‘Homeland’ season 5 spoilers: Could series take place away from Middle East?

For the past four seasons or so, the Middle East has continuously played a role somehow on “Homeland.” Even if the entirety of the show is not set in the region, you still see enough of it to get the feel of just how the writers feel about it: It’s important to the story that they want to tell.

As a matter of fact, almost all of season 4 was set in Pakistan, which was actually filmed in South Africa and protested by Pakistani officials after the fact for making their country and cities look particularly war-torn. Ironically, it was loved much more there than it was when it returned back to America for the season finale. (As we’ve said, we may be the only person on the internet who actually liked that episode.)

So is there still an openness by the show to venture to other countries and parts of the world, and try new things? Showtime head David Nevins does not necessarily speak for showrunner Alex Gansa or the writers, but they have been virtually silent since the conclusion of season 4. Therefore, we have to take Nevins’ comments per Entertainment Weekly recently as extremely valuable:

“The real franchise of the show is how difficult it is to be America in the world in the 21st century, how difficult the choices are. I think that’s a story that will remain relevant for as long as they can come up with new stories. It could be Africa, it could be Europe, it could be back in another place in the Middle East. I don’t expect that show to fall into a formula. I can see it coming back to the U.S. at some point.”

We will have some further updates throughout the writing / filming process, even if they are not frequent. Stay tuned.

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