Plausibility is integral to a series like Homeland - a show which originally operated under the assumption that the people who tuned in week after week were intelligent. But as soon as you start enhancing the levels of melodrama in a show that started out on the more subtle side of things, you risk undoing all the careful good work you've done. And that's exactly what happened to Homeland: it totally lost its way. So now Brody is dead, of course, and the show limps on without him - despite the fact that its original premise hinged on the nature of his allegiance, the very matter that gave Homeland its hook in the first place. It's understandable as to why Brody had to go, of course, but maybe the series should have ended when he went the way of the dodo? Carrie, after all, is now more caricature than character. It's not just the loss of Brody that has marked Homeland as a show that needs to be cancelled or ended with its current season; the plot is frequently implausible and occasionally impossible to follow, which can be alienating. It's hard not to wish that the show had finished when the Brody storyline had culminated; that way it could have stood as a tight, relevant show that knew how to die with dignity.
Sam Hill is an ardent cinephile and has been writing about film professionally since 2008. He harbours a particular fondness for western and sci-fi movies.
