Homeland (TV Series) The Choice (2012) User Reviews

An exciting conclusion to season two that sets things up for the third season

[Tweekums · 9/10 · 24 December 2012]

As the second season approaches its end it looks as if a happy ending is in sight for Carrie and Brody; Abu Nazir is dead and Brody has split up with his wife. Of course they don't know that Quinn has been ordered to kill Brody although even this threat soon disappears as Quinn tell CIA Director David Estes that not only will he not kill Brody but that he will be coming after Estes if anything happens to Brody. Unable to have Brody killed Estes has Saul released from custody and he offers Carrie a senior job within the CIA; she just has to decide whether she wants her life to be inside the CIA or with Brody. Then; just as it looks as if everything is going to be happy ever after an explosion rips through the CIA building during a memorial for the late vice president. There is only one suspect: Nicolas Brody. The bomb had been planted in his car but he insists he had nothing to do with it; in fact he believes it was Abu Nazir's last operation before he was killed. Carrie must now decide whether she believes Brody or not; whatever she chooses their lives won't be going as they had planned.

The first half of this longer than usual episode felt like they were just wrapping the series up; Carrie would end up with Brody, Jessica Brody would end up with Mike, Saul would be released and nobody would be in any danger; then in a moment everything was turned upside down… the events after the explosion only served to raise more questions; few of which were answered. This of course served to set things up brilliantly for a third season. Until that moment I had no idea how they could come up with a third season as nearly all the secrets were out in the open; now I'm left looking forward to seeing what happens next. The story moved along at a gentle pace for the first half but once the explosion took place things got exciting enough that it was possible to overlook certain possible plot holes… for example; if the bomber had moved Brody's car surely somebody would have seen this; I can't believe the CIA wouldn't have security cameras! As always the cast did a fine job; it is just a pity that at least one major character won't be back next series.

Season two: At the same level of greatness, but for different reasons (The Choice is a shocking ending)

[jigsaw-91 · 10/10 · 13 November 2013]

Season two of Homeland stills being golden TV if this time some of its surprising touch is a bit lost. It's an intriguing and engaging plot which still delivering a superb and believable character development. This season confirmed everyone that this show still rocks mostly thanking its two stars: Brody & Carrie. They are the show!.

The shadow of doubt that made you insecure on every moment in previous season is partially lost there. That is a weakness to this series, but this thing doesn't ruin anything. It's always difficult to maintain anything at one high level. Soon or late, the cards must be placed on the table. And in Season two, every ace is in. Also the show is more dynamic, tense and adrenaline rush now. So, in fact, that is an improvement on its pace.

Claire Danes & Damian Lewis both deliver gripping performances. They help the show reaching higher levels than no one could have ever predicted.

And its season finale is even shocker than the previous if it doesn't mean that could be better. I was so more mesmerized with Marine One than this one. But this is a 10 stars finale. It's surprising, dramatic and in fact closes an era. The main story arc that let this show start ends here. And what an ending!. The shadow of doubt returns here, and I loved how the Brody's video was used here. Homeland comes full circle here despite leaving some inevitably questions. But, hey: that is Homeland! 10/10.

Season Two

[zkonedog · 10/10 · 4 July 2019]

One of the great things about pay-cable dramas is that, unlike the restrictions of network television, they are pretty much free to do what they want...when they want to...and how they want to do it. This sense of control is a big part of the reason why "Homeland", in its second season, is able to match the intensity of the explosive first. The producers are able to flesh out the stories/characters on THEIR schedule.

For a basic plot summary (with only minor spoilers), Season Two of Homeland sees Carrie Mathison (Claire Danes) recovering from her shock therapy, while Nicholas Brody (Damian Lewis) is still torn between his allegiance to Abu Nezir (Navid Negahban) and his wife/family. Saying quite literally anything more would be venturing into major spoiler territory, but suffice it to say that the intrigue and unpredictability carries over from Season One.

To me, the main reason this show remains great is because it manages to re-invent itself seemingly multiple times per season. Remember back to watching Season One and how it seemed like a completely different show after 12 episodes? The same exact thing happens in Season Two. A show like this (again, given the freedom that network shows do not have) is able to develop plot-arcs in just 12 episodes that some shows take seasons to parcel out. Simply put, there is a hard-charging philosophy (perhaps this is also a residual effect of the show sharing many creators from the similar-themed "24") to this type of storytelling that makes every moment compelling.

I truly wish I could write more about this wonderful season, but I really don't want to spoil the experience for you in any form. If you got hooked on the first season of "Homeland", you will find nothing to detract you here. It all carries over.

