomed and ill fated Brussell had fallen into an animal-trap! so oddly dated is that side of spy things..

  jazz is indeed the curse of modern drama..

• http://www.facebook.com/dan.strayer Dan Lawrence Strayer

  I am from Pennsylvania originally and have made a few trips from South Central PA (nearby Gettysburg) to the DC-Baltimore beltway region. I cannot say this with any more conviction: you simply cannot – CANNOT – drive from Northern Virginia to Gettysburg in an hour and fifteen minutes. At rush hour? Insane. And there were absolutely no cars or traffic on the ride home? The very premise that Brody could reasonably do this without arousing suspicion amongst Washington insiders expecting him to speak at a big fundraising event is ludicrous and maddening. Yep: Brody definitely was going to have some hardships pulling this off, but the idea that this passed for something completely plausible was downright impossible.