Homeland

Series three, episode one
The echoes of the big bang that ended season two of this increasingly outlandish but still addictive show are still being felt. Claire Danes’s Carrie is in the dock; the subject of a Senate inquiry and having her always fragile personality dismantled in the name of expediency. Saul’s still reeling from the ongoing threat to his department. And Dana Brody is in a mental-health facility after a suicide attempt. But what of Brody himself? No sign, although we all know that won’t last.

This season-three opener pitches itself somewhere between aftermath and appetiser: terrorists never sleep, particularly when, as with this episode’s baddy, they have nicknames like ‘The Magician’. But will Carrie’s testimony doom the operations of Saul, Quinn et al to obsolescence?

If the last ten minutes are anything to go by, Saul certainly seems to feel drastic measures are called for. ‘Homeland’ remains great fun. Some of the nuances of its carefully shaded moral universe have been sacrificed, but the balance between word and deed, personal and political, loyalty and betrayal remains genuinely compelling.