History YMMV / Homeland

* BaseBreakingCharacter: Around mid-season 2, Nick Brody has become this as some see him as flawed, but ultimately sympathetic considering everything hes been through with stress and being manipulated but whose heart was always in the right place, especially after his HeelFaceTurn. Others think he merely changes from a hardened survivor who's able to keep his secrets from everyone to a weak and whining pawn between the CIA and Abu Nazir.

** The Brody family is in general a group of TheScrappy.

*** Even Brody himself has become a scrappy for some. Around mid-season 2, he changes from a hardened survivor who's able to keep his secrets from everyone to a weak and whining pawn between the CIA and Abu Nazir.

* AlasPoorScrappy: [[spoilers: Brody became [[BaseBreakingCharacter a divisive character]] mostly due to some feeling his story arc got dragged out, him getting away with his crimes for quite long and lying so much to the point where it became exhausting. Yet his redemtion arc in Season 3 is generally considered well-executed and many got emotional by his death scene.]]

* TrueArtIsAngsty: This show isn't shy showing the physical, mental, and emotional damage that the war on terror has on both sides of the conflict. American Intelligence officers and soldiers constantly have to make morally-corrupt choices that result in innocent lives lost, they're frequently put in danger and can be killed at any time, and almost none of them are capable of maintaining a personal life. Meanwhile, terrorists are shown to have families and their motivations typically revolve around the loss of their loves ones and the supposed "heroes" covering up their murders and blaming the deaths on easy scapegoats. Nevertheless, the show has gotten nothing but praise from critics and fans for accurately depicting all of these themes without fully demonizing one side or the other, [[BlackAndWhiteMorality something many other shows and films are prone to doing]].

* AuthorsSavingThrow: The first few seasons were heavily criticized for painting Muslims as nothing but misogynistic murderers and terrorists. Season 4 directly responded to this with the season premiere showing the CIA (accidentally) bombing ''a wedding'' via drone strike that killed a few dozen innocents, and having a subplot focusing on Aayan, a young Muslim man who lost his family at the wedding, struggling to cope with this. Even after the man who organized the strike was beaten to death in the street, Aayan openly states that he's repulsed by both the Americans ''and'' Muslims, and that beating a defenseless man to death doesn't make them better than those who bombed the wedding.

* UnfortunateImplications:
** [[http://www.salon.com/2012/12/15/tvs_most_islamophobic_show/ There]] [[http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2012/oct/13/homeland-drama-offensive-portrayal-islam-arabs has]] [[http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jan/15/winner-islamophobia-argo-homeland been]] [[http://www.thenational.ae/arts-culture/television/is-homeland-islamophobic criticism]] of the show's depiction of Muslims and the Middle East in general. Whether seemingly westernized and educated or ignorant and fanatical, the overwhelming bulk of the show's 'Muslim' cast have ended up being linked to the terrorists in one way or another. The Islam of Homeland is presented almost as a monolith, with Hezbollah and Al-Qaeda teaming up to kill Americans without complicated ideas like 'Shia' and 'Sunni' being introduced to complicate such a team-up or acknowledging that Hezbollah has never targeted the United States for attack. The show's presentation of Hamra Street in Beirut, in reality a bustling and cosmopolitan area with shops and cafes, as a dirty haven for terrorist and armed militia even led Lebanon to threaten legal action.
*** [[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-34536434 It's gotten to the point]] that artists hired to provide Arabic graffiti in the background [[WriterRevolt wrote messages criticizing Homeland for racism into the show itself]].
** The third season makes things worse by [[http://www.complex.com/pop-culture/2013/12/homeland-season-3-iran-critique making the]] [[http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/16/homeland-worst-lies-us-power-foreign-policy entire nation of Iran]] the enemy and by making Javadi a cartoonish Evil Muslim who stabs his ex-wife to death because all Muslims are {{Straw Misogynist}}s. Iran, a country whose people once held candlelight vigils for the victims of the 9/11 attacks, is here shown as a place where everyone cheers Brody the suspected terrorist when they discover who he is, with the CIA bomber quickly becoming a national hero.

