Claire Danes has played a lot of challenging roles: she’s physically ill, depressed, autistic and even a suicidal star-crossed lover in previous projects. But never has she portrayed emotional complexity so well as she has as Carrie Mathison in Showtime’s psychological thriller Homeland. Mathison, a CIA officer who follows her gut instincts far beyond a dangerously inappropriate line, suffers from bipolar disorder. Because of her condition, she plays “secret agent” not only in the field, but also among her peers in order to conceal her mental health.
While Danes’ performance is nothing short of fantastic, it can also be painfully unbearable to watch.
As Carrie falls in and out of “hypomanic” states, highlighted by an almost incoherent speech pace, rapid thoughts, sleeplessness, and a heightened confidence, just watching Danes talk to a friend can be a minefield of an interaction.
Not only do daily routines, like picking out an outfit, become an agonizing experience for Carrie, her mind becomes a war-zone in and of itself. At one point, her mind is so fixated on one conclusive theory, she interrogates and verbally accosts innocent bystanders, thus invading the personal privacy of her targets. In bipolar disorder, these states are often what come before a manic episode: the exact culmination that occurs at the end of season one.
As a viewer, you want Carrie to calm down. You want her to think about the ridiculous risks she’s taking before she’s being reprimanded and punished by her superiors, with only her intuitions and choice expletives to defend herself with. But if she thought rationally, if she made sense in everything she was doing, she wouldn’t be Carrie. She wouldn’t have a meticulous attention to detail that would allow her to connect prisoner of war Sgt. Brody’s twitching hand to a memorized pattern used to signal his proposed Al-Qaeda leaders. She wouldn’t refuse to accept what her other CIA operatives believed, and search for substantial proof that she could trust. She wouldn’t think to connect seemingly mundane code-names to time-sensitive terrorist signals. She wouldn’t spend sleepless nights organizing all of the information she has collected from the past decade into an accurate (and color coordinated) map of the next attacks against America. Her energy, her emotion, and her drive pull you in so convincingly that you believe everything she thinks, is, in fact, right. For a split second, you trust her. Then the concept of her irrationality kicks in, and you can’t decide whom to believe again.
This is the blessing and curse of Homeland’s addictiveness. The push-and-pull relationship between the show and the viewer keeps everyone hooked, and slightly on edge, at times even connecting you to Carrie’s manic states.
It’s frustrating to watch as Carrie sees her brilliantly crafted theories and connections crumble as her peers deem her insane and terminate her from her only passion. At the end of season one, (spoiler-alert!) Carrie’s belief that Nick Brody, a Marine who had been held captive since 2003, had been turned by Al-Qaeda proved true, but not visibly so to the CIA. She’s fired, and without her job, she sees her only choice to rebuild her life is to undergo electroconvulsive therapy, a painful scene to witness as she tries to hold onto the most important pieces of the Brody puzzle.
Rolling in season two with six Emmy wins, including Best Drama Series (the first ever for the Showtime network), Best Actress in a Leading Role, and Best Actor in a Leading Role, and the title of “President Obama’s favorite show,” Homeland held up to its expectations in its premiere.
Just as Carrie is seen to have finally found a stable balance in her new life without the CIA, she is pulled right back in by the same peers who fired her, forcing her to make the clearly emotionally taxing and excruciatingly difficult decision to risk her mind once more in the field she loves for her country.
As usual, Carrie follows her own instincts, disobeying her superiors once again when she tries to lose the men following her. She escapes them with an eerie smile on her face that details just how brilliant her thoughts can become.
With Brody now occupying public office and under consideration for the Vice Presidential nomination, Carrie will have to struggle with the desires to prove her beliefs of his guilt once more. But maybe that’s the connection we’re all missing: what some may find crazy about her is the only reason she can see the crazy in him. After all it takes one to know one. And there isn’t anyone who wears crazy quite as well as our protagonist.
Homeland airs at 10/9c on the Showtime network.
