I just completed the first season, and now into the first half of the second season, realizing that the obfuscation, the shell games, and the gaslighting of the whole Ridge Area Arc cast of characters, are just like the characters and the plot of Homeland.
And like Claire Danes' awesome portrayal of somebody dealing with bipolar disorder, perhaps with a little touch of paranoid schizophrenia, I too was starting to feel batshit crazy. Since this past Monday, I felt like Carrie finally getting relief from all the Ativan, Prozac, Clozaril, clonazepam and lithium it was noted she was taking.
I did a partial binge of this show catching up on the last two seasons a couple years back, but, like so many other long-term shows that I've watched over the years, I'm finding that re-watching it all from the pilot shows just how much I've actually forgotten.
I feel also like Brody did when he finally returned home in the first season. I felt like I was in the terrorists' camp, being brainwashed daily, and all for what? To strap on a metaphorical suicide vest and walk into a shoddily-planned daily classroom and due to my inexperience or ambivalence, see their little hopes and dreams blown to pieces? IDK maybe it would have worked, but frankly, I'm pretty sure the job camp and the subsequent Project SEARCH will likely fail, or be a pale shadow of Kathleen's original dream.
But maybe too, that's what this TV show reminds us of. The dreams and ideals of an America, licking its wounds after 9/11 and the disastrous war and its consequences in Iraq and Afghanistan, and finding peace and harmony amongst not only its citizens, but the rest of the world. I think we know now that none of that shit will ever happen. There are too many Sergeant Brodys out there pretending to be who they're not and secretly harboring their own personal agenda. There are also too many Carrie Mathisons frantically trying to keep it together, while their mind is fracturing beyond repair.
Maybe the whole world needs some good ol' electro-shock therapy?