TV Review: HOMELAND: Season 2, Episode 1: The Smile

Rollo Tomasi September 22, 2012Last Updated: October 1, 2012

Homeland Season 2 Episode 1 The Smile Review. Homeland: Season 2, Episode 1: The Smile shows the end result of one US government campaign and the beginning of another. Unlike last season, which dealt with the past and the present, this season begins by focusing on the present and the future.

The highlight of episode was Marine Sergeant Nicholas Brody (Damian Lewis) and the events that circled closely around his life. The most dramatic was his daughter Dana Brody (Morgan Saylor) mentioning this he was Muslim at a posh new private school and her mother Jessica Brody (Morena Baccarin) confronting her and Brody about the “lie” later that night at home. Seeing Nicholas so uncomfortable and his daughter searching for help and rescue with her eyes during her interrogation by her mother was great writing and great acting.

His wife’s reaction to his eventual admission and the “Did you just say that?” moment later in the episode weren’t just her raw reactions but the reactions of the public in their fictional universe and in our own at the same time.

Sergeant Brody demonstrates that he is the worst spy. When uncomfortable or nervous, he usually shows it in some way or form. He was hilarious when the reporter came to his office for an interview – who turned out to be an Abu Nazir (Navid Negahban) retainer – and was confronted about his affiliation with Nazir.

Carrie Anderson (Claire Danes) is extraordinary in the fact that she would work with the very people that threw her out of the CIA and onto the street with her pants down. The gale and daring by David Estes (David Harewood) to ask her to help the CIA and her country after being instrumental in her firing was almost as profound.

It was exciting to see Anderson use “Trade Craft”, both mind and body, at the end of the episode on a would-be assailant, grinning with pride that she still had it.

This season of Homeland has already started off better than the last.

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