Congratulations to #Homeland on its Outstanding Drama Series #Emmys nomination! #Emmys2016 pic.twitter.com/sU1Gl6aM9N
— Homeland (@SHO_Homeland) July 14, 2016
Showtime clandestine ops drama Homeland copped 4 nominations this year including Claire Danes who’s been in contention 5 years running.
Showtime and Starz subscriptions are now available for 7 day free trials on Amazon Prime here.
Homeland has been renewed for Seasons 7 and 8. Season 6 will air Sunday, January 15th at 9PM ET/PT with principal photography commencing in New York City several weeks from now.
Rottentomatoes: 90%
Metacritic: 92
IMDb: 8.4
Emmys: 8 wins 33 nominations
***SPOILERS AHEAD***
Carrie Mathison
As a field operative in Iraq, Carrie was given information regarding an imminent attack on U.S. soil involving an American P.O.W. who has been ‘turned’ by al-Qaeda figure Abu Nazir.
Coincidentally 10 months later Nicholas Brody, a U.S. Marine platoon sergeant, has been rescued after eight years in terrorist captivity.
Carrie commissions an unauthorized surveillance package on Brody’s home.
Carrie braces Brody at a veteran’s support group. The two develop a genuine rapport and bond over their mutual experiences in the Middle East. They elope in Carrie’s automobile.
“Parking lot sex. Classy.” — Carrie Mathison
The two continue their romance and kinoodle at Carrie’s ancestral cabin. Carrie accidentally mentions his favorite tea Yorkshire Gold, and Brody realizes she’s been spying on him.
She comes clean and confronts him about where his allegiances stand. He vaguely admits to being Muslim and meeting Abu Nazir before leaving.
Carrie is dismissed from the CIA due to the conflict of interest involved in her romantic relationship with Sergeant Brody.
Brody’s comrade and fellow captive Corporal Thomas Walker initiates a sniper attack on American dignitaries putting Brody in a bunker wearing a suicide vest with 27 of America’s best and brightest.
Brody relents from the attack due to a vest malfunction and following an emergency phone call from his daughter Dana.
Carrie’s mental health issues manifest and she gets electroconvulsive therapy of her own volition.
Six months later Carrie is shoehorned back into the CIA when her bosses Saul Berenson and David Estes fly her to Lebanon for a meeting with an old asset of hers Fatima Ali.
Fatima relinquishes the time and location of a planned meeting between her husband and Abu Nazir in exchange for defection.
Carrie, Saul, and Estes set up an operation to capture al-Qaeda commander-in-chief Abu Nazir, but Sergeant Brody tips him off and abeds his escape.
In Beirut Saul happens upon a memory card containing Brody’s confession to the aborted State Department bombing.
Carrie attempts suicide by overdosing on her medication. She changes her mind via reverse peristalsis. Moments later Saul arrives with Brody’s confession.
Brody’s confession convinces Estes to let Carrie surveille Brody under the supervision of black ops specialist Peter Quinn.
Carrie gets Brody in an interrogation room off the grid and breaks him, he admits to his collaboration and work with Nazir and other al-Qaeda associates.
He also reveals the fact that there is an imminent and premeditated attack coming soon to American soil.
Brody is then turned and becomes a double agent.
Nazir detains Carrie and leverages her life over Brody precipitating an assassination of Vice President William Walden.
Nazir releases Carrie and is slain.
During the Vice President’s service on 12/12 al-Qaeda operatives detonate a bomb planted in Congressman Brody’s car at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. The blast kills over 219 active agents.
Al-Qaeda top brass then leaks Brody’s confession video to American news outlets, framing him for the bombing. He leaves and crosses the southern U.S. border.
Carrie is scapegoated to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence when Saul divulges her bipolar disorder in his testimony.
Carrie endures a small stint in a mental institution. She is then approached by the man responsible for the bombing Majid Javadi, second in command of Iran’s Intelligence Directorate and deputy chief of the IRGC.
They round up Brody and get him to seek political asylum in Tehran, Iran with the express goal of assassinating the leader of the Revolutionary Guard one Danesh Akbari.
