Homeland: Season 4 – a return to form

It’s often a fairly relentless downward arc for high action TV series as the seasons roll by with the plots, twists and special effects getting ever bigger and more unlikely in an attempt to top what has gone before. Homeland cleverly avoided this fate with Season 4 by doing the opposite: less action, more thought; fewer fireworks, greater space for the characters to develop.

It starts slow, which makes the sudden twists and action – which are still there, just not dolloped all over the plots like a kid let loose on a plate of chips with a ketchup bottle – all the more tense and exciting when they come. There’s a fair amount of implausible plotting and questionable characters, true, but also some great action, real tension and a good sense of mystery about how the plot is going to play out. There’s also a refreshing range of nuance about the records of Americans, Pakistanis and Afghans with few straightforward good guys who always do the humane thing.

The one disappointment for me was the rather too neat final episode which felt like a rotation around all the main characters and plot lines, neatly lining them up for a next season (which is indeed coming, hooray).

If you like this, you might also be interested in Breach.

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Buy Homeland Season 4 here.