Thank you all so much for reading my thoughts about rewatching Homeland Seasons 1–2-3… twelve years later! I’m over the moon with how many of you checked out the post — though honestly, I can’t say I’m shocked. Homeland is suddenly back in Netflix’s Top 10, seven years after the series finale, so clearly we’re all finding our ways back to our favorite show together. I’ve been getting emails and messages from fans, and even our old Homeland posts from the early days of Fan Fun are getting tons of clicks again. It feels like a full-on revival… I am so happy!
As I told you in last week’s post, I have so much to say about my rewatch that I was not able to fit it all into one post — so welcome to Part II!
One of the things I appreciate more in this rewatch of Homeland is how the show tackles real-life issues, especially the way the powerful often get away with things ordinary people never could.
One of the most upsetting examples is when Dana and Finn hit a woman with their car and kill her, then panic and drive off. Dana immediately wants to do the right thing — tell their parents, go to the police, take responsibility — because that’s how she was raised.
However, Finn’s world operates by different rules. His powerful family intervenes, pays off the victim’s relatives in return for forgetting about what happened. Watching this, Dana realizes for the first time that the moral code she believes in is not the code Finn has lived under, and her disappointment feels huge (and completely justified). She has always believed her parents would try to do the right thing, and the truth is that they actually do. Brody even attempts to go to the police, but the CIA shuts him down because reporting the accident would strain his relationship with Vice President Walden, and that relationship is “too important” for the operation they’re running. In other words: protecting power matters more than telling the truth.
And this storyline is painfully real. While watching it, I couldn’t help thinking of a similar accident in Turkey, where the Prime Minister’s eldest son ran over a woman who later died — and absolutely nothing happened to him. It was quietly swept under the rug. When people in authority label others as “terrorists” while hiding their own deadly actions, the hypocrisy is hard to miss.
And it’s not just politicians; Homeland shows how this same mentality exists inside the CIA. Deputy Director David Estes tries to pressure Saul into resigning — accusing him of helping Aileen’s suicide by giving her his reading glasses. Estes pushes this only because he knows Saul knows the truth about the drone strike that killed 82 children in Iraq — a strike the CIA and Vice President Walden quietly covered up. Saul also discovers that Estes has brought in Peter Quinn from Special Operations not only to run the operation to catch Abu Nazir but also to kill Brody once Abu Nazir is gone. And Saul understands that Estes wants Brody dead not because Brody is dangerous, but because he is one of the few people who knows about the drone strike cover up.
Another real-life issue the show tackles is the struggle military families have when soldiers come back from the war. Back when I first watched Homeland, even though I was truly invested in the impossible Carrie and Brody love story, I was also intrigued by the “other” love story that we only witnessed bits and pieces of: Brody and Jessica. I wrote an entire post about them in the first year of Fan Fun (inspired by a fan fiction that one of my fellow bloggers wrote about their wedding day) because there was a love story that had fallen apart there before we ever saw it.
Jess and Brody were high-school sweethearts. The two talk about it when they talk about Dana being 16 and having a secret life, and the truth is Jess also had a secret life with Brody back when she was 16! Brody shows Dana the love paddock he and Jess had (NB and JL) when they were young lovers. They are a standard suburban couple living the so-called “American dream” – two kids, a house, the routines, the comfort – until war comes in and fucks it all.
One scene I still find almost unbearable to watch is the bedroom scene where Brody asks Jess to take off her shirt, touches her for a moment, then masturbates. The first time I watched it, I remember feeling uncomfortable. On this rewatch, I can see the sadness behind the act itself. It’s about how deeply damaged Brody is, and how disconnected he is from the life he’s supposed to return to. It is so much so that even makes Carrie feels uncomfortable that she stops watching… And Jess is right there, longing for intimacy with the man she remembers, and he wants that, too — but the part of him that knows how to be intimate, how to belong in this marriage is gone. They basically have to re-learn how to be in love, stay married, and keep their family together — no small task when you have been a POW for eight years or when your husband has been missing for eight years and comes back… well, different.
