TV Review: HOMELAND: Season 1, Episode 1: Pilot

Homeland Season 1 Episode 1 Pilot Review. Homeland: Season 1, Episode 1: Pilot answers the 2011 Showtime TV show’s central question around the mid-point of the episode. That central question is whether or not Marine Sergeant Nicholas Brody (Damian Lewis) has been “turned” by his eight year Iraqi captors, specifically Abu Nazir (Navid Negahban).

I believe this was a major fault of the new series by answering this question so quickly. I might have been better to maintain the question and the mystery for a few more episodes or possibly all the way up to the last episode of the first season.

Now its a question of when and where the CIA will find out the answer to this question and how they will come about it.

The use of flashbacks is very good in the series, one of its strongest points. What is shrouded in mystery, usually the past, is made clear through them.

The sex scenes in the first episode of Homeland serve as story elements and are not thrown in, salacious fodder as is en vogue with many new TV shows on pay cable networks. The second sex scene in this episode is the most dramatic. When Brody’s shirt comes off and his wife, Jessica Brody (Morena Baccarin), sees all of the scars from his numerous tortures (like in Brothers), his wife wants to scream at what she sees. Its as if someone has died and she is viewing the body for the first time. Perhaps it is the death of her war innocence. Either way, tears appear in her eyes. When sex between them occurs, it was always going to be intense with Sergeant Brody not having a woman for eight years but Sergeant Brody thrusts are as violent as Bill Compton’s were in his infamous sex scene (True Blood: It Hurts Me Too Sex Scene) with his maker. The viewer sees the result of them on Jessica’s face.

Carrie Anderson (Claire Danes) clandestinely unhinged CIA Operations officer is not the normal protagonist (she takes anti-psychotics), a woman that has intercourse to service a physical need not an emotional one, whose OCD is both a hinderance to her and an asset. Being unstable makes her and the series vastly more entertaining.

Where this shows goes from here will make for a good drama.

For more Homeland reviews, photos, videos, and information, check out our Homeland  Page.