The end of ‘Homeland’, the series that learned to reinvent itself to survive | TV


When Homeland He was born, back in October 2011, television was another. Even the world was another. The series were going through their most recent golden age, with Breaking Bad Y Mad men still on broadcast The exponential multiplication of content with the revolution of the platforms was not even glimpsed, and the cable chains sought prestigious dramas with tormented men and that moral relativity that characterized those productions.

Homeland brought with it the best of 24 (Howard Gordon and Alex Gansa, two of the creators of the first - which in turn adapted the Israeli Hatufim, by Gideon Raff—, they had been producers of the second): that ability to engage in an adrenaline story full of script twists and characters that you can't trust. Of course, in 24 You could always trust Jack Bauer. In HomelandNot even the unpredictable Carrie Mathison is legit. Now it reaches its final season (today Sunday, at Fox at 10 pm) after having gone through all the possible phases and having reinvented itself again and again.

Raised to television altars, repudiated, loved again, criticized, exasperating, praised, frustrating, important, indifferent, relevant ... Homeland He won almost everything in the Emmy with his first season: best drama, actress and actor, screenplay. In addition to the game of the cat and the mouse between an agent of the CIA and a prisoner of war who returns home turned into a hero but of which the agent distrusts, that first batch of episodes hooked by that duality and, above all, by the tremendous Chemistry of its protagonists. The two on screen together were an attraction bomb that Showtime executives were not willing to give up. Although Brody's character was designed to last a short time (the initial idea was a season; later, the scriptwriters granted him two; the chain forced him to be another year), it ended up being a ballast that almost ended his own series with a terrible third installment.

Claire Danes and Damian Lewis, in the second season of 'Homeland'.


Claire Danes and Damian Lewis, in the second season of 'Homeland'.

So, Homeland He made a blur and a new account. From that moment the series would have to be another. And it was becoming almost an anthology that faced each season reflecting the new reality of a world in which living with terror, coming from different places, is common. Those responsible for the series began meeting every year with a group of active and retired intelligence agents, State Department officials and journalists. Many of the topics that were discussed later in the episodes came out of these secret meetings. Homeland It evolved and became one of the series that best reflects our world, with an impressive ability to stick to today. An example: at one point in the fifth season, which was taking place in Berlin, the characters referred to the attacks in Paris on November 13, 2015, just a few days after they took place. The terror they lived in the series was palpable in reality.

He also knew how to recular when necessary. The fourth season managed to overcome the terrible third installment, but received criticism for the portrait of the Muslims. In an episode of the fifth season, one of those painted in Arabic in one of the streets through which the protagonist passed said "Homeland it's racist ". No one noticed until it was issued. They reflected and decided to change the focus on successive deliveries to the new (or old) Russian enemy and the dangers that arose from the interior of the United States, from the threat of the extreme right to the abuse of power in the White House.

An image of the last season of the series.


An image of the last season of the series.

The sixth installment moved to New York, with a plot located between the elections and the inauguration ceremony of the new president. His broadcast began a few days before Donald Trump took office as president of the United States in a real world that had gone so crazy and unbridled that he had surpassed fiction. The writers of Homeland they had bet on a woman in the White House: in reality, Hillary Clinton lost in the elections. Homeland He built an alternative world that, however, in many ways is a mirror of reality. As he said in an interview on USA Today Mandy Patinkin, Homeland "It is a chronicle, in a poetic sense, of the world we are living."

Now it comes to an end. And it is loaded with dignity and knowing that the world in which he began and in which he leaves are two different worlds. Television is another. Even Homeland It is another series. A worse or better series depends on who thinks. But, of course, with all the merit in the world for having managed to adapt, reinvent itself and remain relevant in spite of everything.

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