Homeland season 7 reviews roundup: What the critics are saying about the premiere episode

The premiere episode picks up months after the closing moments of season 6

Homeland has returned for its seventh run in what is expected to be its penultimate season.

The premiere episode - which aired in the US last night (!1 February) - picks up after the closing moments of season 6 following the fallout of the assassination attempt on the life of president Keane (Elizabeth Marvel) who betrayed Carrie Mathison (Claire Danes) by arresting 200 members of the intelligence community including Saul Berenson (Mandy Patinkin).

Reviews are, for the most part, fairly positive for the new season despite just one episode being available to critics - a sign it's either laden with huge twists or a dud.

Going by the premiere episode - titled 'Enemy of the State' - it's believed this could be the strongest season of Homeland in some time.

You can read our review herey.

The Independent

Homeland's opener packs enough tension and intrigue to keep the attention of committed folk which, for a series on its seventh run - with an eighth seemingly confirmed - deserves some kudos. If the twists keep rolling, this particular batch of episodes has the potential to be the most entertaining if ultimately throwaway ones yet.

The Hollywood Reporter

Despite some outsized acting and the large implications of Keane's actions, on a narrative level the Homeland premiere is decidedly small. Although Homeland has fundamentally been a character-driven drama, the threat of the world on the brink of cataclysm has always lingered on the surface. Assassinations. Terrorist actions. Upheavals of power. The seventh season premiere keeps the implied stakes high, but the literal stakes middling.

Deadline

Yet, like the great and the not so great past seasons of Homeland, there is a lot more going on here than what is seen at first glance as a particular type of Deep State and resistance rearing their heads. [resulting] in some very unlikely bedfellows in what looks to be one of the strongest seasons yet from what I’ve seen.

The AV Club

So Carrie is still Carrie, and Claire Danes’ performance is still the grounding element in this increasingly convoluted world. President Keane, who displayed at least a little moral complexity when introduced in season six, has completed her heel turn. In a bid for relevance, the writers have infused her with as many Trumpian characteristics as an anti-war mother of a soldier killed in combat can bear.

The New York Times

Fans will be happy that this involves the resurfacing of Carrie’s spycraft, and it’s a pleasure in the season premiere to watch her pulling her gear out of hiding, or duck into a hotel room and put on a disguise — it’s like she’s getting back into her own skin.

Den of Geek

We are now back in the murky waters of the first few seasons of Homeland, where we don’t know who to trust. If Carrie seems mad, it is because she is the only sane person in a land gone crazy. We know where she’s coming from. And we can’t wait to see where she’s going next…

Paste Magazine

“Enemy of the State” wallpapers its plot in “timely” headlines and then tosses a fragmentation grenade into the room, exploding whatever sense it might’ve made as a political statement into indecipherable word salad. It’s so atrocious that I finally gave up and started to have fun with it—it’s clown car.

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