David Harewood gives a rare insight into the behind the scenes of Homeland and how David Estes became one of Homeland‘s most disliked characters.

David Harewood, who reprised his role as David Estes in the ever-popular Homeland, has sadly seen the end of his time within the Homeland camp. Estes died in the second season’s final moments as a bomb within Nicholas Brody’s car erupted causing mass casualties during Vice President Walden’s funeral. Estes was an integral character to Homeland whose title was the head of the counter terrorism unit for the CIA, he directed Carrie, Saul, Quinn and even Brody, and gave a steady pace to Homeland‘s plot.

Fans of Homeland turned to Harewood via social network site Twitter to get his thoughts on what could be the season ending finale. Harewood notes, “I was having these arguments all week. On Twitter everyone was calling him Bad Estes, hashtag Bad Estes. And I was saying, “Hang on a minute: Brody’s shot Tom Walker in the face, he took out a tailor, he’s killed the vice-president, and somehow I’m the bad guy?”. He has a point. Brody really did some horrifying actions during the second season and yet got away with murder, literally speaking. Estes however, backstabbed two of the most loved characters on Homeland though, and even though his attempts at stopping Saul, and killing Brody ended in failure, few will forgive him for his actions.

Although Estes turned out to be a slithery character, he was charismatic in his dictation of the CIA. Carrie, who struggles with bipolar needs constant focus and attention. Estes had the power to give her confidence and play to her strengths which eventually guided Carrie to Nazir in her impulsive ways. Credit has to go to Estes for that, as Saul tried to play this card too, but ended up being too much of a father figure with all of his wisdom, it just wasn’t quite enough.

Harewood though knew of his character’s ending long before season two aired. Shortly after the Emmy award evening for the Homeland crew, Harewood had a call from Alex Gansa, the executive producer. Harewood recalls, “I got a call from his office saying Alex wanted to speak to me about script developments. And Alex has never called me about anything, so I had this sense of doom. And a couple of days later he called me and basically said to me, “Look, you know this is hard to say … ” You know, I was very disappointed but I think that twenty minutes after, I sat down and wrote him an e-mail just thanking.”

This is the role that Harewood has been dying for many years and will certainly propel him into new television and film roles in the future. The disappointment will only add to the grit and determination that lead him to the role of David Estes. Harewood’s exit will certainly have an impact on the production crew too, with reports of the cast consistently singing off camera there’s no doubt that he worked with a fantastic bunch of professionals. Harewood concludes, “I’ve never worked with such a happy group of actors. They were all so — they worked so well together. I’m going to miss it terribly, honestly, I’m really going to miss it.”

Homeland returns in the final week of September 2013. Stay tuned at Hypable for all the latest Homeland news.