The scene where Brody shoots a deer in the backyard during a BBQ party feels even more heartbreaking on rewatch. Jessica’s reaction afterward — “You can’t even fuck your wife” — is so brutal. But don’t get me wrong, I am not blaming Jess at all – she is drowning in her own grief and exhaustion. They’re both hurting, and neither is capable of reaching the other. And there is no help available.
I understand why these scenes hit me so much harder this time. I didn’t love Brody until The Weekend, and it wasn’t because he was unreadable or mysterious — though he was absolutely both. It was mostly because I naturally took Carrie/Claire Danes/the CIA’s side; they were the familiar ones, and Brody was this huge question mark. But rewatching now, knowing everything he’s endured, those early moments hit ten times harder. Instead of feeling unsure about him, I just want to wrap him in a blanket, give him a long hug, and hand him a hot chocolate or something.
Jessica’s speech at the Wounded Veterans Fundraiser (which she has to give because Brody is off taking care of Bassel the tailor!) says everything about what her family — and many military families — go through when soldiers come back home from war. And she proposes the money raised that night to be used towards an initiative to help families with with returning war veterans. I don’t know whether that could help Brody and Jess but I am confident it would help a lot of people.
The end of Brody – Jess relationship takes place in the car when they go back home after Abu Nazir is finally killed. It is probably the only fully honest conversation they have after Brody’s return.
“I was fucked the moment I left for Iraq. We all were.”
This hits hard because it’s the truth of their marriage, their family, their history. The war didn’t just take eight years from Brody; it also took the version of him Jess loved. And in their final honest conversation in the car, they stop pretending, they just accept up that they just couldn’t make it back. Even after all this time, their story still feels like one of the most human parts of Homeland.
One of the things that still hits me exactly the same way it did the first time. is Brody’s faith, which I also wrote about in the early days of Fan Fun.
Back then, when I first realized Brody had converted to Islam, it didn’t shock me like it did Jess — it made sense. Coming from a Muslim-majority country, even though I’m not religious at all, I recognized that connection instantly. The quiet ritual, the washing, the way he rolled out the prayer rug with gentle hands — it wasn’t political. It was comfort. Essentially a lifeline for him when everything else had been taken from him.
And what still moves me — now even more than before — is how Homeland let that faith be human.
In a television landscape where Muslim characters were so often cast as villains — especially in shows like 24, born out of the fear of the years right after 9/11 — Homeland did something brave and far more honest. It didn’t portray Muslims as threats; it portrayed them mostly as perceived threats, which is a very different thing. The show holds up a mirror to American fear of “the other”, not to Islam. And the prejudice we see — even from “liberal” CIA officers like Saul and Carrie — feels painfully believable. Carrie suspects Danny Galvez in an instant, forgetting their long hours working side by side, and blames him of helping Abu Nazir simply because he is Muslim. Saul, under enormous pressure and still recovering from the shock of the attack on the CIA, criticizes Fara for wearing a hijab, telling her that “that thing” on her head is “one big f*** you to the people who would have been your coworkers, only they perished in the blast out there.” In that moment, her religious attire becomes, in his eyes, a sign of disloyalty. It’s uncomfortable, honest, and incredibly compelling.
And then there’s the scene in Caracas, when Brody hears the call to prayer. Even twelve years later, even now, that moment sits in my chest. He is broken, sick, alone — and yet that sound reaches him. For a second — just one second — he belongs to something again. It gives him some inner peace.
And Damian seems to concur about the inner peace:
“In spite of the fact that Brody was prepared to blow everybody up in a suicide mission, his faith always provided a very personal source of nourishment. We always depicted his faith in an intimate, personal and very sincere way, and a lot of people I’ve spoken to have been thankful for that.”
Finally, one thing that hasn’t changed at all: I still can’t watch the execution scene. Gingersnap keeps insisting I should finally face it — that maybe it would give me material to write about and some kind of closure. And she might be right. But I know myself. I can’t watch anyone being executed on screen. Not in Homeland, not anywhere. I didn’t watch Thomas More or Anne Boleyn lose their heads in Wolf Hall, either — though I didn’t run to the restroom crying the way I did during Brody’s execution; I just covered my face with my hands until it was over. And those executions weren’t even personal.
But Brody? That one is very personal.
