Note: Contains MAJOR spoilers for Homeland.
The fate of Homeland was proving to be as difficult to predict as the show's own twisty-turny plots. Showtime gave an eighth season the thumbs up, but whenever the people behind it were quizzed about its future, no-one could offer up a concrete answer.
But we finally have clarity. Showtime has confirmed that the drama will end with this chapter, making season 8 Carrie Mathison's final outing.
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"Alex Gansa will be bringing his show to its proper conclusion," said the network's president David Nevins at TCA 2018.
"Alex just couldn't stand the weight of it anymore," said Danes when asked by The New York Times if now was the right time to end it. "I think it ended for him. The way this show is structured, it can be reimagined over and over again. It's flexible in that way. Every year it was a reboot."
But would she have said 'yes' to another stint as Carrie if it was on the table?
"I've been claimed by it," she said. "I had two kids over the course of the show, too. So I really didn't have many hiatuses.
"I think it's important for me as an actor to stretch myself in different ways. So in that sense, it's good for it to end, and this is as good a point as any. But I don't think that it needed to end now."
But alas, it is. Here's everything you need to know about Homeland season eight.
Homeland season 8 release date UK and US: When will it air?
The first five seasons all launched in September-October, with the last two premiering early in the year. But despite wanting a summer launch, Showtime had to rejig its schedule numerous times.
"We previously announced a June premiere but because of [international] production demands… we're moving the final season premiere back to the fall," said Levine.
Because of this, fans expected Homeland to return around October 2019 at the latest, but then more bad news arrived when further delays struck. Unfortunately, the network's autumn schedule was already full, so season eight was pushed back to Sunday, February 9 in the US.
Homeland traditionally airs a week later in the UK following each week's US premiere, so expect to see season eight arrive on Sunday, February 16 on Channel 4.
Via Deadline, Levine explained during a TCA press tour why the final season of Homeland takes so long to reach our screens.
"Homeland is an ambitious series – especially in its final season," he said.
"[Showrunner] Alex [Gansa] wants to go out proudly, and that has involved production in multiple countries at times and in places that have some issues. It just takes time.
"There have been no missteps. It's been a relatively smooth process. But it's a very ambitious production schedule and it has taken more time than we [anticipated]."
Homeland season 8 trailer: When can we see it?
The trailer for Homeland's final season has arrived. Watch it below.
Homeland season 8 episodes: What will happen?
"Having read the first few scripts, I can tell you, it's a breathless, surprising and moving ride to its conclusion," entertainment president Gary Levine told press (via TV Line).
Homeland's seventh season finale, 'Paean to the People', saw Carrie captured by Russian national Yevgeny Gromov. When she's released as part of a prisoner exchange seven months later at Russia's border with Estonia, Carrie is barely lucid – having had her medication withheld – and seems unable to recognise her mentor Saul Berenson.
Elizabeth Keane (Elizabeth Marvel) also opted to resign the presidency, deciding that the tumultuous events of her administration had destroyed the American people's trust in her.
According to showrunner Alex Gansa, Homeland's seventh and eighth seasons were originally planned to be very closely tied together – telling essentially one story. "Barring unforeseen world events, we do really hope to go abroad for the last two seasons and to end the story there," he said in early 2017.
While the seventh season remained on home turf, the plan was to head abroad for season eight, with a significant time jump between the two seasons.
"We get to play this last season in DC with the intention of taking us overseas for one last chapter," Gansa said. "Season eight will be overseas somewhere.
"We get to play a story with larger national stakes in season seven and we'll go back to a smaller intelligence-based season in eight. We get to pull out all the stops this year and then get to the emotional heart of things in season eight."
Gansa had previously hinted at a circular narrative, with season eight going back to where it all began. "This show began in Israel [as Prisoners of War/Hatufim], and there's something poetic about going back to that part of the world in the show," he said.
"So we've been thinking, just in a thematic way, that it might be nice to end the show set in Israel."
And this, folks, is what you can expect: "The series' final season finds Carrie Mathison recovering from months of brutal confinement in a Russian gulag. Her body is healing, but her memory remains fractured – and that is a problem for Saul, now National Security Advisor to the newly ascendant President Warner (Beau Bridges).
