Television Review: "Homeland: The Star".

I'm sorry if this spoils the third season finale for anyone but I've waited a week now to speak my mind and that's amazing considering my notorious history with spoilers. It's been all over the news anyway so kick rocks with your complaints. Anyway.... Nicholas Brody. Husband. Father. Sergeant. Congressman. Terrorist. Victim.

Sad, yet most realistic and honest ending ever. The whole speech between he and Carrie towards the end of the finale about living their lives on the run together was the writers' pitch to fans about where the show would've went had Brody and Carrie made it back to the United States together and judging by the (intentionally?) cheesy dialogue, we would've been in for a fairy tale. Well fairy tales don't exist. And Brody's death was the ending that would've happened in the real world; the world that the writers have connected their story to since day one. For those who didn't like this outcome and culmination of three years worth of masterclass storytelling, I ask them this: What series have you all been following? The story has always been about tragedy, never comedy in the Shakespearean sense. 

Brody's life ended badly, yes. But it didn't end as badly as it could've in plenty of other scenarios. Brody died in the desert, in the climate that he was symbolically born in, and he went out a hero: He brought everything full-circle by killing the terrorists who tortured him and turned him into their monster, and in the process he hit a home run by sacrificing himself and his image for his homeland. And wasn't that always the whole point?