"Homeland" returned with a back-to-back episode on Sunday night, and the series may have a better slate than last year's drama.
In a review from Forbes Magazine, it was said that the Season 4 premiere had a feel of a prequel as more things are unearthed about Carrie Mathinson's (played by Claire Danes) past - the backstory before she fell for the Brody Affair.
Meanwhile, according to Screen Rant, Season 4 is more of a reboot, more refined and well-structured compared to the mess that was Season 3.
As Vanity Fair noted, the plot that the show was built on was flimsy, with Nicholas Brody's role quite unestablished, considering that he is the main protagonist/anti-hero of the first three seasons. By the end of the third season, viewers really were unsure which side of the war Brody is in, after all, he has become a soldier, then terrorist, then soldier, then congressman, then terrorist, then... just a baby-daddy for Carrie?
But the Nicholas Brody plot is over, and maybe, soon to be forgotten. As Screen Rant noted, the entire episode of "The Drone Queen" has significantly lessened the role of the Brody family. Set a few months after Nicholas Brody's demise, there was no mention of him or the rest of his family in the season premiere, and stated that the "show feels lighter and more nimble because of it."
It has also been pointed out by the website that the network made the right decision about premiering with back-to-back episodes, showing the smart, decisive Carrie in "The Drone Queen" and her emotionally imbalanced character on episode 2, called "Trylon & Persiphere."
As for the question of how the CIA agent is taking care of her child with Brody, Carrie, the workaholic that she is, has chosen work over her daughter and has left the baby with her daughter in DC.
Screen Rant has established, however, that the series is attempting to show the impact of drone strikes through the eyes of the unintended victims in the form of Ayaan Rahim (Surah Sharma) who will go head to head on the CIA via social media.
With that, it seems that "Homeland" is up to a good start, especially when the second episode wrapped up to Carrie growing some balls and blackmailing Lockhart into giving her the Islamabad station chief position.
As Forbes noted, it is still early in the season to know exactly how it will fare, but the premiere is in a good place, away from the wreck of a plot from Season 3.