Brody’s first attempt fails but ultimately he enters the Revolutionary Guard headquarters and strangles Akbari with his bare hands.
Javadi demands Brody’s head in exchange for his potential work with the CIA. Brody is captured, convicted of treason and sentenced to death. He is hanged in a public square in Tehran.
Several years later Carrie is working the private sector in Berlin, Germany with her daughter Frannie.
Several attempts are made on Carrie’s life as a result of a data penetration made on CIA’s Berlin Station.
This turns out to be an attempt to cover up the biggest penetration of American Intelligence in history courtesy of Allison Carr and the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR).
A terrorist cell poisons Carrie’s co-worker and close friend Peter Quinn with sarin, and threatens to unleash a chemical attack on a major European city unless the UNSC officially recognizes their group geographically.
Carrie stops their biological attack on Hauptbahnhof train station.
Quinn survives but remains in a coma and suffers a massive brain hemorrhage. She visits him in the hospital and removes his pulse monitor leaving his fate ambiguous.
Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series
Go ahead. I’m a big girl. I can take it. — Carrie Mathison
He’s got intel about an imminent attack on U.S. soil. — Carrie Mathison
All that suffering and nothing changes. — Carrie Mathison
I am trying so hard to do what’s right. — Carrie Mathison
It’s my job. It’ll always be my job don’t you get that? — Carrie Mathison
I have a lot of work to do. There’s no time for rest. — Carrie Mathison
I know the protocol, Saul. This isn’t my first polka. — Carrie Mathison
Saul, please. I’m just making sure we don’t get hit again. — Carrie Mathison
“I’m serious. I missed something once before. I won’t. I can’t let that happen again.” — Carrie Mathison
“What happened to his partner? Brody was a scout sniper. They work in pairs. Corporal Thomas Walker also went missing that day.” — Carrie Mathison
“Sergeant Brody my name is Carrie Mathison, I served as case officer in Iraq. Your picture was on our MIA wall. I saw it everyday for five years. It’s good to meet you in person.” — Carrie Mathison
“I’m sorry we were unable to find you sooner.” — Carrie Mathison
“Abu Nazir’s always unorthodox. That’s why he’s still out there.” — Carrie Mathison
“He has nightmares where he repeatedly begs someone to kill him in Arabic. He’s too ashamed or scared or both to face the press outside his house or take calls from the TV news so what does he do? He finds shelter in the corner of the bedroom where he hasn’t moved in over five hours.” — Carrie Mathison
“As you know, the first 72 hours after a soldier’s capture are critical. What he knows can be used by the enemy during that period to devastating effect. The point is Sergeant Brody stopped being a source of actionable intelligence fairly quickly, and yet he was kept alive for eight more years. I’d like to ask him if he knows why.” — Carrie Mathison
Abu Nazir’s bomb-maker told me an American prisoner of war had been turned. And he was coming home to carry out an attack. — Carrie Mathison
“He told me minutes before he was executed.” — Carrie Mathison
“I’ve got a mood disorder, ok?” — Carrie Mathison
I have to go work. — Carrie Mathison
“You broke my heart you know. Was that easy for you? Was that fun? Because of you, I questioned my own sanity. I had myself committed to a mental institution. I lost my job, too. I lost my place in the world. I lost everything.” — Carrie Mathison
“I’m ok. And they have a major situation that I know how to fix. I know how to stop it.” — Carrie Mathison
“Freedom of information act.” — Carrie Mathison
“167. According to Pakistan’s foreign ministry. Also missile strikes and ground ops. During my time as station chief in Kabul” — Carrie Mathison
Well, I’m on my own now that’s for damn sure. Do you really want to know the truth? I’ve been on my own for a while now. — Carrie Mathison
“It was the Russians. It was the Russians who did it. That is confirmed. They used your operation to try to take me out, and it was not their first attempt. That bomb in Syria at the refugee camp, it wasn’t meant for Düring; it was for me.” — Carrie Mathison
“Because they don’t want me to see something in the documents those hackers stole from you.” — Carrie Mathison
“He’s sending a message to somebody — a handler, a sleeper cell, somebody.” — Carrie Mathison