* FoeYay: Nothing subjective about it, really; Carrie goes from [[IsThatWhatTheyreCallingItNow pumping Brody for information]], to [[DatingCatwoman having an affair with him while she continues to investigate him]], to [[BecomingTheMask falling in love with him]].

** [[VisionaryVillain Abu Nazir]] is an al-Qaeda commander who longs to destabilize the American government. After capturing soldiers Nicholas Brody and Tom Walker, Nazir forced Brody to seemingly kill Walker, before later halting his torture so he could nurse Brody back to health. After his son, Issa, and dozens of other children are killed in a drone strike launched by Vice President Walden, Nazir used the incident to expose America's hypocrisy to Brody. Seeking revenge, Nazir allowed Brody to be rescued by American soldiers so he, and Nazir's other agents, would gradually dismantle Walden from within and eliminate anyone in their path. When Brody fails to kill the Vice President, he instead has Brody try to influence Walden's policies against the Middle East. As he plans another terrorist attack, Nazir Brody's LoveInterest, and forces Brody to assist him in killing the Vice President in exchange for freeing her. Once Walden is dead, [[ThanatosGambit Nazir allows himself to be caught and killed by the police]] so his followers can later set off a bomb during Walden's memorial service and frame Brody for the attack.

* MemeticMutation: Chris Brody's lack of importance.

* TheUntwist: Averted and inverted at the end of Season 2. Abu Nazir is dead, which in Estes's eyes, makes Brody expendable. Estes orders Quinn to take out Brody. Quinn stands down, arguing that Brody and Carrie did lead them to Abu Nazir. So Brody lives another day, despite the buildup that had taken place in prior episodes. Estes lets Saul go, thus resolving the plot thread where Estes planned to ruin Saul's career. By this point in the episode, the show has almost run out of established story to move forward... until the car bomb goes off at Vice-President Walden's funeral. Ironically, in targeting someone he determined was expendable, Estes became expendable himself.

* TakeThatScrappy: A lot of fans were getting sick of the Brody family as a whole by Season 3, especially with Dana's infamous romantic subplot. So the writers not only wrote Jessica and Chris out the season, but they also had Dana move out the house to live in some crappy motel with a roommate, and [[spoiler:hanged Nicholas Brody in the season finale]]. From Season 4 onwards, the Brody family is rarely brought back up.

%%* JerkassWoobie: Carrie.

** Reviewers have long criticized the show for making Al-Qaeda more competent than they really are, though the writers tried to {{justif|iedTrope}}y this deviation by implying that Abu Nazir's network is actually a Qaeda splinter group. Several months after the conclusion of Abu Nazir arc, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria came to prominence. For those not keeping up with the news, ISIS started off as a franchise of al-Qaida until they broke off completely in mid-2014, and they have proven to be far more powerful and dangerous than their former parent organization.

* NightmareFuel: Of all the horrible scenes that have happened in this show, an overwhelming chunk of audience agree that Carrie's near-drowning her own baby terrifies them the most. Does she mean it? Is she just careless? Or is it an illusion entirely? We'll never find out.

* DesignatedHero: Carrie, by Season 3. She drinks heavily despite being pregnant, and nearly compromises national security while pursuing her love affair with Brody. [[http://grantland.com/hollywood-prospectus/sunday-night-tv-precap-carrie-mathisons-terrible-at-her-job-rick-vs-the-guv-and-50-years-of-the-doctor/ As noted by Andy Greenwald]], Carrie is quite bad at her job. It goes FromBadToWorse when she turns pedophile and sleeps with Aayan, repeatedly, despite him wanting to be pure and keep his beliefs (his age is left vague, while he may be physically mature enough he has the mental and emotional capacity of a child) all to turn him against his father. Many fans were rather Squicked by this.

