Episode Title: “The Star”
Writers: Alex Gansa & Meredith Stiehm
Director: Lesli Linka Glatter
Previously on “Homeland”:
It would be easy to believe that “The Star” is the last episode of “Homeland.” The sense of finality was pervasive throughout the hour and it really did feel like the end of an era.
The problem is that “The Star” brings “Homeland” to such a screeching halt that it’s hard to picture what the series will be like going forward. There will be a “Homeland” Season 4 next fall and it’s a safe bet that all of the major surviving characters from this episode will be back. But the status quo of this show has been shattered and I’m not sure how the pieces could possibly fit together again.
For the first 40 minutes, “The Star” has some genuinely gripping moments and it was one of “Homeland’s” best episodes of the season. However, the 20 minute epilogue wasn’t nearly as satisfying to watch and it completely dropped three major plotlines, including one that will be next-to impossible to deal with if the survivors move to Istanbul (not Constantinople).
There are full spoilers ahead for “The Star,” so if you missed last night’s episode of “Homeland” then you should probably skip this review or else Director Lockhart won’t hang a star in your honor.
I really liked the way that “The Star” skipped the opening credit sequence and simply threw the audience into the episode moments after Nicholas Brody (Damian Lewis) killed a high ranking Iranian intelligence official named Deshan Akbani (Houshang Touzie).
The tension was palpable as Brody haphazardly attempted to hide Akbani’s body and get out of the government compound without raising suspicions. Although I did wonder why Akbani’s secretary and bodyguards were all conveniently out of the office when Brody emerged.
Brody quickly convinces Carrie Mathison (Claire Danes) that he’s gone through with his original mission and they reunite before fleeing Tehran together. Despite initially disbelieving Brody’s news, Saul Berenson (Mandy Patinkin) orders a dangerous extraction to get Brody and Carrie out of Iran.
But with shades of the late David Estes, everyone else at the CIA seems to be against bringing Brody home alive. Former Senator (and future CIA director) Lockhart (Tracy Letts) and Dar Adal (F. Murray Abraham) act in accordance with the President’s wishes and give up Brody’s location to Majid Javadi (Shaun Toub) as a way to secure his ascension to Akbani’s old job; which will make him the CIA’s highest placed asset in Iran.
It’s a betrayal that marks the end of Saul’s tenure at the CIA. The irony is not lost on Saul that his wild (and somewhat insane) plan to influence policy in Iran worked beyond his wildest dreams while crushing his career as it played out half a world away. With “Homeland” now down a major character, it’s inconceivable that the show will let Mandy Patinkin go so easily. But Saul has now been written into a corner. He and Lockhart can’t seem to co-exist at all and any case that brings them back together next season will have to do some heavy lifting to convincingly get them on the same page again and put Saul back where he belongs.
Some of the best moments in this episode come in the quiet scenes that featured Brody and Carrie sharing their last private moments together. Brody reaches the conclusion that almost everyone else watching the show arrived at immediately: he has no future in America or anywhere else in the world. If the CIA were to acknowledge what Brody did for them it would only undermine the mission that he was sent in to Iran to accomplish. Plus, Brody may be innocent of the CIA bombing, but he taped an Al Qaeda propaganda video that was used to claim credit for the attack. It’s pretty unlikely that the American public would forgive that.
Brody mentions that he’s glad that his father never lived to see his fall from grace, but he doesn’t even mention the three people he hurt most of all: his wife and children. Brody and Carrie are selfish that way. They can’t seem to feel empathy for anyone else but each other. However, there’s something oddly charming about the way that Carrie and Brody find comfort in each other. Carrie confesses that she’s pregnant with Brody’s child and that the only reason she’s on Earth was to cross paths with Brody. Brody is not only okay with that idea, he thinks it’s the only sane idea he’s heard in a while.
That should have been the tip off that something bad was happening soon. Sure enough, the Iranians find their safehouse and drag Brody away for his speedy trial and even speedier execution. No joke and no swerve. Brody really dies this time and Damian Lewis’ time on this show has come to an end.
