COMMENT
Homeland's Nicholas Brody was a lynchpin to the plot this season, but what will become of the void that he leaves behind?
Spoiler alert: Well, it's hard to see Nicholas Brody getting out this tight spot. Particularly as it involves a noose securely round his neck that's getting tighter as he's hauled 10 metres into the air in a public execution for murdering the head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, Danesh Akbari.
It really looks as if this is the endgame for Brody after three seasons of Homeland. So you wonder if it's also the endgame for the show, but season four has already been promised. In that case you immediately wonder if the writers are again going to pull a rabbit, or in this case a Brody, out of the hat. Or out of the noose.
Let's face it, he's got out of scrapes before, but none has had him dangling from the end of a rope looking distinctly dead. If the writers of Homeland have indeed killed off the main character, then it's a brave move. And it tests their talents to refocus the show on Carrie Mathison in her new posting and Saul Berenson in his new life outside the CIA. But this is television, remember. Anything - well, almost anything - can happen.
Javadi (Toub) and Carrie Mathison (Claire Danes) in a pivotal moment about who the CIA bomber might have been, earlier in the season.
Brody started this intense, dramatic finale in a pickle and things only got worse. After stuffing the body of Akbari behind his desk and washing the blood off his hands, he began a long walk down the stairs in an attempt to get out of the IRG office. Which he did, of course.
But he wasn't going to get much help from Saul back at agency headquarters in Langley. He didn't believe Brody had managed to do what he'd been commissioned to do. As Carrie put it: "Is there one person on the planet you trust, Saul?" You can't really blame him, can you?
Of course, it didn't help Brody's cause that it was Saul's last day as CIA acting director and his bete noir, Senator Andrew Lockhart, was waiting in the wings. And it really didn't help his cause that he didn't don a disguise. If you were one of the most recognisable faces in Iran, an apparent enemy of the Great Satan, with distinctive red hair to boot, wouldn't you think to do something to make yourself less obvious?
Carrie Mathison faces an uncertain future.
But it was nice to have Carrie and Brody together again, even if the extraction plan was bound to go pear-shaped. The perfectly named Lockhart (lock heart, get it?) and the morally ambiguous black ops man, Dar Adal, stitched Brody up in order to keep Javadi in play as the CIA's man in Iran.
Brody had his doubts about the morality of the whole business, dismissing Carrie's notion of redemption. "In what universe can you redeem one murder with another," he demanded of her. But as they waited to be rescued in a safe house in the Iranian desert, it was a perfect opportunity for Carrie to reveal her pregnancy. No wonder Brody asked: "What happens next?" That's what we all wanted to know.
Then the helicopters arrived and out they rushed like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid – straight into the arms of the IRG.
That spelt doom for Brody. Carrie pleaded his case to Javadi, and he pointed out the difficulties of the situation. "No one's just one thing," he said, stating the bleeding obvious – it is after all the whole thrust of Homeland: no one is what they seem to be, at least not all the time. "Who Brody is, is for Allah to know."
Brody told Carrie in their farewell phone call that she shouldn't attend his public execution. As if she was going to take any notice of that. "Carrie, it's over. Not even the almighty Saul can stop it now ... False hope is not helping anyone."
So was our hope false? Is that really the end of Brody?
The execution was as grim as you'll see on television. It was brave of the writers, convincing, and matched the tone of this final series. Brody has been on a downward trajectory the whole time; he has seemed trapped morally and physically throughout, whether in Venezuela, in the grasp of the CIA or the custody of the IRG. Mobile cranes make for common gallows in Iran's public executions and if you believe what you saw, then Brody's a goner.
And then we jumped four months into the future. The annual commemoration ceremony at the CIA to honour dead agents. Saul is out of the agency, but he's won – the Iranians will allow nuclear inspections in return for an end to economic sanctions. The agency's man Javadi is apparently influencing Iranian policy.
Carrie is anguishing over the impending birth of her daughter, not least because Lockhart has offered her the job of running the Istanbul station. But he won't honour Brody, despite Carrie pleading his case.
So at the end of series three, Lockhart is in control, Saul is out, Carrie is being shipped out to Istanbul with or without a baby and Brody is dead. But could Javadi be the magician ready to extricate the rabbit? Istanbul is a lot closer to Tehran than Langley.
Is Homeland to continue without the man who was its main focus for three series, even during his absence in Caracas? Is the focus to be Saul and Carrie?
There is surely more to learn about the devious Dar Adal and the apparently dedicated Peter Quinn. Remember that scene in the second series when they seemed to be plotting on a bus? There's more to come from these two. Roll on series four – with or without Nicholas Brody.
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