Believe me, at this point, watching his execution would not feel like watching a fictional moment but like watching something terrible happen to someone I care about. Could any of us sit calmly and watch someone we love die on screen? I can’t. I won’t.
I remember Helen McCrory once said she couldn’t watch Homeland because the violence and torture done to Damian’s character were simply too much for her. And honestly — I feel the same about Brody.
So I still skip the ending.
That said… here’s the twist I never saw coming:
If Brody hadn’t died, none of the following would exist.
No blog.
No fan community.
No videos.
No flying across the Atlantic to hear Damian read poetry, perform theatre, or play the guitar.
No friendships I now cherish.
No inside jokes.
No journey.
So yes — I still can’t watch his execution. I don’t think I ever will.
But now, instead of grief, I feel gratitude.
Because that heartbreak — ridiculous as it sounds — changed my life.
And I’m okay with that.
If you had asked me twelve years ago what Homeland meant to me, I would have answered without hesitation:
“It was love. You and me.”
Back then, when Brody said that line, I didn’t just hear him speaking to Carrie — I felt like he was speaking to me. And I think that’s because, in some quiet corner of my mind, I wanted to be Carrie. Not because she was perfect — she was anything but — but because she stayed. She tried. She looked at Brody and didn’t see a suspect or a symbol or a news story; she saw a man who had survived something impossible.
But I’ll be fully honest — in my fantasy version, I would’ve done things differently than Carrie did. She fought chaos with her job, with plans and purpose — that was probably how she stayed alive inside. I’m not built that way. I would’ve held him more. I would’ve whispered that the nightmares would pass, that he wasn’t dirty for surviving, that his faith didn’t make him dangerous — it made him human. I would have stayed with him in the quiet and tell him he was safe with me.. And yes… I would have crossed the Canadian border with him.
Because I never believed Brody was a terrorist. Yes, the show teased the idea, and yes, it wanted us to question him. And I did in my own way. But to me, Brody wasn’t driven by ideology or hatred of the West — he was broken by trauma, torture, and loss. He was manipulated, cornered, and rebuilt by forces far larger than he ever was. And he came home with huge scars — physical, emotional, spiritual. If you watch Brody’s tape again, you see that he never mentions Islam.
“This is about justice for 82 children whose deaths were never acknowledged and whose murder is a stain on the soul of this nation.”
And not that I particularly care about what Damian thinks about Brody – if he is a terrorist or not. But it seems, based on a Rolling Stone interview from 2012 that I’ve seen for the first time, he thinks along the lines that I do:
“I think Abu Nazir never successfully radicalizes Brody in the conventional sense. I don’t think Brody straps on the suicide vest in the name of Allah, you know, against the Western infidel. I think it really becomes a more personalized act of vigilantism, if you like, as a soldier. And against Walden, the vice president, but certainly Abu Nazir knows how to use that for his gain, to manipulate Brody to use him as a weapon for his own cause.”
Twelve years ago, after the finale, I wanted closure. I wanted Carrie to cry more so I could cry more with her.
But closure rarely arrives neatly. And you can find mine a bit messy and maybe crazy but it is what it is.
Yes — for the record — Brody is alive in Iran.
He’s living quietly.
He’s gardening.
He meditates sometimes.
He finally sleeps through the night.
He is no one’s poster boy.
No one’s weapon.
No one’s project.
And he has found new love. Her name is Bahar, a perfectly legitimate Persian name, and yes, she looks exactly like me.
I even told Damian this fantasy after one of his gigs in Leeds, right as he was signing my favorite Brody photo. I’m pretty sure he thinks I’m a basket case. No wonder he signed my favorite Brody picture with a “Bahar, you’re my Carrie” 🙂 He may be right. You may all be right.
But please don’t debate me on this.
We all cope in different ways.
For what it’s worth, I don’t think seeing the execution would bring closure. I forced myself to watch one time. Watching made me not only anxious, but it gave me lingering sadness. Don’t consider doing that to yourself. And thank you for sharing your thoughts.
