‘Homeland’ Season 6: Claire Danes & Alex Gansa Reveal Quinn’s Status, Tease Romantic ‘Tension’
Quinn’s alive, Carrie’s still out of the CIA and production on “Homeland” Season 6 has yet to even begin.
Series co-creator Alex Gansa, producer and star Claire Danes and co-star Mandy Patinkin all took part in “Homeland’s” Television Critics Association press tour panel Thursday afternoon, discussing what’s to come for Rupert Friend’s character, Quinn, as well as the relevancy of a New York setting during a D.C. presidential race.
“Quinn is alive, I can say that much,” Gansa said. “He suffered a major stroke last season and his very existence was in question. […] You’re going to see a very changed and altered Quinn this year.”
“I think Quinn, this coming season, will really represent a very profound and familiar casualty of the war on terror for our audience. What he endured last year is different than what he’ll go through this year.”
Gansa also said there would be daily interaction filled between Quinn and Carrie, resurfacing some relationship issues they’ve faced over the years. Gansa said there would be “tension” between the former couple.
READ MORE: Showtime Plans Stephen Colbert Election Special; Renews ‘Homeland’
Showtime also provided a full synopsis for Season 6, which can be read below:
After she thwarted a terrorist attack in Berlin, season six picks up several months later and finds Carrie Mathison (Danes) back on American soil, living in Brooklyn, New York. She has begun working at a foundation whose efforts are to provide aid to Muslims living in the U.S. Season 6 will tackle the after effects of the U.S. presidential election, with the entire season taking place between election day and the inauguration. It’s a strange, transitional time in the halls of government filled with anxiety and different competing interests, where a very fragile and complex transfer of power takes place between the outgoing president and the incoming president-elect.
Production begins next week in New York, and Danes spoke to how Carrie and Saul would enter the season after last year’s relationship test.
“They have diverged,” Danes said. “There has been a split that they’ve been working on repairing over the course of the last couple of seasons to varying degrees of success. Saul has committed himself even more fully to the agency, and Carrie rejects some fundamental principles of it. That’s very difficult to reconcile, but they are so profoundly bonded. That’s something they’ll never be able to rid themselves of, but she’s matured to a very different place than he has.”
“I want Mandy to be more like Saul because I like Saul more than Mandy,” Patinkin joked.
Gansa also spoke to why they decided to make the president a woman in a year when, in real life, the first female president stands a legitimate chance at being elected.
“We kind of hedged our bets,” Gansa said. “Although she is a woman, she’s a little bit Hillary, a little bit Donald Trump and a little bit Bernie Sanders. Anything can happen.”
“Dar [F. Murray Abraham] and Saul are tasked with giving intelligence briefings to the new president-elect,” Gansa said. “Dar has got skin in this game — definitely.”
Earlier in the afternoon, Showtime announced the renewal of the Emmy-winning series for two more seasons. That means “Homeland” will live to see at least Season 8, if not beyond. Gansa said he didn’t have an end game in mind (“I wish”), but he did put forth a “pie in the sky” hope for whenever the final season comes around.
“I think we’d all like to take the show back to Israel for that final season,” Gansa said. “That’s where it all began. [But] it’s a big question over whether that would ever happen or if we could go back there.”
“Homeland” Season 6 premieres Sunday, Jan. 15, 2017 at 9pm.
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