10 TV Shows You Didn't Realise You Were Following The Villain

The entire premise of Homeland was focused on the mystery of Marine Nicholas Brody (Damian Lewis) returning to the U.S. after being held as a prisoner of war by al-Qaeda for eight years, while bipolar CIA officer Carrie Mathison (Claire Danes) suspects him of being turned by the enemy.

The show did a fantastic job of subverting viewer expectations in its first season in particular, with Brody's potential villainy seeming so obvious as to throw most viewers off the scent.

And while Homeland is a series very much rooted in moral ambiguity and challenging the very notion of terrorism, there's a tipping point at which Brody is revealed to be a sure villain.

In season one's finale, Brody plots to detonate a suicide vest which will kill Vice President Walden (Jamey Sheridan) and others, as retaliation for a drone strike which killed 82 children in Pakistan.

He ultimately decides not to detonate the vest, though does allow Walden to die in season two, and ultimately ends up framed for a bombing at Walden's funeral which kills 219 people, after which he's hanged for treason in Iran at the end of season three.

Brody's legacy is certainly complicated, and the show ultimately continued on without him for many years, but to learn that he actually did have designs to blow himself up truly was one of the most shocking TV moments of the last decade.