* MagnificentBastard: Abu Nazir's magnificence and bastardy are hard to match. VisionaryVillain? Check. [[XanatosGambit Playing the long game?]] Yessir. [[XanatosSpeedChess Adaptable?]] Oh yes. [[RefugeInAudacity Daring?]] And how! Willing to kill [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness underlings whom he no longer needs]], [[YouHaveFailedMe those who threaten his security]], [[AndYourLittleDogToo their parents, wives, siblings]], and [[WouldHurtAChild children]]? You bet.

* FamilyUnfriendlyAesop: Used in "The Good Soldier." The moral given is: "It's OK to cheat on your partner if your partner did it first." Brody and Carrie have drunken sex in the back of Carrie's car. Incidentally, Brody has had trouble getting aroused around his wife, Jessica.

* UnintentionallyUnsympathetic: We're clearly supposed to sympathize with Brody's spiral down into rock bottom, but let us not forget that the guy's a terrorist who was planning to a) infiltrate high office or b) blow up a lot of people. Not to mention that he did, in fact, kill multiple people in service to terrorism. He deserves everything he gets.

* JerkassWoobie: Carrie.

*** In the ''Homeland'' universe, the entire nation of Iran is, in fact, the enemy, the nation behind the 12/12 bombings. It's ironic that the USA and Iran reached an agreement in real life as the season aired, but Iran had been a real life enemy of the USA since 1980, and any CIA official who could have placed a spy high in the Iranian hierarchy would have been applauded by almost all Americans who knew of it.

* DesignatedHero: Carrie, by Season 3. She drinks heavily [[spoiler: despite being pregnant, and nearly compromises national security while pursuing her love affair with Brody]]. [[http://grantland.com/hollywood-prospectus/sunday-night-tv-precap-carrie-mathisons-terrible-at-her-job-rick-vs-the-guv-and-50-years-of-the-doctor/ As noted by Andy Greenwald]], Carrie is quite bad at her job. It goes FromBadToWorse when she turns pedophile and sleeps with Aayan, repeatedly, despite him wanting to be pure and keep his beliefs (his age is left vague, while he may be physically mature enough he has the mental and emotional capacity of a child) all to turn him against his father. Many fans were rather Squicked by this.
* FamilyUnfriendlyAesop: Used in "The Good Soldier." The moral given is: "It's OK to cheat on your partner if your partner did it first." [[spoiler: Brody and Carrie have drunken sex in the back of Carrie's car. Incidentally, Brody has had trouble getting aroused around his wife, Jessica.]]

* HoYay: [[spoiler: Brody and Abu Nazir.]]

** The third season makes things worse by [[http://www.complex.com/pop-culture/2013/12/homeland-season-3-iran-critique making the]] [[http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/16/homeland-worst-lies-us-power-foreign-policy entire nation of Iran]] the enemy and by making Javadi a cartoonish Evil Muslim who stabs his ex-wife to death because all Muslims are {{Straw Misogynist}}s. Iran, a country whose people once held candlelight vigils for the victims of the 9/11 attacks, is here shown as a place where [[spoiler: everyone cheers Brody the suspected terrorist when they discover who he is, with the CIA bomber quickly becoming a national hero.]]

* TheUntwist: Averted and inverted at the end of Season 2. [[spoiler: Abu Nazir is dead, which in Estes's eyes, makes Brody expendable. Estes orders Quinn to take out Brody. Quinn stands down, arguing that Brody and Carrie did lead them to Abu Nazir. So Brody lives another day, despite the buildup that had taken place in prior episodes. Estes lets Saul go, thus resolving the plot thread where Estes planned to ruin Saul's career. By this point in the episode, the show has almost run out of established story to move forward... until the car bomb goes off at Vice-President Walden's funeral. Ironically, in targeting someone he determined was expendable, Estes became expendable himself.]]