“And now he’s placing a bag of god knows what in our blind spot? Jesus Christ Virgil.” — Carrie Mathison
“I wanted to tell you at Langley but I couldn’t, it was still classified. But I need you to know that I did not betray your confidence to anyone. I would never do that.” — Carrie Mathison
“It’s happening. Exactly like you said. He’s out there. Playing the hero card.” — Carrie Mathison
“How do you not call? How do you not send a fucking Christmas card?” — Carrie Mathison
“That doesn’t mean I’m wrong.” — Carrie Mathison
“I recruited her Saul, right here in this city.” — Carrie Mathison
But I helped her through an abusive domestic situation. I practically saved her life. — Carrie Mathison
“There’s no more time, Saul. It’s high purple.” — Carrie Mathison
“I’m dealing with it. I’ve been dealing with it since I was 22.” — Carrie Mathison
“Nazir is in our sights. We have to play this out.” — Carrie Mathison
“I think the symbolism of murderinng 300 american soldiers in front of their wives and children is quintessential Nazir. It’s an idea worthy of him. Elite troops just back from killing Muslims on the battlefield just when they think they’re out of harm’s way?” — Carrie Mathison
“Yeah I guess I was. But you know if I think about an incident that’s upsetting to me, I think it would have to be when he sold me down the river in front of the fucking Senate Select Committee. Now, that. That was upsetting.” — Carrie Mathison
“You said you have information about an attack by Abu Nazir.” — Carrie Mathison
Lynne Reed was killed 3 weeks ago. That means we’re 3 weeks behind the bad guys. — Carrie Mathison
“Nothing is worse than letting Brody witness this interrogation. The blowback will be profound.” — Carrie Mathison
“You are soldiers involved in a political struggle. These are zealots prophesizing the arrival of the Mahdi and a countdown to the Apocalypse.” — Carrie Mathison
“Facts are facts, and we have about a week maybe less to figure out the real target.” — Carrie Mathison
Walker’s not even critical. He-He’s just a part. A piece. A pixel. A pawn of no importance. There is a bigger, pernicious, Abu Nazir worthy plot out there and we have little time. We-we have to code it. Collide it. Collapse it. Contain it. — Carrie Mathison
“So ask me offline, don’t torpedo my briefing.” — Carrie Mathison
“Because Abu Nazir is playing the long game and no one suspects a thing.” — Carrie Mathison
To authorize a surveillance package. To tap his phones, wire his house, follow him wherever he goes. — Carrie Mathison
“Well of course he won’t. The White House needs a poster-boy for the war, and David just served him up on a platter. That’s why I’m coming to you.” — Carrie Mathison
Carefully, over a matter of months. — Carrie Mathison
This is about operational security. — Carrie Mathison
“Please tell me you found something.” — Carrie Mathison
“I’m not a traitor.” — Carrie Mathison
“No, that is non-negotiable.” — Carrie Mathison
“Friends? Oh, yeah. Yeah do I wanna be friends with a demented ex-soldier who hates America? Who decided strapping on a bomb was the answer to what ailed him?” — Carrie Mathison
“Who in the end didn’t have the stones to go through with it but had no problem sending me to the nuthouse?” — Carrie Mathison
You’re a disgrace to your nation, Sergeant Nicholas Brody. You’re a traitor and a terrorist. And now it’s time you pay for that. — Carrie Mathison
“All right, you heard him. Let’s start putting everybody through facial recognition, cross-referencing with INS, DMV, every data-base we’ve got.” — Carrie Mathison
“I’m a trained interrogator. I’ll ask him a few questions, poke around his story a little.” — Carrie Mathison
Don’t we have a moral obligation? — Carrie Mathison
I’m gonna be alone my whole life aren’t I? — Carrie Mathison
“Abu Nazir’s express goal is an attack on our country. It’s his holy grail.” — Carrie Mathison
“I’m not your daughter, Saul. I don’t need you telling me what to do.” — Carrie Mathison
“That doesn’t mean I’m wrong. It just means he may be laying low for awhile. Turned and trained, but a sleeper.” — Carrie Mathison
“We believe the purpose of his visit is to move funds to one of Abu Nazir’s people here in the United States. If we can flag the transfer, we can follow the money to Nazir’s operative.” — Carrie Mathison
But if I’m right, if he is a terrorist, we need eyes and ears on Brody from the minute he steps off that plane. — Carrie Mathison
Concerned, stoic, courageous, and heroic Carrie Mathison is a Guardian.
