Homeland is back in top form for its fourth season. I had never really been a fan of the whole Carrie/Brody romance/drama in the series, and was really excited when Brody exited at the end of season 3. This gave the series creators an opportunity to reinvent the show, which they have done quite successfully in this exciting, action-packed fourth season.

Some time has passed since the events of last season, and agent Carrie Mathison (Claire Danes) is now working as a CIA station chief in Kabul, Afghanistan, where she is known as “The Drone Queen” for her work overseeing drone strikes in the area. Her sister Maggie (Amy Hargreaves) is taking care of her new daughter Frannie back home in the States, and Carrie seems to find any excuse she can to extend her trip abroad in order to avoid having to deal with being a parent. Meanwhile, Saul (Mandy Patinkin) is struggling with his own new position in the private sector, working for a private defense security firm.

When the CIA receives information that terrorist Haissam Haqqani (Numan Acar) is in Islamabad, Carrie reluctantly orders the drone strike. The soon discover that the strike took place during a wedding, leading to many innocent casualties and great political fallout. The public retaliation for the incident leads to the murder of a CIA agent but Carrie suspects that there was another motive to this agent’s death—that he had been trading state secrets, and someone higher up was aware of this and trying to cover it up. She uses this information to secure her position as the new station chief in Islamabad. Not knowing who she can trust, Carrie puts together her own team, including agents Peter Quinn (Rupert Friend) and Fara Sherazi (Nazanin Boniadi) to investigate. She recruits a young Pakistani medical student Aayan Ibrahim (Suraj Sharma)&mdash a survivor of the drone strike, and the nephew of Haqqani—as an asset. But in typical Carrie fashion, things escalate quickly, and she crosses several lines while trying to get to the truth, and at the same time, makes both herself and those close to her targets.

I thoroughly enjoyed this fourth season. I was never really a fan of the whole Carrie/Brody romantic storyline—I still think he should have completed his mission in season 1—so I was very anxious to see what a Brody-less season of Homeland would be like. The series continues to deliver on the tense, action-packed stories with lots of unexpected twists and turns. When favorite characters are put in danger, you never really know if they will come out alive.

For season four, there is an interesting season-long arc, some great new characters, and interesting journeys for our returning characters. The season gives viewers a shocking mid-season turn of events, and ultimately builds to an incredibly tense, action-packed and emotional penultimate episode that will have you on the edge of your seat. The fourth season cast also includes Corey Stoll, Laila Robins, Tracy Letts, Raza Jaffrey, Mark Moses, Murray Abraham and Art Malik.

The Blu-ray looks and sounds amazing. The picture is crisp and clear and looks even better than the show’s original HD airing on Showtime. The audio track provides clear dialogue and makes use of the surround and subwoofer channels to bring the viewer into all of the exciting action sequences. The discs offer a Season Play mode, which will keep track of where you left off as you watch through the season, and will prompt you for the correct disc whenever you want to resume. There is about an hour of bonus material which includes seven deleted scenes and six featurettes with some of the cast and creators of the series.

What’s Included:

Episodes: (9:44:48)

• All 12 Episodes of the fourth season:
  “The Drone Queen”, “Trylon and Perisphere”, “Shalwar Kameez”, “Iron in the Fire”, “About a Boy”, “From A to B and Back Again”, “Redux”, “Halfway to a Donut”, “There’s Something Else Going On”, “13 Hours in Islamabad”, “Krieg Nicht Lieb”, “Long Time Coming”
• 1080p / Widescreen 1.78:1
• Audio: English 5.1 DTS-HD-MA, Castilian DTS 5.1, Italian DTS 5.1
• Subtitles: English SDH, Spanish, French, Castilian, Italian
• Closed Captioned

Extras:
All of the bonus features offer Spanish and Italian subtitles.

• Deleted Scenes (10:52)
  A collection of 7 deleted scenes that automatically play one after another. The scenes include “Episode 403 – Carrie Visits Aasar Khan”, “Episode 403 Dick comes to Carrie’s office”, “Episode 405 Dennis and Martha Fight”, “Episode 405 Redmond goes to see Dennis at a bar”, “Episode 407 Fara looks for Carrie at the hospital”, “Episode 407 Haqqani won’t let Saul provoke him” and “Episode 412 Carrie sees ‘World’s Greatest Mom’ on the fridge”.
• Character Profiles (16:56)
  Each of these character profiles includes actor Q&A mixed with clips from the series. Play All or select from:
  

  • Peter Quinn: The Assassin (6:03)
    Rupert Friend (“Peter Quinn”) talks about the audition process, running late to the set, the evolution of his character, and what he likes about working on the series.
  • Aasar Khan: The Lieutenant-Colonel (4:07)
    Raza Jaffrey (“Aasar Khan”) talks about his character, Khan’s relationship with Carrie, and what it’s been like working on the series.
  • Fara Sherazi: The Analyst (6:45)
    Nazanin Boniadi (“Fara Sherazi”) talks about what she loves about playing this character, Fara’s wardrobe, motivation and reactions to Carrie’s methods, and discovering her character’s fate.
• From Script to Screen (23:17)
  Play All or select from:
  

  • Caught in the Crosshairs (8:31)
    Executive producers/writers Chip Johannessen and Meredith Stiehm, executive producer/director Lesli Linka Glatter and director of photography David Klein talk about Carrie’s journey over the course of the season and her relationship with Aayan, finding locations, and editing the big mid-season finale sequence in episode 6.
  • Brody’s Return (5:47)
    Co-creator/executive producer Alex Gansa, executive producer/writer Alexander Cary, actor Raza Jaffrey, director of photography David Klein and executive producer/director Lesli Linka Glatter talk about rebooting the show in season 4, determining the way in which Carrie and Brody speak to one another in her hallicinations and how realistic to make those scenes.
  • Storming the Embassy (8:58)
    Co-creators/executive producers Alex Gansa and Howard Gordon, director Daniel Attias and actress Nazanin Boniadi dicuss shooting the big action sequence—utilizing their experiences from 24, finding the right level of bloodshed and keeping the sequence from becoming absurd—and the tough decision of selecting which character to kill off, and the alternate character who almost didn’t make it instead.

Final Thoughts:

The fourth season of Homeland is a reinvention of the series that proves just how great this series can still be. I thoroughly enjoyed this first Brody-less season, which is action-packed and throws some emotional punches along the way. The Blu-ray presentation is top notch, and the discs provide a small-but-nice collection of bonus material. This comes recommended for fans of the series, or potential new fans looking to jump in.