After a slump last year, the American thriller drama TV series “Homeland” on Showtime is back on the nominee roll for the 2015 Primetime Emmy Awards as announced on July 16. This year, the Showtime drama received nominations for Outstanding Drama Series, Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series, Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series, and Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series.
“Homeland” co-creator, Alex Gansa, told The Hollywood Reporter that the whole team of the show felt devastated last year when they did not get any nomination for the drama series. The show started garnering awards and nominations from different award-giving bodies like the Primetime Emmy Awards, Golden Globe Awards, and Critics’ Choice Awards since its first season.
However, the third season of the drama series did not get any recognition so Gansa cited that the current nominations were truly unexpected and very gratifying at the same time. He knew that having a comeback in Hollywood would be tough, but they are grateful that they did it for the last season.
Now that the show is back to the Television Academy, the creators of the drama series want to keep the momentum for the next season. In order to do so, they shifted the storyline as well as the location of the series. They also infused new blood to the series with a set of new characters and actors too.
Shift of storyline and location
In “Homeland” Season 4, the story abandoned the romance between the two lead characters, Damian Lewis, and Claire Danes. However, for Season 5, the storyline will move away from the usual war on terror theme of the series to the current issue of hacktivism.
If the fourth installment of the series moved its location from North Carolina to South Africa, the upcoming season will move the locations from the Middle East to the south of Berlin and even to Ukraine and east of Russia.
According to Gansa, the move to go to Berlin for the series location is appropriate as Germany is where hacktivists stay because the privacy laws in the country are stringent. It would be difficult for authorities to conduct surveillance of the individuals living in the area.
With regards to the plot for the upcoming season, the lead character, Carrie Mathison, will cut her ties with the CIA at the start of the fifth season and will work as the head of security for a German philanthropist, according to the Christian Examiner. Mathison’s move to Berlin, Germany was self-imposed since she is striving to reconcile her disillusionment with her guilt while reminiscing the years she worked fighting against terrorism.
Danes said her character in Season 5 might be confused at first due to the situations that made her life social and normal. Some of the interesting things that happened to Mathison were having friends, being in a relationship, and even having her own child.
Those changes will lead Mathison to look for a new purpose and passion, but showrunner Alex Carey told E! News that it will not last long since her relationship with her new boss in the series would be rocky. This relationship is one of the upcoming season’s interesting plotline as Mathison and the new German boss would first become an ally and then the story will unfold from there.
New season, new blood
Meanwhile, the latest season of the “Homeland” series will infuse new blood through its new set of cast members. Due to the main character’s move to Berlin, new faces are expected to appear.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, there will be four new characters that will appear regularly in the new season. The new actresses who will be joining the cast are Miranda Otto of “Lord of the Rings” and Sarah Sokolovic of “Cold Comes the Night.” At the same time, the actors who will join the new season of “Homeland” are Alexander Fehling of “Inglourious Bastards” and Sebastian Koch of “The Lives of Others.”
Koch will become Mathison’s new German philanthropist boss in the latest season while Fehling will play as Jonas Happich and Sokolovic will be his American journalist colleague at Düring Foundation. Otto, on the other hand, will play as the chief of the station of Berlin, who will work under Mandy Patinkin’s Saul Berenson.