Saul Berenson
Saul Berenson recruited Carrie Mathison as a young Arabic language student at Princeton University. He is Middle East Division Chief of the CIA.
He reluctantly acquiesces her unauthorized surveillance of Sergeant Nicholas Brody, but tries to remain level-headed regarding the matter.
After an operation with Carrie in Beirut, Saul finds a copy of the confession tape that Brody had recorded prior to his suicide vest incident.
This leads to Saul, Carrie, and Estes forming a task force attempting to use Brody as a double agent against al-Qaeda operatives. Soon after this task force is assembled Abu Nazir is killed and the 12/12 bombing of CIA headquarters takes places in Langley, Virginia killing 219 agents.
As a result of Estes’ death Saul becomes acting director of the CIA. Saul pulls the trigger on an operation executing 6 high priority al-Qaeda associates in retaliation for the 12/12 bombing.
Saul is forced to lean on Carrie and her history of mental illness in order to maintain the integrity of the Central Intelligence Agency.
Saul dangles an unhinged and unstable Carrie over his old friend and 2nd in command in Iran one Majid Javadi, who takes the bait.
Javadi embezzled millions from the Iranian government to fund the 12/12 attack, and is turned into a high level CIA asset placed in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.
Saul sends Brody to Iran where he asks for asylum. Saul wants him assassinate the commander-in-chief of Iran’s revolutionary guard Danesh Akbari so CIA asset Majid Javadi can take his place.
Brody makes it into Tehran, where his first attempt to kill Akbari fails. Ultimately Brody is able to suffocate the Intelligence Chief of Iran in his office and flees.
Brody’s location is given up to the Iranians at the adamant request of Javadi before his extraction package can render.
Brody is executed in Tehran. Saul is fired by his new boss Senator Andrew Lockhart and he heads over to the private sector.
Saul spends a short time in Pakistani captivity as a bargaining chip of terrorist Haissam Haqqani.
Saul is rehired by the CIA after his time in captivity.
Soon after, a data breech occurs releasing information about the BND or Federal Intelligence Service bypassing German privacy laws by having the Americans run surveillance for them.
This data breech exposes Berlin Station Chief Allison Carr’s divulgence of CIA intel to the SVR for over 10 years. Saul collars her.
Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series
Being a spy isn’t the same as sitting in a hide waiting for the enemy to come under your guns. You’re in the jungle, usually in the dark, with bad information and unreliable partners. — Saul Berenson
I’m just trying to make the correct call here. — Saul Berenson
Yeah, a win would be nice. Another fuck-up would be fatal. — Saul Berenson
I treated you like an elite intelligence officer. So start fucking behaving like one. — Saul Berenson
“The implications are catastrophic. It’d mean the Russians have been inside our intelligence apparatus in Europe for almost a decade.” — Saul Berenson
“My legacy, is that right? Honestly I don’t know what the fuck we’re doing here anymore.” — Saul Berenson
“Major, you’re being told by fellow intelligence officers respectfully at this point, not to pursue your unauthorized freelance investigation into a matter of national security. Nod your head if you understand.” — Saul Berenson
An arrest at this time would be of negative value. We don’t wanna spook Abu Nazir before we know how many others he’s activated. — Saul Berenson
“Wanna tell me why the Russians give a shit whether you’re alive or dead?” — Saul Berenson
I say this respectfully. One professional to another. You’re playing a bad hand. — Saul Berenson
“Well your not, you’re being naive and stupid. Something you never were before.” — Saul Berenson
Which is why we need to initiate an operation immediately. Work up files on all these people. — Saul Berenson
“I expect you to consider deeply the upside of placing a U.S. asset at the very top of the Iranian food chain. That’s what I expect.” — Saul Berenson