"The top priority of Warner's nascent administration is ending the 'forever war' in Afghanistan, and Saul has been dispatched to engage the Taliban in peace negotiations. But Kabul teems with warlords and mercenaries, zealots and spies – and Saul needs the relationships and expertise that only his protégé, Carrie, can provide.
"Against medical advice, Saul asks Carrie to walk with him into the lion's den… one last time."
Whatever happens, expect the unexpected, because Homeland director Lesli Linka Glatter told Indiewire last year that the show will continue to surprise, even in its final season.
"One of the things that's been so amazing about being on the show is that we reinvent the show every year," she said.
"And what's great about that is it stays new and fresh and it keeps us all on our toes, and what's bad about that is it never gets any easier. We're always going to a new city, hiring a new crew – kind of reinventing the wheel."
During an interview with The New York Times, Mandy Patinkin, who plays Saul, was asked if the show will end with a "sense of optimistic possibility".
"I prayed for that," he said. "I fought for it. And I hope that my prayers will be answered. I know how things can change in the editing room. But I'm hoping that that wish of an optimistic, positive possibility, void of terror for five [expletive] seconds, will be a part of our narrative."
Danes added: "I think the characters are taken to their ultimate edge, which they always are. I mean, how many times have we both been kidnapped?
"We've been pummelled in a profound way and an almost comical way. I mean you have to be a little detached from it, because it's often so extreme.
"But I think that we managed it without being too maudlin or saccharine or reductive or simplistic. That was always the trick, to honour the show's sense of daring, which is defining and exciting and rare, and also really honour where we've taken our beloved characters and our beloved audience."
Homeland season 8: Is it the final season?
As early as 2016, before the seventh season had even aired, Gansa was insisting that Homeland would be "done" after season eight.
"It's definitely going to be my last year," he insisted. "I can't speak for Claire [Danes] or Mandy [Patinkin], but it will be my final year and it will be designed to be the end of an eight-season story.
"If Showtime, Fox, Claire and Mandy want to take the show further, that's their decision, and we would leave some room for that to happen – if there's an appetite."
He later explained that seeds for the show's ultimate ending had already been sown in previous seasons, with Danes apparently confirming that she too would be done with the series after eight years.
"Yeah, that's it," she said, adding that she felt "conflicted" about finally leaving Carrie behind.
But then, in June 2018, Danes backtracked on her earlier comments, saying only that Homeland's future is "totally uncertain".
"It's not unequivocally conclusive," she said. "We'll see. As I said, it's the kind of show that could continue going on indefinitely because it's a strange model. It's an unusual model. It can mutate in ways a lot of shows can't. "
But now it really is official. We're on the home stretch, people. Prepare yourselves.
Homeland season 8 cast: Who's in it?
Dead certs for the new episodes are Claire Danes as Carrie Mathison and Mandy Patinkin as Saul Berenson, the heart and soul of Homeland.
Chatting about the evolution of her character to Town & Country, Danes said: "I feel good about the arc of the final season. I really have allowed myself to feel proud. I think it's amazing that we've managed to maintain the integrity of the show for this long.
"We have never dialled it in. I think part of that has to do with the nature of the show, how it's a reset every year. There are the same central characters, but it's hugely reimagined, and we have to reassemble with a new crew in a new culture and work with a new company of actors.
"It has never felt stale, and we were never allowed to get complacent."
TVLine also revealed that Claire Danes' actual husband, Hugh Dancy, is joining the show as John Zabel, "a savvy Washington consultant who joins the White House as a new foreign policy advisor to the President – and a formidable opponent to Saul".
And according to The Hollywood Reporter, True Blood's Sam Trammell will play vice president Benjamin Hayes, described as "more dangerous than anticipated".
He's a political survivor who will act as President Walter's (Beau Bridges) right hand man.
We'll be keeping a spy's eye on all the latest news and reveals, updating this page whenever we get fresh gossip – so bookmark this page for all you need to know about Homeland season eight.
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