Homeland, Carrie and Brody, Was it Love?: Part I

As I’ve written before, I didn’t know who Damian Lewis was until Jennifer Lawrence went full-on fangirl over him on camera. Until then, I’d heard of Homeland only thru my Twitter timeline, taken over by live tweeters every Sunday night. And what you learn from following timelines for a show is 1) a lot of people you like to keep up with on Twitter watch a show, and 2) a lot of those people, when they are watching said show, are often reduced to exclamations of “OMG #Homeland”, “WTF #Homeland”, “Wow, didn’t see that coming #Homeland”, and the very informative “Can’t wait till next week #Homeland”.

So, JLaw’s unscripted display of awesome awe at seeing Brody on a red carpet combined with the wealth of information from my timeline drove me to pursue the show. I got the basic premise and players and knew it came from the folks who made 24, but, foolishly, before deciding to shell out the Showtime subscription, I started with trying to find clips on YouTube. All I found were music videos, and the kiss in the parking lot was immediately spoiled.

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Homeland, Carrie and Brody: Was it Love?

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Took many breaks while walking us all through the love story told on Homeland Seasons 1-3, and, while we wile away what remains of the summer, this time I plan to finish it. Here’s where the “argument” starts.  Continue reading “Homeland, Carrie and Brody: Was it Love?”

Marry, Shag, Banish – Damian Lewis
Characters Version

It’s game time! Growing up I loved watching 70’s/80’s game shows. Remember these catch phrases?

“Come on down!”
“Survey says…”
“No whammies, no whammies, no whammies…and STOP!”
“I’d like to buy a vowel.”

And I’m in heaven with the recent revivals of Match Game, Celebrity Family Feud, and To Tell the Truth. I even DVR old Match Game episodes from time to time to watch my favorite panelists Brett Somers and Charles Nelson Reilly like I did when I watched reruns as a child.

If it’s a game, you can count me in! I often host Bunco round-robins, hold Whiz Spades tournaments, and throw Mexican Train Dominoes events.  I am no emcee–I have to be in on the action and playing.  Games are great fun, whether spending family time together or as an added bonus to your dinner party with friends. Even drinking games like Never Have I Ever and Marry, Shag Kill are hysterical to play.

Which brings me to Marry, Shag, Kill (our version is Marry, Shag, Banish to an Island).

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Brody in Homeland S6

When Brody died on Homeland, I was one of those fans who searched high and low, scrambling to find somewhere to talk about him and about the show. At one point I ended up on the Facebook page for Homeland and tried fruitlessly to sift thru all the flat “No Brody No Homeland” pointlessness to find someone who saw what I saw in the character and in the show. Brody will never die, I thought. So why rage into the void, begging for him to come back from the dead? Shows do listen to such things, I suppose. But, even if they did listen to all the pleas from fans, what would Brody come back for? To be a dad to his new daughter? To live happily ever after with Carrie? Really, fans?

No. Brody was dead. In fact, he was dead from the minute he got off the plane and saw Jess for the first time. I spoke at length of this aspect of the character before, here and here and here. The remarkable thing about the character was this very thing, that he was a dead man walking. A cipher, a mystery, an empty vessel filled with nothing except what various people put in his head. The fact that Damian played that emptiness so FULLY is the remarkable thing, the memorable thing, the thing that compels us to never let go of the character. Characters written so completely and played so fully never die, do they? The truth and the reality of Brody lives on and will never die.

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Billions Homeland Crossover Fanfic: Somebody That I Used to Know

Summer seems to be the time when showrunners are heads-down working on writing next season’s episodes. Seems it may also be the time when those of us awaiting those stories can make up some of our own. I made up the following story last year when we were waiting for Billions Season 2. Enjoy!

Standard disclaimer: I own nothing, neither of these characters, nor their history, real or imagined, not the coffee they share, nor New York City, their current home.

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