“Javadi won’t be just an intelligence source. He’ll be in control of the entire Iranian security apparatus.” — Saul Berenson
“All of which makes complete sense after 8 years in captivity. If Brody had really been turned as you say. You know what he’d more likely be doing by now? Talking to the press outside his house, doing TV interviews. Playing the hero card for every penny it’s worth.” — Saul Berenson
“I know. But he can do something. Something to break the logjam. Something besides another war. Something that’ll change the facts on the ground… just enough so two countries that haven’t been able to communicate for over 30 years except through terrorist actions and threats… can sit down and talk. That’s the play Carrie. Tell me it’s not worth your time.” — Saul Berenson
“No one should suffer for my mistakes. Let alone the whole country.” — Saul Berenson
“And the single greatest impediment to peace. I want him gone.” — Saul Berenson
I’ve recruited a high level Iranian asset. IRGC deputy chief Majid Javadi. — Saul Berenson
“Vulnerability’s been patched. System’s been tested and found secure. But classified material was accessed… and removed.” — Saul Berenson
“A number of the documents contained details of our working relationship.” — Saul Berenson
“Could be the last order we ever give. Take ’em. Take ’em all.” — Saul Berenson
“I understand that. I doubt a grand jury will.” — Saul Berenson
Surveillance equipment, a few good men. — Saul Berenson
The information is flawed. — Saul Berenson
“In the meantime I still have two weeks left on my watch and a lot of work to do.” — Saul Berenson
“Our obligation is to stop the next attack on America. Which you won’t be apart of if you keep pursuing this.” — Saul Berenson
“What were his exact words, please?” — Saul Berenson
“You’re not a fanatic. You’re a pragmatist. Always have been.” — Saul Berenson
Something has to change. You hit us we hit you. It’s always the same. — Saul Berenson
“Well we’re both old men, there’s no disputing that. We are. It’s the curse of old men to realize that in the end, we control nothing. So we lash out. Buenos Aires. Berlin. Bergen.” — Saul Berenson
For years we toiled in back rooms, you and I. We toiled while shallower men held the stage, waiting for our time to come, gradually understanding it never would. Now it has, unexpectedly. — Saul Berenson
“There’s no one doing the obvious. Someone got ahold of our plan to install General Youssef in Syria. How? How would they know? I want that building swept. Down to the studs. I’m hoping it is. ‘Cause if it isn’t… we’ve got an even bigger problem. — Saul Berenson
I. Know. A way. — Saul Berenson
“You can’t deny the facts– what we just witnessed, just ’cause you find them inconvenient. — Saul Berenson
“Some habits die hard, I guess.” — Saul Berenson
“Turning touches the stubbornness in people. He’s a stubborn man to begin with.” — Saul Berenson
“All six targets are vulnerable in that timeframe?” — Saul Berenson
Six separate ops conducted on three different continents, an untested command-and-control team and a short clock… — Saul Berenson
“I find that everything means more to me as I get older.” — Saul Berenson
“There’s a line between between us that you drew. Forget that. There’s a fuckin’ wall. Let’s stay on our own sides of it, okay?” — Saul Berenson
I didn’t want the job. I never asked for the job. I’m not temperamentally suited to it. — Saul Berenson
“By his own admission, Brody’s in a confused state. Spent 12 hours in the company of a man who has considerable power over him.” — Saul Berenson
“Revoke our charter? Yeah. Congress has that power.” — Saul Berenson
We’re not assassins, Mira. We’re spies. We don’t kill our targets if we don’t have to. We trawl for ’em, we develop ’em, and then we redirect them against more important targets. — Saul Berenson
I still prefer to figure the problem out. Not obliterate it. — Saul Berenson
“Has it occurred to you at the very least we’ll be able to observe Brody at close quarters in a high stress environment which we can control.” — Saul Berenson
“This is the one piece of intel you recovered in Beirut that Estes and his mob haven’t seen yet.” — Saul Berenson
