“I loved doing “Homeland,” I loved playing Brody. I’m extremely proud of who we all created together. I think he’s a tragic hero for our time. He himself embodies a cautionary tale, going right back to the beginning, about sending young men to war and the damage it can do. He had brief moments of happiness and glory, but was essentially a very unhappy figure for three years.” – Damian Lewis
One of the biggest — and honestly most surprising — Damian Lewis moments of 2025 didn’t come from a red carpet, a film premiere, or a BAFTA nomination. It came from Netflix. When Homeland, a show that ended in 2018, dropped globally this year, it suddenly climbed into Netflix’s Top 10 like it had never gone away. My inbox filled with messages. Social media lit up. People were arguing about Carrie again, bashing about Dana again, screaming about Brody again. And here on Fan Fun, something magical happened — our old Homeland posts from 2015, 2016, 2017 suddenly came alive with clicks and comments from brand new viewers and fans who returned after a decade. Twelve years after Nicholas Brody left Homeland forever, he is still very popular. And so I officially declare this revival one of Damian Lewis’ top moments of 2025, because what other actor has a character so powerful, so haunting, so emotionally catastrophic that he rises from the dead to ruin us all over again? 🙂
And let’s be clear: Homeland didn’t become a global obsession by accident. Both Claire Danes and Damian Lewis gave some of the finest television performances of the 21st century. Full stop. Damian’s work as Brody was so layered, so fragile, so terrifyingly human that it brought him the Emmy Award for Best Actor in a Drama Series for Season 1, and the Golden Globe for Best Actor in a TV Series for Season 2. The critics saw it. The awards saw it. And here we are, twelve years later, feeling it all over again — because great acting doesn’t expire. It haunts.
This revival is the whole reason I pressed play. I came home after surgery, wrapped in blankets, told to “take it easy.” I opened Netflix, and there it was — Homeland, staring at me from the top row. I had watched the show only once, as it aired. I never rewatched an episode. Not even The Weekend. So I clicked play. Twelve years after that horrifying Season 3 finale, I went back in.
I was a completely normal academic with a normal life until a certain redheaded Marine came on screen and detonated my emotional stability. Homeland made me a Damian Lewis fan for life and made me start this blog. Eventually I kept watching past Season 3 because a certain ginger told me I should. Time helped. Billions helped. Wolf Hall helped. Lord Davenport helped 🙂 But I never stopped missing Brody.
This time, I’ve watched differently. Back then, we binged Homeland like crazy — three, four episodes a night, sleepless and possessed. This time, I’ve paused, rewound, studied performances, and noticed silences. And watching slowly makes something painfully clear: Seasons 1 and 2 aren’t just good TV — they are a masterpiece. Season 3… well, it’s a trauma we all endured together.
As I’ve rewatched, I’ve found Homeland even more radical – in the most positive meaning of the word. It questions the cost of war, the morality of power, the lies governments tell. Brody represents that shift — not the triumphant war hero America expects, but a man shattered by trauma, angry at being used as propaganda, unwilling to serve “their f***ing war.”
And this time, the scenes with Jessica hit with a new kind of force. Their bedroom scene — once uncomfortable — is now heartbreaking. The intimacy he reaches for, then retreats from, the way she longs for the man she remembers, the way he cannot access that part of himself anymore… it’s almost unbearable. The deer-shooting moment is even more brutal. Watching now, I don’t side with Brody or Jess — I ache for both. They are drowning in different ways, and neither can save the other.
Homeland dives into that “other” love story — Brody and Jessica — the one that was broken long before Carrie ever entered the picture. Two teenagers in love, two adults shattered by war. Their final honest conversation in the car after Abu Nazir’s death is devastating in its simplicity:
“I was fucked the moment I left for Iraq. We all were.”
That line feels like emotional shrapnel.
What surprises me most is how early I want to protect Brody. Back then, I didn’t love him until The Weekend. Now, knowing everything he endured, every early moment hits ten times harder. Instead of suspicion, I just want to wrap him in a blanket and hand him a hot chocolate.
Brody’s faith still moves me the way it did the first time. When I saw him roll out the prayer rug with quiet reverence, it never shocked me. Coming from a Muslim-majority culture, even though I’m not religious, I recognized that moment of grounding. His faith wasn’t political — it was survival. Damian once said Brody’s faith gave him “personal nourishment.” You feel that in every scene.
The show’s honesty about prejudice lands even harder now. Carrie instantly suspects Galvez because he’s Muslim. Saul lashes out at Fara’s hijab in his grief. Homeland doesn’t pretend this bias doesn’t exist — it forces us to sit with it. And the moment Brody hears the call to prayer in Caracas… even twelve years later, it hits me. For one second, he belongs somewhere.
And then there’s the execution scene. Still won’t watch it. Didn’t watch it then, can’t watch it now. If Helen McCrory couldn’t bear to watch Damian tortured on screen, then I am absolutely allowed to behave like an unhinged fan widow. And honestly, the execution feels personal. Brody isn’t a fictional character to me — he is someone I mourned. The twist, though, is that if he hadn’t died, none of this — the blog, the friends, the adventures, the music gigs, the theater trips — would exist. My life changed because of a TV character’s death. And somehow, I’m grateful.
Twelve years later, I still hear Brody say, “It was love. You and me.” Back then, I felt that line directly in my soul. And a part of me wanted to be Carrie — not because she was perfect, but because she stayed. She saw him, even when she was also chasing him, using him, saving him, needing him. But I’ll be honest: in my fantasy, I would have loved him differently – holding him longer, telling him he wasn’t dirty for surviving, staying with him to the end.
I never believed he was a terrorist. He tells us himself in the suicide tape: “This is about justice for 82 children.” Not Allah. Not ideology. Justice. Damian agrees; in an old Rolling Stone interview he said Brody wasn’t radicalized — he was weaponized through grief. Exactly.
And closure? No, thank you. I choose denial. My reality is that Brody is alive in Iran, gardening, meditating, sleeping through the night, answering to no one, and living quietly with a woman named Bahar who looks exactly like me. Damian knows. He signed my favorite Brody photo, “Bahar, you’re my Carrie.” He absolutely thinks I’m insane — and absolutely correct.
Please don’t argue with me about this.
We all cope in different ways…
This post is a shortened version of my recent posts on rewatching Homeland Seasons 1-2-3 twelve years later. If you want to read them in their entirety, they are here: Part I and Part II.
