It’s been a long wait, but fans of “Homeland” that have been waiting for the new season of the show have finally learned the air date for its new episodes. There have been various rumors going around and certainly a great deal of confusion among the community, as nobody was really sure when we were going to get season 5. According to the official announcement, the new episodes are coming on October 4.
A special teaser poster for season 5 was released, giving the official date along with the tagline “the only way out is back in”. There aren’t many plausible ways to interpret that, given how the show’s last season ended, and it most likely implies that Carrie will end up working with her former colleagues in one way or another. Of course, she might be reluctant to do that, but in the end, working for such an agency doesn’t exactly give one a lot of freedom of choice.
We don’t yet know if she will actually run into Saul, Quinn, or any of the others in the beginning of season 5 – or during the whole season in general – but the trailer for the season did imply that we’ll be seeing them around at least a few times. Fans who have been worried that the show’s dynamic might be changing too much shouldn’t be alarmed, as it looks like the producers are going to implement any changes very carefully and gradually, and aren’t going to break up the original cast setup.
Why would she even have to work with her old colleagues again though? The main speculation right now is that the agency will need her help in some way, but we don’t know what that could be about. A lot of time will have passed since she was last involved with them, and the plot could have developed in many different ways, so we’re curious to see what the writers have come up with.
There will be many new characters in season 5 and the writers of the show are expanding the cast quite significantly. Examples include Sebastian Koch, a German actor who will play the role of Carrie’s boss, as well as Miranda Otto, Alexander Fehling and Sarah Sokolovic. Fehling will have the role of Carrie’s boyfriend, while Sokolovic will be playing as an American journalist, though we don’t know her exact motivation in the new storyline.
We do know that the new season will have some real-life political implications behind it though, particularly with regards to the conflict in the Middle East and Russia/Ukraine. There will be various references to the current situation in our world, and the season might actually be quite heavy on the political themes, which would be interesting to see. Not many shows have touched the topic of those modern conflicts that heavily so far, at least when it comes to the one in Ukraine, so it would be exciting to see how it’s presented by the producers of “Homeland”.
Carrie will find herself in Berlin, where hacktivists apparently go due to the German privacy laws that make it difficult to spy on people. Apparently, the season is going to make various references to the modern political situation about spying and surveillance, something that has been a hot topic in the media lately in general. That could be an interesting bit of leverage to boost the show’s popularity, and it should definitely bring some extra ratings to them if they play it right.