What the hell happened to "Homeland"?

Weak, cheap and lazy ending to a weak, cheap and lazy season

What a betrayal of the characters, the viewers and good story-telling this season finale turned out to be! Shame, shame, shame on the, very well-paid, writers for such a tawdry, inconsistent finale to this atrocious season. We trusted you, as one must always trust a story-teller. We sat through the endless tedium of the Dana sub-plot. We waited patiently for Brody's return. We swallowed a few ludicrous plot twists in the hope that the finale would restore the story's credibility. (And for those who have been baying for Brody's blood, yes, one could argue, and I wouldn't, that his death was inevitable. But the characters' reactions to it??? And the aftermath?)

If I dared to hand in a manuscript with even half the tripe that filled this season, it would be thrown back in my face.

You, the writers, built up a complex, intense, perhaps doomed love story between Carrie and Brody - then you gave us nothing! Nothing! Not a touch, not a word of love, not a glance. You wanted to tell us Brody is a broken man maybe? Well, we got that in "The Tower of David" episode. Then you tried to tell us that Brody is reborn, he rises up from that absurd and, btw utterly unnecessary heroin addiction. (Which of you threw that in in a moment of desperation?) But then he gets broken again and does a lot of blank staring and washes his hands. There's a vague acknowledgement of the child and that's it.

Ditto for Carrie. You lazily skipped the aftermath of Brody's death and what it did for her upon her return. Now she's tootling around Langley with a foam cushion up her shirt, smiling at Lockhart and planning her career move.

She loved that man! Some may say she was obsessed by him. Either way, her muted reactions and response are wildly inconsistent with her character. And please don't tell me there's a clever plotline where it all makes sense coming up in season 4. I won't be around to see it.

These lazy, arrogant writers wasted Damien Lewis's immense talent. They wasted Rupert Friend's Quinn (has anyone counted the paltry number of lines he even got this season?) They abused Claire Danes' magnificent gifts. They destroyed a show and betrayed their viewers.

Story matters. Story is how we make sense of our lives. If you are going to be paid phenomenal sums to write stories that will be followed across the planet, at least show some professionalism. Don't throw in stray plot lines, dialogue etc that go nowhere. Keep your characters consistent. If they do something that shocks, be ready to back it up later. Lordy, this is creative writing 101. I can't believe I have to write this.
Shame, shame, shame on the lot of you.