It’s a testament to Lewis’ performance that Brody’s final episode is so affecting when he’s onscreen. Brody’s motivations have been all over the map, but Lewis somehow manages to humanize Brody even in his darkest moments. The terror on Lewis’ face as Brody hung was also quite disturbing. It wasn’t a noble death, it was just a very painful death.
Carrie being Carrie, she gets a close view of Brody’s demise against his stated wishes. But it’s not like that’s the first time that Carrie’s disobeyed orders… this week. Prior to that, Carrie and Brody’s final conversation over the phone was also a well played emotional beat by both performers. That was their goodbye. Carrie’s presence at Brody’s execution was superfluous after that.
It was an odd choice to make Javadi the character who sings Brody’s praises to Carrie while informing her of Brody’s impending execution. In fact, Javadi may have oversold it when he stated that everyone now saw Brody in the same way that Carrie does. Javadi was also strangely on board with following Saul’s agenda even with Saul on his way out of the CIA. Because Javadi was such a monster, I expected a swerve. Instead, Javadi brought Iran to a reasonable negotiation with the United States that felt unusually timely, given recent events.
Four months after Brody’s death, we learn that Saul is enjoying life in the private sector alongside his wife, Mira (Sarita Choudhury) while Carrie is still working with Lockhart at the CIA before he promotes her to station chief of Istanbul to keep running the Javadi operation while having the authority to pick her own team.
However, Carrie is nearly to full term with Brody’s baby, whom she’s no longer sure that she wants. It takes an impassioned plea from her family for Carrie to even consider letting her father raise her child if she’s insistent on leaving the kid behind while she stays with the agency.
Carrie’s dilemma does resonate, but a lot of the loose ends are very distracting. Peter Quinn (Rupert Friend) pops up and there’s no sign of the deep-seated depression and guilt that nearly drove him away from the CIA. That was a minor plotline that got dropped, but the much bigger concern was the complete absence of the Brody family. I’m not particularly fond of Jessica (Morena Baccarin), Chris (Jackson Pace) and Dana (Morgan Saylor). But if they had to be in the show this season then we should have seen their reactions to Brody’s very public execution.
When you think about the disappearance of the Brody family, it becomes clear that their plotline served no purpose this year. It was just a series of disjointed misadventures for Dana that awkwardly led to her changing her last name and moving out to become a hotel cleaner… and then it just stopped completely. I’m not saying that episodes without Dana and the Brody family weren’t superior to the ones in which they had major screentime. But any of their previous appearances from this season should have been swapped out so they could appear here. Especially since Baccarin and Saylor are no longer series regulars for next season.
The other dropped plotline that concerns me is that Leland Bennett (Martin Donovan) and his terrorist backing law firm were completely forgotten about after the eighth episode of the season. You’d think that would be a huge priority for Carrie and the CIA to deal with, but it’s not even addressed in the finale. Maybe it’s a plotline that’s being saved for next season or perhaps the writers simply didn’t want to deal with the implications of that enemy. Either way, it’s another unfinished storyline for this season.
Near the end of the episode, Carrie sneaks over to the CIA wall that honors its fallen agents and assets and draws in a star for Brody after Lockhart specifically denies her request to officially add one for Brody. I’ll say this for Carrie, she’s intensely (or is that insanely?) devoted to the man she loved, even after his demise.
However, not even Brody seems to believe that he’s capable or deserving of redemption. Brody said that he wanted to redeem himself, but he also pointed out that he’s basically trading one murder for another. “Homeland” may not have reminded the audience of Brody’s worst actions in this episode, but most of us remember the murderous crimes committed by Brody before and after he put on a suicide vest with the intent to kill the Vice President… a murder Brody would later commit!
So shed no tears for Brody or Lewis. Brody had to die eventually and Lewis will probably have his choice of projects after his stint on “Homeland.” The show had to outlive Brody because he had a limited shelf life as a character. The only question that remains is whether “Homeland” can find another way to sustain itself next season without falling back on Brody. “The Star” was a very solid episode, overall. But it lacks a compelling reason to revisit “Homeland” next fall.