What about Carrie

[david-pepperell1 · 10/10 · 23 December 2012]

Has anybody thought that Carrie might have been the mole all along and Brody is just the stooge? Why did she have the fake passports and getaway money ready to go? Why didn't Abu Nazir kill her like he did the marine in the tunnels? Who else had the chance to move the car? Why did she get herself & Brody out of the main area at the Memorial? How did she find the Brody video in the bag in all that apartment full of junk? Who tipped off Abu Nazir that Quinn and the guys were at the bomb-makers shop? At the start of the series Carrie's informant was killed. Did she tip off his killers? Was her mission to seduce Brody and make him give up the Vice President's pacemaker code right from the start? Would Brody have done that for anybody else? What do you think?

Season 2: The loss of "doubt" hurts the show a bit, but it still works out to be a solidly good season (mild suggestive spoilers)

[bob the moo · 28 December 2012]

The first season of this show worked really well by playing with the constant unknown factor of whether Brody had become a terrorist or not, it worked this constantly right up to the end of the season, delivering in a patient and surprisingly adult fashion. The question over the second season for me was where it went from there, what it would do once we knew where we stood and one of the big attractions was taken out of play and would it be as good now the cat was out of the bag? Well the answer turned out to be "mostly as good" because the show manages to capture a different type of uncertainity – this time within Brody himself. In the first season we didn't know who he was or what he was going to do, in this season he doesn't seem too sure of either of those things himself. This is matched by Carrie slowly returning from her period of losing it and starting to believe in herself again (albeit in a rather creepy obsessive way); but at the same time the sense of doubt around her remains via her colleagues and of course the viewer themselves. As a device the doubt and the uncertainity still being around works well, just not as well as it did in the first season.

It was a big ask to keep it going though – a lot of people (myself included) seemed to think that one season with an impacting conclusion (Brody's death, one way or the other) would have been the way to go and I was surprised by how many people I know who watch the show seemed to be wary of the second season. However the writers mostly manage to do it, although the quality is lower. The plot contrivances and conveniences are much more evident here and, although it regularly pleases by being subdued and downbeat, it does have more moments in this season that would have fitted in easily in a show like 24 – which the first season was clearly not. Indeed we even a few "Kim trapped by cougar" moments in here regarding some of the supporting characters, one or two of which are really quite clunky in terms of how they come about and what they are used for.

The cast remain pretty good. Lewis in particular is convincing in regard the effect the pressure has on him and because he sells this side of his character, it allows the doubt to come back to the viewer as well, because we don't know where he is going all the time. OK he relies a bit too much on the tight-jawed stare technique but mostly he is good. Danes continues to be engaging in her own wild-eyed way, she has a bit less subtly this season but that is perhaps more to do with the material that her performance. Patinkin remains stoic and wise while Harewood is slippery and corporate in nature. The rest of the supporting cast are mostly good, even if some of them do have weaker material to work with.

Not as strong as the first season then, but it is still solidly good and manages to play with the viewer to a certain extent. My worry about "how do they keep this going" is somewhat reduced for the third season by the way that the writers have worked to reintroduce the doubt over Brody by way of the season finale. How it plays out we'll have to wait and see but the "is he/isn't he" aspect is back sort of as it was in the first season.

Episode 12 to the rescue

[stuttgart20111 · 10/10 · 18 December 2012]

Yes, thats it. Thats the stuff I want from this show.

After a glorious season 1, season 2 got more and more boring with each Episode and sometimes even hilariously stupid. A huge disappointment for me ........ but then came Episode 12 and really saved the whole season.

Now there are so many possibilities where this show can go, its just fantastic. I cant wait for season 3. And I was about to turn my back on this show, luckily the Wriers managed to argue against that with this Episode.

One thing though, a few acting lessons for Claire Danes would be nice.

Started out strong, but gradually fell apart

[GibsonExplorer1976 · 6/10 · 5 March 2013]

This season is strange in that it feels backwards. The first two episodes were my favourites of the whole series, and then it gradually grew weaker and weaker, until the final three episodes were some of the weakest I'd seen from this show.

Characters who were handled carefully in the previous season became useless and annoying, relationships felt forced and overplayed and as a whole, the story felt out of focus.

The real problems surfaced around the halfway mark. Most of the time people were drifting out of character and subplots were cropping up with no seemingly logical reason other than to create unneeded drama. In the end all these subplots had achieved was to hold back the main plot more than it should have been.

But it was Nazir's character that was the biggest disappointment this season. "Broken Hearts" was the worst episode of the series, followed by "In Memoriam" which was the second weakest. Both served to turn Nazir into a terrorist caricature plucked right out of 24. In the first season I had seen Nazir as almost humane, in a way. He was a terrorist, of course, but he seemed to have some sort of philosophy to him. This season, he wasn't reluctant to admit that no such thing was true; he was your standard terrorist.

After watching the first season I made a prediction that the series would lose its foundation and stray off in new directions, and I'm half-right. The show is desperately clutching on to its roots and seems ready to milk its premise more than it should be while slowly burying itself in subplots and far-fetched plot twists.

