Homeland Season 3 Details Revealed - Expect Major Changes
Earlier this week Homeland show-runners Alex Gansa and Howard Gordon hosted a conference call to discuss their plans for season 3 of Homeland. You can sum up the results like this: if you thought you knew what to expect from Homeland Season 3, you don't know what to expect from Homeland season 3. Probably the most shocking revelation was that the third season of Homeland may not feature Brody at all.
"Damian's involvement and [Brody's] family's involvement is very much up in the air in light of what happened in the finale." Alex Gansa said. Gansa and Howard went on to explain that the original plan was to kill Brody off completely in the finale quarter of season two but they decided against it in favor of holding Brody's status as a tension chip to play on throughout. "It would've [alleviated] the possibility of having Brody come back at a later time, which I think is a nice idea hanging over the next season. Where is Brody? What's he doing? [He could come] back later in a new incarnation or in a new way."
This means a lot for the overall dynamic of the series. The relationships between Brody and his family, Brody and Carrie, and, well, Brody and Brody, are the centerpiece of the series. The suggestion here is that Damian Lewis and Morena Baccarin will not feature as regulars, which could be extrapolated to the constituent characters in that skein, ie Mike, Dana, etc.
There is no question that the Homeland writers can continue to cook up intense and addictive dramatic story-lines for a new group of characters, but the fact that there is a void to fill at all is what feels so apocalyptic at this point. I will say that at the very beginning it seemed that Homeland was more mini-series than series, and when it was renewed as such my biggest fear was that in determining how to extend the concept to the infinitive they would somehow weaken the concept along the way becoming more episodic and procedural. So far that hasn't happened. Now, my big fear going into Season 3 is that they will drop the intense dichotomous character drama for more sustainable and short lived character arcs.
As much as it seemed that all of Brody's relationships were doomed to fail, watching them fall apart was one of the most fascinating aspects of Homeland. Homeland will definitely not be the same without something that approximates the hazardous chemistry of those plots.
