– Part One –
I am home after surgery, supposed to rest, and “take it easy,” whatever that means. My main job is to kill time. I open Netflix.
And there it is.
Homeland.
For the first time, Homeland is on Netflix US, staring at me from the top row. I watched the entire show only once. I never rewatched it. Not a single episode. And now here I am, twelve years after that horrifying Season 3 finale, lying on the couch with time to burn… and Netflix presents me Homeland like a get-well card.
So, I click play.
A little bit of context for new readers: at a recent dinner party, we played a game. Everyone had to name three things that changed their life. My top three:
- The Live Aid concert in 1985 (I was 13, suddenly aware that the whole world could come together and watch the same thing).
- The assassination of a journalist in Turkey in 1992 (I was 20, and I learned what a state can do to its own citizens who insist on finding and reporting the truth).
- And… Homeland.
Yes, seriously. Homeland.
Because I was just a regular academic, minding my own business, watching TV in the evenings, until a certain “pesky Brit” disguised as an American POW showed up and turned everything upside down. That show made me a Damian Lewis fan for life and made me to start a blog in his name. Go, figure!
I did, eventually, keep watching Homeland past Season 3 (A certain ginger may or may not have told me to). Time helped. The blog helped. Other roles helped: Wolf Hall, Billions, A Spy Among Friends, and more. I came to accept that, as Brody told Carrie, “It’s over.”
I kept saying, “I still miss Brody,” and I meant it. It has now been almost twelve years since his execution on TV, and I am still firmly in denial. In my mind, we never saw a dead body. Javadi can say whatever he wants about forests of pine trees. I am not buying it.
So, when I say rewatching Homeland twelve years later is a big deal, I really mean it. And I’m ready to share with you what it feels like – I have so much to say so I will do this over two weeks… please bear with me!
When we first watched Homeland, the show had just swept the awards, everyone was talking about it, and we got our hands on the DVDs like it was treasure. We binged the first two seasons mindlessly — three or four episodes in a night, sleep deprived in the end! We mostly cared about what would happen next, not about how it was built. We weren’t watching — we were consuming. This time, I watch differently. I pause. I rewind. I observe. I pay attention not only to the twists and turns — but to the stillness, the hesitation, the pain. And watching at that pace makes one thing very clear: the first two seasons aren’t just great television — they’re a masterpiece. Season 3? Well, let’s call it an experience.
Back when I first watched it, I didn’t think much about how different Homeland was from 24, even though they were products of the same creative team. 24 came from the fear right after 9/11 — a world where Muslim terrorists were always the enemy and the question was simple: “How do we stop them, at any cost?” Homeland came after the years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, when the world started asking if those wars should have happened at all. Soldiers came home not as triumphant heroes but broken and traumatized, and Brody represents that shift perfectly. He isn’t the shining hero people expect him to be. He’s hurt, confused, angry — and absolutely not interested in being used as a poster boy for a war he doesn’t believe in anymore. His line, “their f***ing war,” lands even harder now. It’s blunt, and very honest.
Homeland isn’t afraid to talk about hard and uncomfortable topics. It shows that governments can do terrible things, like dropping bombs that hurt innocent people, and then deny that it ever happened. The series also highlights how some people unfairly treat Muslims, assuming they’re dangerous solely because of their religion. While investigating Congressman Brody, Saul bluntly instructs his team to “focus on the dark-skinned people Brody talks to,” showing how bias can quietly get into decision-making under the name of national security. Saul calls it “actual profiling” when Max tells him it’s “straightforward racial profiling.” I know the statistics, Saul, but Max is still right. Alongside that prejudice, Homeland also exposes a broader ignorance about the Middle East. One memorable moment comes when a student at an elite prep school casually asks, “Persians? Arabs? What’s the difference?”—a question that reduces two ancient and distinct cultures into one simply because they share a region and a God. And the unsettling part is imagining those kids growing up, getting jobs, and running things. And honestly… they probably do.
The show doesn’t hold back when it comes to torture, either. Even though the government denies it happens, the series shows people going through sensory overload, freezing temperatures, and intense psychological pressure. I mean, Quinn puts a hole in Brody’s hand during his interrogation for God’s sake! By exposing such things, Homeland pushes viewers to think hard and shows what can happen when fear controls decisions. The show is about living with what the war does to everyone. This makes Brody not the villain, not the hero, but the cost of war.
And very quickly, everyone starts treating Brody like a symbol instead of a real person. First, the military turns him into a hero — a perfect example of strength and loyalty — asking him to give speeches and represent their idea of survival. Then the politicians show up. Big names in the Democratic Party welcome him at the event Elizabeth Gaines hosts, eager to shape him into a public figure and use his story for their own goals. Military leaders and politicians want to use him as proof that the war effort is working — that the on -going war effort is still worth it.
Soon after, the media joins in. Talk shows want Brody not for who he is, but for the story he represents that the crowds will cheer for. And then there is Abu Nazir — the one person who planned for Brody to become exactly this: useful, visible, powerful. Brody first refuses to be the poster boy for what, in his own words, is “their fucking war.” But when Abu Nazir tells him to run for office, the way he uses Mike to convince Jess he should do it — shows just how deeply he has learned to perform.
Read the rest of the original article at Fan Fun With Damian Lewis.