As a U.S. Army veteran.....

[LittleStorpingInTheSwuff · 4/10 · 8 June 2018]

I lost respect for this episode when they gave Nazir the terrorist, who was responsible for who knows how many deaths, a burial at sea with honors. Sorry, but in my opinion that was a slap in the face to all the brave men who died serving our country fighting terrorism. The rest of the episode was okay, but that particular scene destroyed it for me.

Nonsense

[lennylam · 7/10 · 25 December 2020]

Why Brody has to flee? It's so easy to watch the cctv to see who moved his car! What a goof

Interesting

[sebastianmitton · 18 December 2012]

I felt this season so far has had its ups and downs with it evidently not really moving along fast enough. I felt the story stayed quite stationary up until the last three episodes when suddenly Nazir appears ... only to be killed off in a very anticlimactic fashion.

Regardless of that, we start off this episode with Quinn watching Brody and Carrie and my initial thought was that it was going to be an episode of cat and mouse as Quinn hunted Brody down. However, that sub-plot was short lived when Quinn tells David Estes that he won't do it any more. We then never see him again, I hope he returns next season.

At around the 30 minute mark I thought to myself "This does not feel like a season finale at all, rather just and ordinary episode to fill up the season." But then the last 15 minutes or so finally turned things around.

A bomb goes off at the late Vice Presidents funeral killing David Estes, the Vice Presidents family and along with 200 or so more people in the room. A major blow to America as a nation. However, Brody happened to be else where at that moment despite being invited to the funeral. he was with Carrie, and only moments before the bomb is detonated Brody notices his car is not where he originally parked it. The bomb is in Brody's car and after a bit of back and forth between Carrie and Brody debating whether or not it was Brody's doing, the world soon learns that ex- Congressmen Nicholas Brody is a terrorist and that it was his car that blew up.

The season wraps up with the main characters in crisis. Brody, with the help of Carrie is smuggled out of the country. She then returns to base where Sual is happy to see her after she is presumed dead.

All in all, a rather boring start to a fulfilling episode, it only got good towards the end and I for one am glad it happened. The show needed to take a step forward and if this season had ended on a happy all is well note I would be considering not returning to see season 3.

I'm never good with predictions when it comes to shows but I am sure Sual will question where Carrie had been for the hours that followed the explosion.

I gave it an 8/10

What happened

[bdillon-133-442971 · 2/10 · 20 December 2012]

Did the writes have a reverse conversion on the road to Damascus (yes I know its in Syria as opposed to Iraq or Lebanon!) After a taut, enthralling & mesmeric first series, series 2, aside from a flurry I vaguely remember, lurched from the mundane, the bizarre, the ludicrous to finally the banal ending to the series.

Saw it through to the end, not sure why. Some was out of hope, which I knew was fading rapidly, little was out of expectation; and I wasn't disappointed on this front; but mostly out of the same principle to read a book I have started, to see it through, but knowing I won't be buying the sequel.

Mandy Patinkin, you deserve better.

The show seems to be running out of gas

[daniel-naughton · 21 February 2013]

This season got worse and worse. Killing Nazir while he's running around in a old chemical plant by himself. No armed guards, no support, just that spider hole - that was silly. That's like finding Bin Laden hiding out in the back of a McDonalds with cable ties to strap you to the shake machine.

Carrie and Brodie escape from the law to go fishing in Newfoundland - that was ridiculous.

The assassin with a change of heart with Brodie in the gun sight - also ridiculous.

This show could take a few pages from the Game of Thrones - a little more character purging. Brodie should have been blown up with the VP last season, and they should have started with some new Characters. Saul needs to go too.

"I love you Brodie, but I'm so confused. I don't trust you, but I feel connected to you.". "I love you too Carrie, but you work for the CIA and I'm a terrorist". Over and over again.

Wasted opportunity to rival Breaking Bad

[skyhawk77 · 6/10 · 1 February 2018]

First season was great especially the pilot and last two episodes so i watched the 2nd season with bated breathe because it was still the same kind of edge of the seat stuff until the last two episodes.

A series has plenty of time to tie up loose ends unlike movies. Great series don't pull things out of thin air. It seems like writers are having a hard time coming up with great stuff. This episode left me wondering, confused and disappointed. Disappointed by the chemistry between Carrie who seems to have fallen head over heels in love with a terrorist despite her job hanging by a thread.

Also Carrie seems to have become too 'clever". She figures almost every solution to a problem and the men around her are clueless.

Peter Queen is tasked with killing Brody after failing to get a clean shot all weekend he gets one of Brody facing east and praying to Allah. That should have been enough reason for Peter to pull the trigger but he backs down and next time we see him in David Estees' bedroom telling him that Carrie has been through a lot and deserves a break. Wow

I am going to watch season 3 but i am not in a hurry.