Thank you for reading! And I will definitely follow your advice and not watch. And hey Brody is alive 🙂
Carrie takes the time to ask if Brody can get a star at the annual CIA commemorative ceremony. More than 100 CIA employees are receiving the star – why not Brody, who died for his country? Given the fact that he took a mission in Iran to clean up his reputation with his family(Jessica, Dana), his Motherland and Carrie, Brody does not receive a star for Lockhart. VP Walden blew up a school with the help of David Estes, both of which have stars on the CIA wall.
Lockhart answers the question “why not Brody” literally in the same scene:
Lockhart: First of all, he wasn’t technically an employee of the CIA.
Carrie: Well… technically? Come on.
Lockhart: Second of all, his actions previous to the Tehran mission cast a long shadow.
Carrie: Sir, he was a US Marine who was captured and tortured for eight years. Who are we to stand in judgment?
Lockhart: No one’s judging him. I’m just not memorializing him on the walls of this building. That’s where I draw the line.
Ultimately (as in, by the end of the series) I don’t think Carrie had a lot of illusions about who Brody was. I think Mathison needed very badly in season three (and two) to believe Nicholas was a good person, someone who could be a hero, because she was carrying his child [Franny] and the fact that she loved him despite him being a man who put on a suicide vest was too difficult to bear. So she worked very, very hard to make him not that man, but he was always going to be that man…
[ S2.ep12 ] Saul was right. Brody always would be a man who put on a suicide vest. [ S3.ep12 and S8.ep12 ] All of Carrie’s attempts to rehab his image (in her own mind, and externally) were futile.
S1.6p12: Brody put on a suicide vest and was prepared to murder tons of people and abandon his family. He also torched Carrie’s career (and life) …In S2: Then rubbed her nose in it six months later.
Javadi’s line is ironic. No one saw Brody the way Carrie did. He was still killed. Nick died with the world thinking he was a traitorous terrorist. And Nicholas didn’t get a star on the wall…
The end statement of season three is that redemption is hollow. Carrie had to DRAW a star on the wall for Brody, that’s how broken and hollow “redemption” is.
Beautifully written, Behar. It is so thoughtful and honest. I watched the execution and it broke my heart, which is exactly what it was supposed to do. I could never watch it a second time. The fact that so many of us were so invested in this story is a tribute to the acting of Damian and Claire, along with all the other actors is this series…and of course, the writers. Everyone did their jobs brilliantly. We all cared about all the characters and griefed along with them, as was intended. Thank you for sharing, Behar.
Thank you, Fay, for your kind words! It’s completely my most sincere feelings. And I fully agree with you – Damian and Claire were SO GOOD that we believed their story and were very invested in it. And the writers room did wonders, well, except for the execution scene. I am so amazed and happy that, after twelve years, fans have still not forgotten about Brody, and they are sharing their thoughts and feelings. What a character Damian brought to life !!!
Netflix’s New ‘Perfect’ Series Is Earning Near-Flawless Reviews — Yet Shockingly, Thousands of Viewers Say They Can’t Bring Themselves to Watch It!
Netflix finally dropped a series critics are calling “technically perfect” — airtight writing, world-class performances, atmosphere so sharp it feels like it cuts. And yet, instead of mass binge-watching, something stranger is happening: countless viewers are hitting pause, stepping away, or abandoning the show entirely. Not out of boredom… but because it’s too emotionally heavy, too psychologically raw, too real. It’s the rare series whose excellence becomes its obstacle, demanding more from audiences than most are prepared to give.
I don’t think he [Nicholas Brody] was ever really “good”! Brody was the Anti Villain?
Damian Lewis is so good on Homeland! The writing is spot on, as well. I still think Brody is the anti villain, but not going to lie, I consider him one of the best anti villains in recent shows. He’s not a caricature of evil, he is just a guy trying to deal with the shit that gets thrown at him.
He was deceived and betrayed. But I don’t think he was a good guy nor was he deserving of skipping off into the sunset scot-free.
His torture and confinement with the enemy was awful. Lots of people would break a lot sooner than him. But not many of them switch sides.
You have to remember his motivation for all of this, his captor’s son[Issa] dying in a drone strike. He cared so much more about this child that he was willing to sacrifice his own. He was willing to give up ever seeing them again.
This makes sense while he was away from them[Dana, Jess, Chris], but the moment he saw them again, it should have come back to him and he should have immediately spilled all about Tom Walker and Abu Nazir.
