The CIA-centered television show "Homeland" just keeps getting better season after season; but sadly, all good things must come to an end.
Now on its fifth season, Carrie Mathison and her friends (and foes!) find themselves right smack in Berlin with a terror threat to contend with. But what will happen to them after, and how many more seasons can the show survive?
Co-writer and producer Alex Gansa told the New York Times that "Homeland" might be good for two more runs.
"The show will run for at least two more seasons, six and seven. That would be my guess," he said.
Gansa also said that actress Claire Danes, who portrays Carrie in the series has a say on how the series will end.
"Nobody knows this character better than Claire. Her input into the narrative is always important to us. In fact, she accompanies us on that field trip we take to Washington, D.C. every year, as does Mandy Patinkin (Saul Berenson)," he said.
One of the things that Carrie dealt with for the past few years is her bipolar disorder, which seemed to take a backseat when she was in Berlin. But Gansa said that they were actually able to highlight it in the third episode.
"Her disorder or illness is always part of our conversation about Carrie and how she's managing that and her relationship to her medication, which is an issue that a lot of bipolar people face," he explained. "This season, I'm particularly proud of the third episode in which Carrie decides to go off her medication in an attempt to connect to her genius. We tend every season to touch the subject of her condition, and to weave it into the story, and some people wish we didn't do that. But for us, the fact that she's bipolar is central to her character, speaks volumes about how she chooses to live her life, and it's one that we'll always come back to every year."
The creative brains behind "Homeland" always try to connect Carrie emotionally with audiences, so they spent a huge chunk of the planning process figuring out where to place her personally and professionally.
"Clearly, this time it was a function of where she ended up last year and her complete disillusionment with the Central Intelligence Agency. Ultimately, we came to the conclusion that she should do something diametrically opposed to her work in the intelligence field, so we settled on this idea that she would use her skill set in service of a philanthropic organization," said Gansa.
