Homeland is an amazing show. Okay, let’s clarify that statement a bit: Homeland season one and two were great, season three was the example everyone used for a show going to sh*t before True Detective season two came along, and then season four pulled things back into amazing territory. Now Homeland‘s fifth season is about to debut on October 4, and it will be interesting to see how that will turn out. The show ditches the Middle East for Berlin and pulls a Parks & Recreation, flashing forward two years from the clusterf*ck we left at the end of season four.
Who knows what will go down, but one thing is for sure: The opening credits are going to be the same, and they will still make no sense. Claire Danes was on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert last night and had to admit she had no idea what the hell they were about, either.
“I don’t think there’s much meaning. Although some of those photos of me as a little girl are actually me. I didn’t know they had those photos, and then I saw the credits and I was like, ‘Where’d they get that?’ They’re me with the little pin curls. We’ve kinda abandoned the jazz. Where’d the jazz go? But she’s living in Berlin and she’s cycling a lot, so she’s not in her car listening to jazz.”
Yeah, yeah, we get it. Carrie’s love of Thelonious Monk and other crazy improvisational jazz was supposed to represent her chaotic way of thinking and investigating, as opposed to her boss Saul and his love of smooth, beardy Coltrane-style jazz. It’s one of those symbolic touches that’s about as subtle as a baseball bat to the head, and it’s nice to hear it’s been largely purged from the show.
Not from the opening credits, though. You need that wild bwap be doop music and creepy footage to represent the instability of both Carrie and the international security situation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRRpeGKNP5Y