Instead, he was willing to not only die and give up his family, but kill a ton of people (even if a lot of them were involved in the actions in the middle east, not all of them were). Nick would also be subjecting his family to hate because of what he did.
He did actually flip the switch on the vest the first time though. If it was connected properly it would have cooked the twenty odd VIPs.
Nick was a terrorist, his involvement in the Elizabeth Gaines assassination and the two agents can’t be ignored. Getting the vest, wearing the vest, becoming a congressman to sell secrets to the enemy. All terrible things to do.
Nicholas is at fault for losing his family and he lost them long before he became a double agent for the CIA. He never prioritied them or demonstrated genuine compassion, they were walking on eggshells around him. Quite honestly his family ignored all of the signs he turned or that something was going on- in survival mode. Jessica even says she knew he was off (but repressed it) and we all know what he drove Dana to do. The psychological abuse and harm he caused, terrorist aside, is enough to condemn him.
Brody killed the tailor too as well as Wilden and Walker. He’s a serial murderer.
Especially when Nick twisted the neck of the tailor guy, that’s when YOU freaked out. Also he casually killed the IRGC leader and just went on.
And what he did to Carrie, how he treated her. In her own words- sent her to the nuthouse, made her lose her job, outed her bipolar disorder essentially. This is reprehensible.
[Watching Carrie get the vindication of knowing she was right all along is one of the most satisfying TV show payoffs I’ve seen yet.]
My heart went out to Brody for the unimaginable suffering he endured in activity and also upon his return to America. Not one person reached out to help him. The government used him from start to finish for it’s own ends. Jessica continued her affair with Mike and showed little compassion for her husband. And Carrie wasn’t innocent in her role either. She knew how mentally damaged he was, and I think she loved him deeply. Even so, she used him, knowing how fragile his mind was. She knew he probably wouldn’t come back from his mission, yet she pushed him, even in his weakened state. While I agree fully with you that his actions were dreadful, I see a man who struggled to free himself from his tortured mind. He received no support and was used by all sides. I just cannot judge him harshly.
S3.ep9: Brody saw Dana before he left and did explain that it wasn’t him. She didn’t care. It was never just about that. It was about all of it. He was a bad, selfish father. She never wanted to see him again – or Carrie! As far as I’m concerned, Carrie leaving Dana alone post-Brody’s death was the most compassionate thing she could have done for a girl she directly and indirectly traumatized.
Season 2, Season 3: My point is that the trauma Brody inflicted on his family(Jess, Dana) is not limited in any way to their belief he was the bomber.
I understood your points and respect them. Dialogue among fans of Homeland is wonderful, as I know that, end the end, we’re all fans of a great series. It’s a testament to the skillful writing and layered acting that we all have a slightly different take. Thank you for sharing.
S3:ep12: “And what you wanted, which was for everyone to see what you see in him. That happened. Everyone sees it through your eyes now ”.
Javadi’s statement is ironic. Nobody saw Brody the same way Carrie did. He was still killed. He died with the world thinking he was a traitorous terrorist. And he didn’t get a star on the wall.
In the end (that is, at the end of the series), I think Carrie didn’t have many illusions about who Brody was. I think she desperately needed, in the third (and second) season, to believe that he was a good person, someone who could be a hero, because she was carrying his child and the fact that she loved him, despite him being a man who wore a suicide vest, was too hard to bear. So, she tried very hard to make him stop being that man, but he would always be that man.
The truest thing Javadi ever said was: “Nobody is just one thing.” That’s the thesis of the series and the main guiding thread throughout the eight seasons. We are all complex. We are multifaceted. And the world isn’t black and white.
Brody donned a suicide vest to avenge the death of a child he loved, knowing he would ruin the lives of his wife and two children in the process. And Carrie dedicated her life to hunting terrorists, ended up falling in love with one of them, and let him die to further the cause she believed in. Saul loved Carrie as his daughter but ended up exiling her.
