If you ever wondered where all those memes of Claire Danes (The Beast in Me) crying came from, now’s your chance to find out — all eight seasons of Homeland, a cultural and critical hallmark of the 2010s, are streaming on Netflix. The series, which originally aired on Showtime, spins a tense, cat-and-mouse tale about a prisoner of war returning to America as a hero after eight years in captivity and the CIA agent who suspects him of working with his former captors to advance terrorist plots against the United States.
The drama was adapted for American television by Howard Gordon (24, The X-Files) and Alex Gansa (Accused, Dawson’s Creek). Also starring Mandy Patinkin (The Princess Bride) and Damian Lewis (Band of Brothers), the series racked up eight Emmy Awards, including two Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series trophies for Danes and one Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series win for Lewis. In 2012, Homeland won Outstanding Drama Series and was nominated for the category three more times.
Seasons 2–8 also feature Rupert Friend, Timothée Chalamet, Zuleikha Robinson, F. Murray Abraham, Tracy Letts, Raza Jaffrey, Suraj Sharma, Corey Stoll, Miranda Otto, Elizabeth Marvel, James D’Arcy, Morgan Spector, Hugh Dancy, Numan Acar, and more.
When CIA analyst Carrie Matheson (Danes) botches a field assignment in Iraq, she’s punished with a desk job back in Washington, DC. The one piece of usable information she got from her Iraqi contact before he was executed — that an American prisoner of war had been turned and now works for al-Qaida — is the one thing she can’t follow up on. Until a black ops raid on one of the homes of al-Qaida leader Abu Nazir (Negahban), where Marine Sgt. Nicholas Brody (Lewis) is found alive after seven years missing in action.
Nicholas flies home to America, where he’s given a hero’s reception, but Carrie’s on high alert: This could signal the start of a new terrorist plot against the United States. Unfortunately, Carrie’s tarnished reputation means no one — not even her agency mentor, Saul Berenson (Patinkin) — believes her. So, in a desperate bid to prove her intelligence is solid, Carrie illegally bugs the Brodys’ home. But all she finds from the surveillance footage is evidence of a tortured veteran readjusting to civilian life.
Before Carrie can find any signs that Nicholas defected, Saul catches her and threatens to report her to Internal Affairs. Carrie goes out drinking to forget her problems, and it works until she sees the bar’s TV replaying news coverage of Nicholas at a press conference, subtly tapping out a repeated pattern with his fingers. Is it a code? A way to contact his al-Qaida handler? When she presents the evidence to Saul, he agrees that it’s a lead worth chasing. Will Carrie unravel a terrorist plot before it destroys an American city, or will her dogged pursuit of the government’s poster boy destroy her first?
No, Homeland is not based on a book, but it is adapted from an Israeli series called Prisoners of War, which was created by Gideon Raff. There are also two prequel novels, Homeland: Carrie’s Run and Homeland: Saul’s Game, written by Andrew Kaplan, which were published during the show’s third and fourth seasons.
Homeland isn’t based on a true story, but it draws on real-life POW experiences and geopolitics. In an interview with the Los Angeles Times during the show’s fifth season, Homeland co-showrunner Alex Gansa said that every season starts with a writers’ trip to Washington, DC, hosted by John McGaffin, a consultant on the show and the former deputy director of the CIA.
“The three or four days that we spend [in DC] heavily influence our storytelling over the season,” Gansa said at the time. “We entertain a parade of current and former intelligence officers, State Department people, White House staffers, [and] journalists, so we get a real front-row seat [for] what is being talked about in Washington. … You can see how every one of those elements became part of the season.”
Season 1 takes place primarily in Damascus, Syria; Washington, DC; and it’s neighboring suburb of Alexandria, Virginia. Other seasons were shot in cities including Tel Aviv, Israel; Cape Town, South Africa; Berlin; Budapest, Hungary; San Juan, Puerto Rico; New York City; Los Angeles; and Richmond, Virginia.
