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Homeland, Damian Lewis, Claire Danes PREVIEW

By Robin Jarossi on | From crimetimepreview.com

Brody (Damian Leiws) is damaged by his time in captivity. Pics: C4

Rating: ★★★★½

Channel 4 Week starting 18 Feb day and time to be announced

Story: Sgt Nicholas Brody has been released after eight years of captivity in a terrorist cellar in Afghanistan. He arrives home traumatised but to a hero's welcome. However, CIA operative Carrie Mathison is suspicious. She has information that a US prisoner has been 'turned', and despite not having the authority, she wants to keep Brody under surveillance.

Homeland arrives on a wave of good reviews and awards from the US, where it recently picked up best drama at the Golden Globes.

Starring Damian Lewis and Claire Danes, and made by the Emmy-winning executive producers of 24 (Howard Gordon, Alex Gansa), the opening episode certainly succeeds in delivering a thriller with ambiguous characters and intriguing twists.

Danes plays CIA agent Carrie Mathison, a driven woman whose job it is to uncover terrorist plots in the Middle East. As we meet her she is causing an international incident by bribing her way into an Iraqi prison to contact a man who is about to executed.

Damian Lewis and Claire Danes

Subsequently stripped of her role in the field, we next see her 10 months later when she has a desk job. Called into a briefing from her boss, David Estes, Carrie learns that Navy Seals raiding an Al-Qaeda safehouse in Afghanistan have rescued Sergeant Nicholas Brody (Lewis), who has been a prisoner for eight years.

Is Brody a hero or terrorist?
As Brody is welcomed home by a Vice President he can't even name, so long has he been gone, Mathison recalls what her doomed contact Iraq told her – that an American PoW had been 'turned'.

She suspects Brody, but doesn't have the credibility or authority to have him bugged and followed. So is Brody a war hero or is he a traitor who is about to trigger a terrorist attack in the US? Over 12 episodes we should find out, though a second series has already been commissioned.

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