3. Pacing
Speaking of glum interactions, the entire show seems to have taken a page from Game of Thrones book of exhausting every scene possible by waiting just those extra few seconds more before cutting away. So much so that in season three of Homeland, by episodes end you can only really recall the last ten minutes as having anything worthy of note taking place. Its a format that works wonders for carefully crafted exposition, and Game of Thrones is all the stronger for the episodes where things finally come together (Red Wedding anyone?), but Homeland has already established motives and character traits, as well as a rollicking pace throughout season two that was already mashing together the somewhat laboured elements of season one. To change gears back into first when youve already established what youve created is capable of 100mph just begs the question of when were going to make that switch back into the infectiously engaging stuff.