‘My eyes are open. How could they not be?!’ exclaims Carrie, but ours surely weren’t. Homeland misfired on Sunday night, but here’s hoping ‘The Clearing‘ pulls us in the right direction.

Homeland has been known amongst fans for some of the most intense television on offer, but “A Gettysburg Address” promised much and delivered almost none. Usually, these episodes are fillers, to help tie up any nagging story lines but Gettysburg really was utterly pointless. We see Carrie and Peter setting up surveillance in the hope of catching Roya Hammad meeting with another one of Abu Nazir’s agents, but with the inevitable poor surveillance technology nothing of any value is learnt by the viewers nor Carrie and Peter. A good ten minutes gone to waste, and well, the CIA looking like the new kid at school.

In a sudden sharp turn, this gives Carrie the idea to use Brody to find out who Roya is conversing with. Again, a bit of a pointless plot for the episode, due to Brody still not giving anything away as to which ‘side’ he’s on, and with Abu Nazir’s people never using the probable channels, it’s a dead heat before it’s even started.

And within that, the notion of Brody being cooperative with the CIA seems rather false. If Brody really is working with Nazir, and being a mole within the CIA I’m fairly sure he would have let everything slip by now to either side. Is this all becoming a little less tangible and believable? Maybe. Writers, please you’re treading uneven ground here.

And with that, we’re treated with next week’s trailer titled, “The Clearing.” I’m sure we’ll all be wanting an improvement after Sunday’s treatment.

And, as always, be sure to check out this coming Sunday’s instalment of Homeland on Showtime at 10pm ET/PT.