Homeland

There are purposeful pieces in place, running a circuitous yet skeptical mission. What may seem impossible now may not in a few months — that’s what “Homeland” would have us believe, and so far, it’s worth going along one more time.

When she slips into operative mode with the ease of a worn-in suit have an extra level of tension to them: the world, dangerous as it is, is not what it was any more than she is the same woman she once was. ... She can also be cold and cruel and create stupendous debacles out of her bad decision-making. In that way, however, she's also the personification of what makes the series worth seeing to its end after nine long years, that the personal frames of mind from which a few people operate can end up determining whether million of people will live in peace or suffer under years of conflict.

As the beginning of the end, Season 8 of Homeland naturally doesn't hit the highs that made it a flash cultural phenomenon for a couple of years. But these early episodes are comparable to most of the show's run as a strong espionage serial with a relevant political context and intimate character drama.

Danes and Patinkin are obviously tremendous at what they do here, but neither is being asked to do anything new or different or exciting. ... My favorite part of the new season, honestly, might have been reflecting on how, after this lengthy Homeland journey, the character who has gravitated up the call sheet by virtue of sheer survival has been Maury Sterling's Max, now given a meaty subplot.

With "Homeland," the future is always a bit murky, but if these first steps are any indication, it's still struggling to live up to that past.

Homeland is about a lot of things, personal and geopolitical. But at its most powerful, the new season conjures that simple, sad feeling: My God, it’s been so long. All of this — the war, the fear, the vengeance. ... The first four episodes of the season have their wild plot lurches but also the gimlet eye for human nature of “Homeland” at its best. Danes gives us a Carrie who’s older and wiser but also wrenchingly aware of her own precariousness. And the show is conscious of the collateral damage of the great game.

Overall the first four episodes made available for review plod along. ... But then, just as I’m about to write off this final season, something happens at the end of the fourth episode that pulls me right back in.

It’s well built. But all its life comes from Danes. Mathison’s troubled mind has always been a metaphor for government intelligence: brilliant but unreliable, vital but dangerous. Danes’ performance animates not only the scenes but the ones she is not in, too, and every time she’s out of shot you crave her return.