The series stars Claire Danes as Carrie Mathison, a CIA officer with bipolar disorder, and Damian Lewis as Nicholas Brody, a Marine Corps scout sniper.

Brody was held captive by al-Qaeda as a prisoner of war, and Mathison becomes convinced that he was "turned" by the enemy and poses a threat to the United States.

Supporting cast members Mandy Patinkin, Morena Baccarin, Rupert Friend, and F. Murray Abraham also received Emmy acting nominations.

Nicholas Brody, a U.S. Marine sergeant who had been reported as missing in action since 2003, is rescued from a compound belonging to terrorist Abu Nazir.

An initiative by CIA director Saul Berenson targets Iranian intelligence officer Majid Javadi, who financed the Langley bombing.

Two years after the events of season 4, Carrie is no longer an intelligence officer and is now working as head of security for a private charitable foundation and its billionaire owner in Berlin, Germany.

[8] Based on Gideon Raff's Israeli series Prisoners of War, Homeland was developed by Howard Gordon and Alex Gansa in early 2010.

[16] Next to join the series was Mandy Patinkin as Saul Berenson, "the smart and politically savvy CIA Division Chief... who is Carrie's main champion in the intelligence upper echelon and her sounding board.

[29] Next to join the series were Damian Lewis and David Harewood, with Lewis playing Brody, "who returns home after spending eight years as a prisoner of war in Baghdad", while Harewood was cast as David Estes, "a rising star in the CIA, Carrie's boss ... is the youngest director of the Counterterrorism Center in the Agency's history.

"[23] Gansa pushed for Lewis in the Brody role despite hesitations from series producers in favor of Ryan Phillippe, Kyle Chandler and Alessandro Nivola.

"[30][31] It was later announced that Jamey Sheridan, Navid Negahban, Amir Arison, and Brianna Brown had joined the series as recurring guest stars.

[32][33] Beginning in season four, the showrunners began taking over the top floor of City Tavern Club in Washington, D.C., for "Spy Camp".

According to Gansa, the day would start at 8 a.m. and end after 10 p.m. where the writers, producers and some actors would meet with former CIA, ambassadors, ex-military, journalists and intelligence officers to discuss national security issues to inform the storylines.

[16] Washington Post writer Barton Gellman connected the Homeland team on an hours-long video call with Edward Snowden before he appeared in documentaries or did interviews.

The location was chosen because of film tax credits, and the atmosphere matches nearby the Washington metropolitan area, where the series is set.

Charlotte/Douglas International Airport, the Ritz-Carlton, the old courthouse, Ed's Tavern,[36] and Zack's Hamburgers in Charlotte, as well as Rural Hill in Huntersville and Lake Norman, have also served as filming locations.

[80][81] Greg Dixon of The New Zealand Herald criticized Homeland's thin plotting, Danes's "insane levels of overacting", and Lewis's "passivity".

[82] Robert Rorke of the New York Post wrote about the third season that "[s]eldom in the history of cable TV has a series imploded as quickly as Showtime's Homeland.

"[83] In 2014, Laura Durkay of The Washington Post criticized Homeland for its portrayal of Islamophobic stereotypes and called it "the most bigoted show on television.

[84] James Donaghy of The Guardian wrote: "It took a while for Homeland to realise its true calling as a showcase for TV's greatest surrogate father-daughter relationship", adding that "a perfect conclusion rewards the viewers who persevered with it" to the end of the eighth season.

[89] The original broadcast of the pilot episode on October 2, 2011, received 1.08 million viewers, becoming Showtime's highest-rated drama premiere in eight years.

[118] In October, 2012, the Lebanese government was reportedly planning to sue the show's producers, asserting misrepresentation of Hamra Street in Beirut, Lebanon.

Specifically, in the second episode of the second season "Beirut Is Back", the street was shown as a narrow alleyway with militia roaming and associated with terrorist activity.

[120][121][122] Peter Beaumont of The Guardian wrote of the series: "High-profile Muslims living in the US share a secret: both willingly or otherwise they are covert helpers of Abu Nazir, the al-Qaida terrorist leader.

[124] In an article for Salon, Laila Al-Arian called the show the most Islamophobic show on television, accused it of portraying Muslims under the light of simplistic concepts and as a monolithic, single-minded group whose only purpose is to hurt Americans, and basing the Brody character to such an extent on "pseudo-psychology that only an audience conditioned by the Islamophobic, anti-Arab tropes in our media could find him consistent."

[128] Middle East policy expert Fawaz Gerges told TheWrap, "Homeland is poisonous to any attempt to bridge the divide between the two nations [United States and Iran]".