Homeland Bosses round the Season Finale: Showtime Wanted Damian Lewis for the next Year

Damian Lewis, Claire Danes [SPOILER WARNING: This story unveils key plot aspects of Sunday's season finale. Read in the own risk.]Homeland's first season finale posed the question: Would traitorous Marine Sgt. Nicholas Brody (Damian Lewis) really perform a suicide bombing keen on the v . p . from the united states . States? See where Homeland ranked inside our countdown from the finest Tv Shows of 2011The only-on-TV answer: It is dependent. Although Brody attempted to blow themselves as well as the veep to smithereens, nothing happened when he switched the switch on his snazzy new suicide vest, due to a annoying loose wire. Barbara (Claire Danes), whose instincts are apparently infallible, developed a last-ditch effort to avoid Brody by telling his wife (Morena Baccarin) and daughter (Morgan Saylor) of her accusations about his terrorist ties. Everyone knows Barbara is suitable, clearly, but from the inside, she looks a little nuts - and he or she knows it. Inside the episode's final scene, Barbara decides to pass through electroshock therapy to ensure that people good instincts (also called manic episodes) won't get her into any longer trouble. But merely just before the anesthesia takes effect, she recalls that Brody mentioned "Issa," the title of Abu Nazir's boy, within the sleep, piecing together Brody's revenge-based motive for betraying his country.We asked for Howard Gordon and Alex Gansa, co-designers of Homeland and former 24 producers, to explain why they thought we would keep Brody alive, what Barbara will remember after her treatment and the way naive and/or suspicious Brody's family will truly become in Season 2. (Plus: The thing that was everything of a mole?)Had you been nervous whatsoever about how precisely much story you resolved versus the quantity you left hanging?Alex Gansa: It's a little like testing the soup. It must be perfect. We thought at least the attack that was guaranteed inside the pilot would either succeed or fail within the finish of the year. We type of felt, only at that very fundamental level, that must be satisfied. And certainly, there is a anxiety attack, as well as the attack is stopped using a confluence of occasions as well as the direct actions within our heroes.Just how much the ending do you realize just before the growing season began?Gansa: We understood that Brody would instigate a anxiety attack from those who were responsible for Issa's dying - that there's apt to be a person cause of his actions. We were not sure, for example, he'd be wearing a suicide vest. We thought there can be yet another way he'd take away the audience responsible. As we made a decision round the suicide vest, it opened up up up a whole lot options for people, the key one being that individuals could put him in the room while using v . p . and possess the vest malfunction.See Danes and Lewis inside our Best Performances of 2011 photo galleryWhich also keeps Brody alive for the next season...Gansa: That was the fantastic factor in regards to the vest. We constantly our cake and eat it too. [Brody] switched the switch. Meaning he'd undergo in what he'd planned to accomplish, however it didn't work. To make sure that made an appearance to supply us two excellent accomplishments: One, it resolved his story. ... And A Pair Of, it opened up up up the potential for redemption.Maybe you have consider a predicament where Brody was effective and died?Gansa: Absolutely. Whether Brody would survive the finale was virtually an empty question as much as we recognized the vest could malfunction. We'd have in all probability ended it and introduced another factor next season, much very much the same the Wire would introduce completely new tales each year. That was really available for just about any very very long time this season. Ultimately, we felt that you will find just more to see between Brody and Barbara. And then we made a decision to keep him alive. Also, Showtime wanted Damian Lewis around for the next year.Who could blame them? Just what does the next chapter of Barbara and Brody's story appear like?Howard Gordon: The key will most likely be to acquire Barbara in to the intelligence community in some manner, because she's been ostracized and excommunicated from that kind of work. So that's our narrative hurdles. The second factor is the best way to chart Brody's new strategy. He's now devoted to Abu Nazir he will proceed in this particular political way, really playing the extended game. So we will need to sort out how people two different strands in the story will intersect.I imagine you can't just switch a switch and acquire Barbara within the CIA.Gordon: There exists a very specific solution for the.Gansa: Jack Bauer was exiled virtually every year [on 24] and must be cut in a way. [Laughs]Showtime orders Season 2 of HomelandLet's discuss Carrie's decision to pass through electroconvulsive therapy. Is she really trying to control her disease or possibly is she for some reason trying to erase her emotional link to Brody?Gordon: It's both things. In my opinion she's inside a reason behind her existence where her illness will get a whole lot worse - where it's cost her career. It's also cost her the bond while using another individual, that's, Brody, that she's mounted on. In my opinion she's just within the finish of her rope. She's made a decision to accomplish this because she really, wants to get her existence back and wishes to try and control her feelings also to control her trajectory in the world. She can't persist at these extremes.Saul (Many Patinkin) very pointedly stated the potential for forgetfulness. Is always that certainly the road you're choosing to follow along with together with next season, with Barbara negelecting her last-second realization about Brody's link to Issa?Gordon: Absolutely. One of the undesirable results of ECT remedies are short-term forgetfulness. Clearly, it leaves Barbara inside the second season while using audience waiting for the time being where she recalls these products - where she relearns it or starts to begin to suspect Brody again of really being the guy she thinks he was.I believe that it is good that Brody's family "knows" his secret, even if they don't believe Barbara. Which kind of tension will that produce next season?Gordon: Your family will most likely be asked for to obtain together around Brody's campaign. They will probably abnormally be created to behave as if it's all regulated controlled for starters then one for individuals. However think Dana especially features a fairly apparent sense that her father isn't proclaiming that everything. That's [the reason] in the type of ambiguous scene round the roof within the finish. So, what is the uneasy alliance among the differing people in the family? That'll be considered a sizable, large part of the second season.Gansa: One of the fun parts from year upon year is finding where figures have traveled throughout however sufficient time has happened. The situation is greatly at play throughout these characters' lives, but we could locate them in very worthwhile moments, which we'll deliver on hopefully with the season. Is Showtime's Homeland TV's first publish-publish-9/11 show?Will you have a sense about the amount of time might have passed between seasons at this time around? Gordon: We just have no clue yet.We heard mention of the a mole inside the Agency this season. Is always that plot still alive? Can it be in some manner connected to the vice president's cover-in the drone attack?Gordon: People are usually excellent questions. In my opinion the mole is unquestionably alive. Chances are we'll have who that each is next season. And [we'll also see] the dynamics inside the CIA, in regards to the cover-up that's happened. The vice president's recommended like a factor in this particular drone attack. The power struggle that continues between Estes [David Harewood] and Saul will most likely be all grist for your mill for your second season.The question hanging over this season was: "Is Brody a terrorist?" Will you have a similar story engine at the center of Season 2?Gordon: "The way in which Barbara learn to suspect Brody again?" That's truly the central question in the second season, however we decide to tell the story. Carrie's prone to in some manner need to determine they was right ultimately which Brody is at some sense a menace towards the nation, although diversely. She's gonna need to stop him, the man they loves.Earlier you mentioned that Brody features a chance for redemption. Even though he's destroyed Tom Master (Chris Chalk), might he still abandon the main reason?Gordon: Clearly. But Brody's mission will not be another terrorist attack. His mission will most likely be much more insidious than that. It will have a very different dynamic than this season clearly. But the potential for redemption is available.Whoever else consider Homeland's finale?