Claire Danes and Damian Lewis in Homeland
The Background
The hotly anticipated finale of US thriller Homeland aired in the UK on Sunday night. The spy drama centres around CIA attempts to identify and foil a terror plot that may or may not be carried out by US marines ‘turned’ to extremism while being held by al Qaeda.
Could the final episode live up to fans’ expectations? Warning: spoilers ahead.
High drama
The programme-makers revved up the drama in the final installment “to such a fever pitch that by the end it was not only manic-depressive, disgraced CIA agent Carrie Mathison (Claire Danes) who was in need of electric shock treatment to calm her down, but this viewer too”, gasped Serena Davies in The Telegraph. Admittedly, the finale didn’t tie up all the loose ends – but that just whets Davies’ appetite for the second season.
‘Exquisite agonies’ of Homeland
Andrew Billen praised the “exquisite agonies” of Homeland’s high-tension approach to drama in The Times (£). “Some say that Homeland knows only one trick: how to maintain tension. But that tension also grips your intellect and your conscience, twisting them until it hurts,” Billen wrote.
Finale was an anti-climax for some viewers
“Following the show viewers took to Twitter and various forums to express their disappointment and some reviews of the finale said it had been something of a let down,” reported The Daily Mail.
No ‘big bang’ but still exciting
“OK, there is no big bang, which perhaps is bit disappointing,” wrote Sam Wollaston in The Guardian, pointing to former PoW Brody’s last-minute decision not to detonate his suicide vest. But at least this means Brody will appear in the next season. And “there are no silly twists or unexpected curve balls flying in from nowhere. It all kind of makes sense, and it feels like the end, but not of everything”, Wollaston said.
See below for a video round-up of the burning questions set to be answered in season two of Homeland.
