One of the most appealing aspects of the first season of Homeland was the secrecy surrounding Nicholas Brody. What had happened to him during his incarceration in the Middle East? Had he been turned? Is he a Muslim?
In this latest season, which premiered on RTE Two on Tuesday evening, the secrecy is of a much broader and less intimate kind. The CIA is fighting for its own survival, in the wake of the bombing of its headquarters. "How can the American people expect the CIA to protect this country when it can't even protect itself?" asks one of its critics in this rather disappointing season three opener.
Carrie Matheson, the bipolar and desperately unstable CIA agent played by Claire Danes, is testifying at a Congressional Hearing which is attempting to establish why the CIA let the biggest terrorist attack since 9/11 happen. She cannot account for why she and Congressman Brody were seen leaving the auditorium together, just minutes before the bomb detonated.
Saul, on the other hand, is now the Acting Director of the CIA and is under pressure to carry out a series of reprisals against Al Qaeda in order to create a sense that the agency is actually achieving something other than its own self destruction.
The problem with Homeland is that it has retreated from its original sense of intrigue. In the opening season, Brody's secrets were immersed in the intimacy of humdrum domesticity. The kids went off to school and Brody went to meet his accessories. His wife fell asleep and Brody went to the garage to pray to Allah. And all the time, Carrie Matheson watched it all unfold and tried to put the pieces of the puzzle together, just as we the audience did too. It was these wonderfully dark yet intimate contrasts that made the first season a thrilling cat and mouse chase.
While the second season had its detractors, I found it to be almost as riveting. Once again the intimate secrets were there, but this time we knew the secrets and were accessories to Brody as he attempted to conceal his actions from an increasingly perplexed family. The stakes grew as he climbed the political ladder on Capitol Hill.
What we are left with now is a situation where Brody's identity has been revealed and he is the most hated and wanted man in America. The only cause now is that of an injustice being thrust upon him. The audience knows that he was probably not responsible for the CIA bombing. But where is he? He does not appear once in this opening episode. Has he gone back to Iraq? Is he camping across the border in Canada? Or has he perhaps shacked up with some poor unsuspecting woman elsewhere?
There were of course moments of intensity in this episode. Agent Quinn is back as the CIA's go to tough guy. In fact, his five minutes of screen time were about the height of the thrills, as he is sent on a covert mission to track down a target while suffering a grave misfortune in the process.
We need Brody's storyline to play out for the audience or else we will all lose interest by episode three. Bring back Nicholas Brody, not least for the fact that Damian Lewis is such a superb actor.
Keepin’
it Reel
US
Box Office
Taking a peak at the US box office gives us a really good
idea of what is in store for us on this side of the pond in the not too distant
future. The big movie in the States this weekend is the new Alfonso Cuaron
movie, Gravity, starring Sandra
Bullock and George Clooney as two astronauts working at the International Space
Station. They suffer an accident which casts them adrift in space. Sounds
absolutely terrifying but getting great reviews stateside and is proving a well
needed boost to 3D bookings.
The
Ronan Farrow Controversy
The Woody Allen/Mia Farrow saga continues…Mia Farrow told
Vanity Fair that her son Ronan could
be the progeny of Frank Sinatra but she says that a paternity test was never
undertaken. Up to this point it was believed that he was the son of Woody
Allen. Farrow was married to Sinatra for a year and a half but says she was
still sleeping with him even during the beginning of her relationship with
Woody Allen. “We never really split up,” she says in the interview. Woody Allen’s
representatives said, "The
article is so fictitious and extravagantly absurd that he is not going to
comment."
It has to be said that
Ronan, a 25 year old former advisor to Hilary Clinton in the State Department,
looks astonishingly like Frank. Old Blue Eyes to Young Blue Eyes, if you ask
me.
Upcoming Biopics
There are a number of
interesting biopics in the pipeline, not least the film about Freddie Mercury
from Queen. Originally Sacha Baron Cohen was due to play the title role but was
then axed as the remaining band mates were afraid he might turn it into a joke.
The latest name to be thrown in the hat is Dominic Cooper of An Education fame.
The long awaited Pele biopic has just started filming in
Brazil. The film charts the rise of the great footballer and climaxes at the
1958 World Cup, where Pele, then 17, played a crucial role in Brazil’s victory over
Sweden. Our very own ubiquitous Colm Meaney will be playing George Raynor, the
English coach of the Swedish team. Pele himself will be played by newcomer,
Kevin de Paula.
Of particular interest is the upcoming biopic of Julian
Assange, the man currently in hiding in the Ecuadorian embassy in London. The Fifth Estate follows Assange and his
collaboration with the Guardian
newspaper as they prepared to launch hundreds of thousands of secret diplomatic
cables and war files into the cybersphere. Benedict Cumberbatch plays Assange
and looks unbelievably like him in the press stills, long blonde hair and all.
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