“Nope still waiting. We’ve doubled up on surveillance, so whatever she does next we’ll be on it.” — Saul Berenson
Well, ‘good’ is probably an overstatement. — Saul Berenson
“You were right.” — Saul Berenson
“It ended badly last time. For you. For everyone.” — Saul Berenson
I’m saying it’s not a coincidence we can ignore. — Saul Berenson
We debriefed him. Turned him. He’s ours. — Saul Berenson
“How many times must we have this discussion there’s no evidence linking Brody to Abu Nazir.” — Saul Berenson
You don’t know a goddamned thing. You’re the smartest and the dumbest fucking person I’ve ever known. — Saul Berenson
“I can’t be here all night we got an emergency going on out there.” — Saul Berenson
The real world will not wait for these burea-fucking-cratic idiocies. — Saul Berenson
“It was a question, Carrie. Not an act of war.” — Saul Berenson
“My understanding is the prince comes to the United States every year about this time. To top off his harem, not to fund terrorism.” — Saul Berenson
Just peachy. — Saul Berenson
“If you’re right then the money will lead back to him. But until then, you need to take down that surveillance. First chance you get you will remove the cameras and microphones from Sergeant Brody’s house, and cover your tracks. Are we clear?” — Saul Berenson
“Do not squander it by continuing to invade the constitutionally protected privacy of the Brody family.” — Saul Berenson
“I’m not going over his head, not on a hunch.” — Saul Berenson
“Prove that the safe house lead was planted. Or at least give me something to doubt its authenticity.” — Saul Berenson
“Don’t look at me that way, we’re all fighting the same enemy here.” — Saul Berenson
My guess– you’re packing your cubicle, looking for a job in the private sector. — Saul Berenson
“And what good would come of that?” — Saul Berenson
“You’re lucky you’re in the building.” — Saul Berenson
“You’ll behave yourself?” — Saul Berenson
“A mess? That’s what you call placing a major asset inside a government that’s been a black box for 30 years?” — Saul Berenson
It was a legitimate question. — Saul Berenson
“It’s ineffective. ‘Cause back in Tehran he’s replaced by someone just like him who we can’t control. And the attack that happened here happens again and again and again this is a once in a lifetime operation that can transform everything. The entire middle east.” — Saul Berenson
“And you still haven’t found a single lead connecting Sergeant Brody to this or any plot against America.” — Saul Berenson
“Javadi’s the highest placed CIA asset in the history of the agency.”
“Instead we have a live source keeping us current on Iran’s pursuit of a nuclear weapon, on Hezbollah operations all over the globe.”
“Carrie I need you to promise you will raise no eyebrows in there. You will break no china.” — Saul Berenson
All need-to-know. — Saul Berenson
Skeptical, pragmatic, autonomous, and resolute Saul Berenson is a Rational.
Peter Quinn
Peter Quinn is a CIA paramilitary officer assigned to lead a surveillance team consisting to observe Congressman Nicholas Brody after it was discovered that he attempted to assassinate Vice President William Walden.
Quinn was initially hired with the express intent of killing Sergeant Brody, but ultimately does not acquiesce this request. He goes on to help Carrie during her tenure as Station Chief in Pakistan.
Quinn spends two years in Al-Raqqah, Syria heading a special ops team. He then starts working for Saul as a hitman in Berlin initially targeting ISIL recruits. Carrie Mathison shows up in his target bin. While dropping off a photo of a spurious Carrie Mathison corpse Quinn takes a bullet in the gut.
He panics and flees in critical condition. He receives a blood transfusion and ends up in the care of a Muslim landlord/doctor named Hussein.
He then infiltrates an ISIL cell group planning an imminent terrorist attack. He tries to stifle the attack undercover but fails and becomes a victim of the demonstration of a biological weapon sarin. Whether or not he survives this encounter is ambiguous.
Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series
1 nomination: 2013
Visceral, impulsive, adept, and cunning Peter Quinn is an Artisan.