The new season will fast forward six months after events in the season 3 finale and Carrie, who is 'quite stable' now, is 'doing the job she was trained to do.'
- Jul 12, 2014
AceShowbiz - "Homeland" showrunner Alex Gansa has shared details of season 4 in an interview with Entertainment Weekly. Following [SPOILER ALERT!] the death of Damian Lewis' Nicholas Brody, the show is undergoing a major shake-up with new faces and new setting. "There's so many new roles to be cast, it's like doing another pilot-which is exciting and terrifying at same time," Gansa shares.
The new season will fast forward six months after events in the season 3 finale and Carrie doesn't sport a baby bump in a picture released via the site. Gansa explains, "She has given birth to the child." He refuses to say "where the kid is," but hints that Carrie won't juggle her job as a field agent with raising a child for the time being. "One of the reasons she's found herself in Afghanistan and Pakistan is it's a place where you're disallowed from bringing a dependent," he adds.
Dishing on Carrie's new job, he says, "It's about seeing Carrie Mathison for the first time doing the job she was trained to do - being a case officer in a foreign capital. We're going to see what an intelligence officer does on the ground. How she recruits assets, how she deals with the foreign government and her country team - the people she works with in the embassy - and the host country-s intelligence services. That is a complicated and murky world, one that we hope is filled with intrigue and drama and adventure."
Of Carrie's mental state, Gansa says, "On managing her mental illness, she's quite stable. Where she is managing her grief about her loss of Brody is a different question." Asked if Brody will return in flashbacks, he doesn't rule out the possibility because Brody "was such as significant part of Carrie's life that just to drop him completely would feel wrong, because Carrie is grieving for his loss."
He also realizes that "everybody is clamoring for a relationship between" Quinn and Carrie, and they're "toying with" it. While Quinn cares about Carrie "so much," the question is "whether Carrie is in any kind of emotional state to be open to a romance of any kind and does Quinn realize that's the case."
As for Saul who has left the CIA, he has "a central role" in season 4. "Saul in the past was Carrie's boss. Now that he's in the private sector he finds himself working underneath her and at her behest, so there's a role reversal that takes place there," Gansa dishes on Saul's new role.
He goes on sharing, "He finds himself overseas, but I don't want to give away too much. He's on the letterhead at a private military company in New York that as a result of the draw-down in Afghanistan finds a significant market opportunity in that part of the world."
Among the stars added to season 4 are Suraj Sharma, Laila Robins, Corey Stoll and Michael O'Keefe. Gansa describes the character played by each actor, revealing that Sharma plays "a medical school student studying in Islamabad whose path crosses with Carrie and becomes a significant person of interest for her."
Stoll's role is a "hard-driving, incredibly ambitious" station chief in Islamabad and Robins "plays the ambassador to Pakistan." Robins' character comes into conflict with Stoll's. As for O'Keefe, he plays "Deputy Chief of Mission in Islamabad, a guy who's been around forever, but has been passed over the for the role of station chief all his career, but is incredibly capable."
"Homeland" season 4 will premiere this fall on Showtime.
