Homeland season 5: Isis storyline to feature in next series of terrorist drama

The fifth series of the crtically-acclaimed US show is set in Europe and begins this Sunday on Channel 4

The season premiere picks the story up two years after the Embassy attack in Islamabad, with Carrie building a new life in Berlin (Showtime)

An Isis storyline will feature in the next series of the hit US show Homeland after the terrorist drama was revitalised following the departure of lead actor Damian Lewis.

Alex Gansa, Homeland producer, said the show had to be “reinvented” after the decision to kill off conflicted US soldier Nicholas Brody.

The fifth series, which begins this Sunday on Channel 4, is set in Europe and incorporates a plot featuring Isis. Alex Gansa, executive producer, told Radio Times: “It has been difficult even to do the re- search required to portray that jihadist movement and dramatise it. Should we even acknowledge their existence, make them part of the story, and humanise them at some level?”

“We thought we maybe wouldn’t even go there, we would just tell a story about Russian and American intelligence in Berlin. But it’s just so part of the landscape right now that it felt like we were wilfully ignoring something that couldn’t be ignored. So it has crept back into the story in a major way.”

The new series, written after discussions with Washington D.C. intelligence experts, locates estranged CIA agent Carrie Matheson (Claire Danes) in Berlin.

Gansa said: “What was happening at the start of the year, the whole Edward Snowden thing was really snowballing, the rise of Isis was happening, then there were the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris. It all felt that now that part of Europe was the centre of the world.

“Also to put Carrie where she’s no longer in the service of the CIA – she’s a dissident in terms of her relationship with the intelligence agencies. But put her in Berlin, the great spy town. It really is the centre of the world for these surveillance refuseniks and Snowden-types.”