True that Brody donned a suicide vest. But he didn’t know how much his love for family was then. And he didn’t do it in the end. Yes he pressed the button, he tried to fix the device, but then Dana called, and he returned home. With the tailor, he was just so desperate at the moment between taking the man to the safe house and that he had to be at the veterans fundraiser, and the tailor was screaming in a way that Jess could hear it, and Brody killed him not because he wanted to kill him but he couldn’t see any other way out. Finally, Walden. He did it for Carrie. And I really think many of us are capable of doing things we can’t even imagine for the people we love. Brody was a good person, but he was damaged goods. So, in my opinion, judging him as though he is a regular man is not fair. Everybody, even Carrie to an extent, tried to use him for their goals, as Damian once said Brody was everybody’s bitch…
I could never feel compassion for someone I thought was a terrorist. I felt not only deep compassion but incredible sadness for him. His struggles, his isolation, his pain were heartbreaking.
Post S8.E12… Realistically, it seems unlikely that Carrie’s book was how Dana or Jess learned about Franny’s existence. Dana might have put it all behind her, but I feel like Jess might be sleuthing on social media sometimes. And while Carrie certainly is not on social media, Maggie or Josie certainly would be, and there would be photos of Franny and … I mean, they can put two and two together.
All of which is to say, I don’t think Dana reads Carrie’s book, but Jess does. And it probably won’t make her feel any better. Knowing that Brody wasn’t behind the 12/12 bombing doesn’t suddenly make him a hero. And it doesn’t erase the trauma and tragedy the family already endured.
The rest of my head canon is that Carrie stops short of revealing the identity of Franny’s father, but, like (a) that’s just good bookwriting and (b) as I said, people can put two and two together.And of course the CIA (and US government overall) attempts to smear her and book!
Brody saw that he had been a pawn for years, whether he knew or not. The POLITICIANS of the USA, Willian Walden, Andrew Lockhart, Al Qaeda, Abu Nazir, IRGC, Danesh Akbari, the CIA, David Estes, Dar Adal, POTUS and now who succeeded Abu Nazir… Saul / Carrie, everyone used it at some point. And now it’s been spent. There’s hardly anything left for him. He was finished.
The only person who wasn’t using Nicholas besides Dana was Jessica and Issa.
Actors Mandy Patinkin and Rupert Friend also deserved to win the Golden Globe and/or the Emmy.
My take is that Patinkin was always nominated against stiff competition. Honor to be nominated multiple times. Friend was very compelling, but his American accent was uneven. Not sure if that flaw would have been a factor.
Season 3 Episode 12 deleted scene – Brody’s name is cleared
Carrie wanted to catch the Langley bomber to prove that Brody is innocent, that it wasn’t him. She wants to prove that Brody is innocent because she told him she’d clear his name. She needs his name cleared because she’s carrying his child and would like for the father of her child to not be thought of as a terrorist. She needs his name cleared because she still believes there’s a chance they can start a life together. Carrie’s indecision re: the baby is mostly a product of this.
Unfortunately for Carrie, “catching the bomber” is no good if he’s dead. A dead bomber is the same as no bomber. Carrie and the CIA have no option to go public with their intel that they’ve caught the real Langley bomber because it would reveal that Carrie has been playing both sides and is not really working for Javadi. Then Javadi’s trip to the US comes under question and his status as an agent for Saul and Carrie is seriously in jeopardy.
That’s why they let Franklin kill the bomber and also why Carrie is so adamant he be kept alive. For Carrie, at least, it’s somewhat of a Catch-22. She can’t oblige a dead bomber but if she does actually stop him from being killed she’s just trashed the past three months of complete torture she’s put herself through.
Publicly, in canon, his name was never cleared. Privately, obviously many people knew he framed.
Why Homeland (TV Series 2011-2020) Is Suddenly Blowing Up Again on Netflix After 14 Years?
Although perhaps just a small blip on the grand radar screen of the literary world, Homeland: Phantom Pain is an Audible.com release worth mentioning. Showtime and Audible came together to create this free 3o-minute audiobook, narrated by Sergeant Nicholas Brody himself, Damian Lewis. A noir glimpse into Brody’s journey between Seasons 1 and 2, Phantom Pain is a chance to see what we miss when we can only spend an hour a week with these characters.
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/audio/2013/oct/22/homeland-audio-phantom-pain-damian-lewis