‘Homeland’: How Might The CIA Drama Series End?

Showtime’s Homeland is nearing its end with just one final episode to go. Those involved with the CIA drama don’t need advice on storytelling; the eight-season series has been a nonstop rollercoaster ride that has never failed to entertain its fans and keep them at the edge of their seats.

So, while we await next Sunday’s series finale, we can try to guess how it will end for Claire Danes’ bipolar CIA operative Carrie Mathison. She has led a tortured existence and sacrificed everything, even her daughter, to seek truth and justice.

What many fans are wondering is if she’s this season’s Nicholas Brody (Damian Lewis). Their relationship, if you recall, was a major crux of the first few seasons. The former soldier and prisoner of war held by Iraqi forces was initially thought to be a hero upon his return to the U.S. but Carrie suspected he’d been turned against his country by the Iraqis. As if that wasn’t complicated enough, the two fell in love and had a daughter. All the while, fans watched and wondered if her gut instincts were, in fact, correct. We would come to learn that Carrie is rarely, if ever, wrong.

Developed for American television by Alex Gansa and Howard Gordon, Homeland is based on the original Israeli series Prisoners of War by Gideon Raff. As it nears its end, the series remains Showtime’s No. 1 drama with an average of five million viewers across platforms tuning in per episode.

The 12-episode season unfolds as the brilliant yet tormented Carrie recovers from months of brutal confinement in a Russian gulag. Though her body has healed, her memories are fragmented.

The eighth season has so far stayed true to form with Carrie and her mentor Saul Berenson, brilliantly played by Mandy Patinkin, attempting to end the “forever war” in Afghanistan as they repeatedly face every conceivable obstacle in their efforts.

However, it isn’t Carrie’s bipolar disorder that stands in her way this season, it’s her fractured memory that is a major obstacle for Saul, who is now National Security Advisor to President Warner (Beau Bridges) as his young administration aims to end the war.

Saul has been tasked with engaging the Taliban in peace negotiations and requests her assistance, knowing Carrie is the only one for the job. So, against medical advice, he asks her to walk with him into the lion’s den for one final mission.

Carrie is always one step ahead, guided by that sharp mind of hers. Despite mental illness, or trauma, she finds the truth. She’s a rule-breaker that is consistently proven right at the end of each season. There isn’t a situation she hasn’t been able to navigate, perhaps until now.

In the penultimate episode, Yevgeny Gromov (Costa Ronin) has backed her into what might just be the darkest corner yet. The key to this season is the black box from the helicopter crash that took the American and Afghan presidents down. The now deceased Max (Maury Sterling) risked his life to recover it from the crash site and Carrie found it only to have it stolen from her by Yevgeny.

To get it back into her possession, Carrie has to make a trade. In exchange for its return, she must expose Saul’s rumored asset in the Kremlin. If she can’t find or neutralize the asset, she must kill him.

Will Carrie betray her mentor if it means stopping the impending war? The black box is the only evidence that the chopper went down due to mechanical failures and not a terrorist attack.

Carrie finally met her match in Yevgeny, a top-level operative with Russia’s military intelligence agency the GRU, but the two are far more alike than one might think.

“They see a lot of themselves in one another and they recognize this. Though on opposite sides, they understand there is room for cooperation,” said Ronin in a recent interview.

Has Carrie turned her back on the CIA as suspected? Will she turn on Saul, her mentor throughout it all? One thing this show has proven time and again is that there are multiple sides to every story and the truth isn’t black or white.

In a past interview, executive producer and director Lesli Linka Glatter described a classic Homeland scene. “We always have two characters with completely opposing views. To each of them, they’re absolutely correct. Homeland lives in a world of ambiguity and shades of gray. Hopefully, this makes one look at the other point of view and maybe even reconsider. We show both sides of an issue and we don’t paint the CIA, or anyone really, as the good guys or the bad guys. It’s much more complicated and layered.”

So, how will it end for Carrie? When asked, Ronin didn’t give anything away. “At the end of the day, a good ending has to be truthful to the characters and this one is.”

As much as fans might want to see Carrie live happily ever after and return to her daughter and family, that ending doesn’t seem likely. It seems more in line with the show that she will manage a way to get the black box back but the question remains as to whether or not she’ll turn on Saul, or even sacrifice her life for his. However it ends, this show and its beloved characters will be deeply missed.