Homeland is making a habit of not letting its audience get too comfortable in any one time, place, or even continent. (As Carrie Mathison would say, you’re a disgrace to your nation if you don’t realize that massive spoilers for both season four and five are forthcoming.) Variety reports that for the next season of the Showtime thriller, the series will jump ahead two and a half years in time.
Showrunner Alex Gansa broke the news at the opening night of Paleyfest, where the show’s creative team, along with actors Claire Danes and Maury Sterling, answered questions and briefly teased the upcoming season. For those of you who dearly loved season four’s Pakistan setting (filmed in South Africa), go ahead and ready your cry face memes, because that’s gone, too. Picking up two and a half years after the close of season four, next season will also see Danes’ character relocated to Europe, most likely Germany, the executive producer said.
Most surprising was Gansa’s reveal that Carrie “will no longer be an intelligence officer.” When pressed for details, he referenced Europe’s (and specifically Germany’s) importance to concerns about terrorism and Western security. Danes joked that her character would be making beer, which everyone had a good laugh about until they started picturing her character debating whether to drown her child in a giant stein of lager. The group also revealed that the decision to have Danes’ CIA agent hook up with her assassin co-worker Quinn was the result of a protracted argument in the writer’s room, which actually kept it from happening earlier in the season.
You can read more about the Paleyfest discussion here. It includes details like Danes’ thoughts regarding the infamous bathtub scene from early last season, and whether the show feels like it should include ISIS in the coming season. Appallingly left off the list of topics addressed was whether Danes still thinks Jordan Catalano is the dreamiest.