Homeland Season 4: What’s Next for Carrie?

Homeland is back, and after an intense two-part premiere, there are still an awful lot of questions. The show has made some controversial changes, leaving viewers to be either very happy with the new direction of the show, or completely unenthused.

I fall in the former category. I happen to think the new direction is going to be really beneficial for this show.

First of all, while I hated to see Brody be killed at the end of Season 3 (trust me, I was in denial over this), for the series to continue, I think it had to happen. I’m just not sure what else could have been done with his story, and I think it was even more necessary for Carrie’s character. After all, this is her story, not his.

Now that he’s gone, we’ve seen Carrie become a little colder. More indifferent. In the premiere, she barely flinched at the fact that innocent people were killed as a result of her drone strike. And when she was called out on it, she talked about “the big picture” and “the job.”

But there’s another big change—Carrie is a mother now. Well, sort of. She has positioned herself to work in war zones so that her baby can’t be with her. On the surface, this seems pretty heartless. It isn’t, though.

The scene that I simply can’t get out of my mind is when she actually almost drowns her daughter in the bathtub. I screamed aloud. I held my breath. Thank goodness, Carrie snapped herself out of it just in time and held her daughter close, surprised at what she was almost capable of doing.

Here’s the thing—we don’t know whether or not this was the first time something like this has happened. Carrie’s always been a bit unstable (maybe that’s an understatement), but to watch the love of your life be killed and not be able to do anything about it, and then to have his baby. Unimaginable.

Even though Carrie’s sister thinks she’s being a bad mother, I argue the opposite. Carrie understands that she’s a danger to her child, so she leaves her in the arms of someone she knows she can trust.

And I think the addition of the baby was a great idea for character development. We’ve never really had the chance to get inside Carrie’s head, not completely, but now there’s a new vehicle for just that. When Carrie took the baby for a drive to Brody’s old house, Carrie told her about her father. It was this nice moment where we got to hear Carrie’s thoughts, as she told her baby girl that Brody was the love of her life.

Hopefully, we’ll see more moments like this. But I don’t think there will be many. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if there were a custody battle soon, since it is Carrie’s sister who has been raising the baby so far.

It will certainly be an adjustment to see new story lines, some new characters, and new mystery moving forward. Corey Stoll, who seems as though he’s everywhere these days (House of Cards, The Strain), plays the part of Sandy Bachman, was dragged into the streets and beaten to death for his part in the wedding bombing. But before he died, he had some secrets, and I have a feeling they’re going to be pretty significant.

And a new, young character might serve to be pretty useful to Carrie and her team. Suraj Sharma plays the part of Aayan Ibrahim, who lost his family in the wedding bombing—and happened to get the whole thing on tape.

Different? Yes. Better? Maybe. I’d love to hear your thoughts on the premiere and the direction Homeland is taking.

Homeland airs Sundays at 9/8c on Showtime.