* TheWoobie: Nicholas Brody. He comes back to his family eight years after leaving them, tortured and broken and struggling to return to normal life--[[spoiler:while also being forced to lie to them. Then he thinks that he's found someone who understands him--nope, she's been spying on him the whole time.]]
** [[spoiler:It gets worse in the second season after the CIA finally finds evidence that he is a terrorist, and forces him to work with them. He has to keep lying, and even more than he did before.]]

** Creator/TimotheeChalamet, who appeared as Finn Walden, before becoming a Academy Award nominee.

** Creator/MelissaBenoist playing a secondary character in Season 1, one year before her fame in ''Glee'' and ''Supergirl''.
** Creator/TimotheeChalamet, who appeared as Finn Walden.

** Season 2. Early Season 3 had [[spoiler: Saul seemed to be pitted against Carrie, when Carrie had been [[TheHero The (Anti)Hero]] and Saul had been the [[NiceGuy nicest character on the show]]. Some fans questioned Saul's morality, and others Carrie's sanity (and some certainly questioned both). It turned out that Saul was moral, Carrie was sane, and they were working together in a BatmanGambit to fool the Iranians]]. Viewers now have a different thing to question, whether they should have been kept out of the loop for almost 4 episodes.
** Season 3 in general has been this for many fans, as the increased reliance on twists, romance melodrama with Dana and Carrie's pregnancy, and the continued survival of Nicholas Brody have caused much debate about the shows quality.

* CreatorsPet:
** Almost everyone calls Dana this in season 3, mostly because of the writer's decision to devote 35% of every early season episode ("Tower of David" excepted) to her RomanticPlotTumor despite how pointless and unpopular it's been to date.

** A lot of people are starting to call Dana this in season 3, mostly because of the writer's decision to devote 35% of every early season episode ("Tower of David" excepted) to her RomanticPlotTumor despite how pointless and unpopular it's been to date.
** Quinn. Some fans are not at all thrilled by his holier-than-thou attitude in Season 4.
* DesignatedHero: Carrie, by Season 3. She drinks heavily [[spoiler: despite being pregnant, and nearly compromises national security while pursuing her love affair with Brody]]. [[http://grantland.com/hollywood-prospectus/sunday-night-tv-precap-carrie-mathisons-terrible-at-her-job-rick-vs-the-guv-and-50-years-of-the-doctor/ As noted by Andy Greenwald]], Carrie is quite bad at her job.
** It goes FromBadToWorse when she turns pedophile and sleeps with Aayan, repeatedly, despite him wanting to be pure and keep his beliefs (his age is left vague, while he may be physically mature enough he has the mental and emotional capacity of a child) all to turn him against his father. Many fans were rather Squicked by this.

** Same for Creator/TimotheeChalamet, who appeared as Finn Walden.
* RomanticPlotTumor[=/=]JustHereForGodzilla: Opinions among the lines "Get on with the CIA's War on Terror and please do show Nick Brody every now and then, because personal dramas pertaining other characters are of little concern" are not uncommon, especially regarding the beginning of Season 3.

* SeasonalRot: A common view among the fans is that the series' writing quality gradually declined after a universally celebrated season 1. Season 4 is widely noted as an attempt by the writers to turn things back around, though how well they did that is definitely up to discussion.
* SophomoreSlump: The first season is universally loved. The second season... not so much. Season three started off very weakly, with opinions of the last few episodes varying.
* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot: Season 2. After the discovery of Brody's suicide video, the writers could spend the whole season milking out Carrie's new operation on Brody and working out their relationship in a Manga/DeathNote chess game-style. Instead they blew it right at the end of the episode.

** Same for Creator/TimothéeChalamet, who appeared as Finn Walden.

* RetroactiveRecognition: A year before heading to [[{{Series/Glee}} Lima, Ohio]] and four years before donning [[{{Series/Supergirl2015}} a rather famous cape]] and becoming allies with Estes, Creator/MelissaBenoist appeared in a Season 1 episode as a girl auditioning for a Saudi Arabian Prince's harem.