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" Season 2, Episode 12: &amp;quot;The Choice&amp;quot; I may as well end these recaps where I started them, by name-dropping my connection to Alex Gansa and Howard Gordon, who are the Homeland showrunners and used to write 24. During my halcyon days as a consultant on 24, Howard once told me that the show had an unusual quirk. In its first six years, the odd-numbered seasons \u2014 1, 3, and especially 5 \u2014 were much better than the even-numbered seasons. Apparently, Howard and Alex saw fit to recreate that pattern in Homeland&amp;#039;s second season. It gives me no pleasure to write this \u2014 and, frankly, I shouldn&amp;#039;t, because who knows when I might be asking those guys for another trip to L.A. \u2014 but Homeland went almost straight downhill this year. Season one gave us a thoughtful thriller with two compelling main characters who battled their own flaws as well as each other. After a solid start, season two devolved into melodrama, relying on clunky plot twists to do what organic character development couldn&amp;#039;t. The weaknesses might not have been so noticeable had season one not ended on such a stunning note, and had Howard and Alex not publicly insisted on comparing their baby to John le Carr\u00E9&amp;#039;s novels. But it did, and they did. Pride goeth before the Emmys. The show&amp;#039;s unusual first-season setup certainly didn&amp;#039;t make the writers&amp;#039; job easy. Much of that initial tension came from our doubts about Brody. Was he a terrorist, or was Carrie&amp;#039;s paranoia leading her astray? By season&amp;#039;s end, Homeland resolved those questions brilliantly, and yet kept us at least marginally sympathetic to Brody. Despite Nazir&amp;#039;s brainwashing, he retained enough of his own humanity that an appeal from his daughter could keep him from blowing himself up. Yet he remained terribly distanced from his family despite their and his best efforts. And he was cruel enough to ruin Carrie, whom he knew had fallen desperately for him, to save himself. This season, the writers decided to hang the show on Brody and Carrie&amp;#039;s blooming love. They made a giant mistake. Damien Lewis, who plays Brody, seems insincere even when he&amp;#039;s trying to be honest. He declares his feelings with the squished-together face of a man trying to keep from farting in the middle of a bench-pressing set. Watching him mumble sweet nothings was worse than painful. But even if Lewis could have pulled off the change, taking Brody down that road destroyed what was left of his relationship with his family. As an added bonus, it made Carrie seem like a damn fool. Sure, I had electroshock treatments because of you, but I can&amp;#039;t quit you, Nicholas. It is possible, of course, that the writers plan to reveal at some point next season that Brody is still a terrorist and actually was responsible for the attack at Langley we just saw. But I don&amp;#039;t see how they could; doing so would make Carrie criminally stupid for believing him, and criminally criminal for helping him escape. So I think we have to believe that Brody is sincere in his tight-lipped declarations. I suppose Howard and Alex felt they couldn&amp;#039;t continue to have us wonder where Brody&amp;#039;s sympathies lay, that having him be the bad guy couldn&amp;#039;t last through season two. But they were wrong, especially given the alternative they offered. At the same time, they pushed aside Carrie&amp;#039;s mental illness, the other great source of tension in season one. That decision was more understandable. They probably feared they had nowhere to go with the storyline. Still, I think they were wrong. Carrie is much more interesting when she&amp;#039;s unhinged, and nobody plays crazy like Claire Danes. The drama of Carrie vs. Brody in season one hid Homeland&amp;#039;s flaws \u2014 hit-or-miss dialogue, action scenes that were filmed on the cheap and looked that way, and an approach to plot that was, shall I say, occasionally laissez-faire. This season, with the show&amp;#039;s core so misplaced, the other problems loomed large indeed, and seemed to worsen episode by episode. (By the way, I&amp;#039;m not just criticizing without offering alternatives; in the last recap, I threw out four directions Homeland could have taken that would have led to a more satisfying season.) As for this episode, I think I&amp;#039;ve made my feelings clear, so I&amp;#039;ll just end with this thought: Whether Homeland goes three seasons or ten, we will never get a clear and realistic answer as to how an explosive-filled SUV was parked outside an auditorium at CIA headquarters, where the Secretary of Defense and the agency&amp;#039;s top officials were meeting. The reason we won&amp;#039;t get an answer is that it&amp;#039;s absolutely, totally impossible the agency&amp;#039;s security would ever allow that SUV there. You want to compare yourself to le Carr\u00E9, you need to do a lot better on your big season-ending surprise. Here&amp;#039;s hoping that season three comes roaring back. -- Alex Berenson, a former New York Times reporter, writes the best-selling series of spy novels featuring John Wells, a CIA operative and Muslim convert. (Yup, like Brody. Though Wells came first.) His original Wells book, The Faithful Spy, won the 2007 Edgar Award for best first novel. The Night Ranger, the seventh in the series, will be published in February. You can follow him on Twitter and Facebook. Follow The Culture Blog on RSS and on Twitter at @ESQCulture. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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