If you happened to wander in while I was midway through an episode of Showtime’s “Homeland,” you would most likely see me sitting with rapt attention, eyes the size of saucers, biting my nails and practically shivering from excitement. Or at least that’s how it was for the previous seasons.

This season of “Homeland,” which I anticipated with the eagerness and hopefulness that one would have when awaiting a reunion with a lost love, has not at all met, let alone exceed, my expectations. What used to be a show filled with CIA officers chasing terrorists down darkened hallways, shocking and titillating romance and plot twists so unexpected that oftentimes I would quite literally jump out of my seat has now become the most awful word in television: mundane.

The reason for its descent into mediocrity and monotony can be attributed to its deformation of its characters. Never would I have expected Saul to practically shout Islamophobic remarks at a fellow CIA employee, or Carrie to lose so much perspective and focus. While she should be helping rebuild the CIA and find the attackers responsible for the bombing, she chooses to instead focus solely on fervently protecting Brody and defending his innocence. It’s hard to blame Saul for revealing Carrie’s mental illness to the press; her never-waning sense of superiority but subsequent uselessness in the reconstruction of the CIA’s public image and infrastructure exasperates me and makes me question if she’s still worth the trouble she causes the agency. I feel like a real David Estes.

The first episode was promising – Saul was playing the political game, attempting to showcase the agency’s competency through an attack on the financiers of the bombing during Walden’s memorial, and creating a scandal that Congress would fixate on instead of the CIA’s mistakes in the Brody affair. I feel like I sometimes forget how badly they botched that operation – they let a terrorist become a Congressman, stabbed him during questioning and allowed one of their analysts to seduce information out of him. Saul’s sacrifice of Carrie seemed worthy and politically smart as Congress quickly redirected its attention to the seedy love affair instead of the highly unethical and dangerous actions of the agency. The show seemed to be intimating my dissatisfactions with our media and scandal-driven government very well at this point, and I was on board.

However, this mere wink at plausibility quickly devolved, and now after the fourth episode, has completely disintegrated. I won’t even discuss Brody’s strange plotline that involves him injecting heroin in a darkened room in Caracas after being treated by a pedophilic doctor, simply because it pains me to do so. The man who used to be the show’s most intriguing, complex and enigmatic character has now been reduced to a tedious afterthought. Even the plotline involving Dana, my least favorite character, is more attention grabbing; her romance with the potentially homicidal Leo and her difficult relationship with her mother are both tiresome, but at least in this case the plot fits the characters.

The first major plot twist of the season was hugely disappointing – Carrie and Saul were in cahoots this whole time, and had planned her psychiatric commitment and consequent recruitment by the corrupt law firm. Not only is this unequivocally far-fetched and filled with gaping plot holes, but it is also hugely upsetting in terms of character development. Saul’s betrayal of Carrie for the sake of the agency could have been the show’s dramatic and jarring statement on the disintegration of friendship in the face of national security and, more importantly, the political and bureaucratic demands of Saul’s position. “Homeland” could have continued drawing parallels between Carrie and Edward Snowden; a harsh and fear-provoking account of the government’s treatment of whistleblowers and the CIA’s attempt to control information would have been very much appreciated.

“Homeland’s” choice to avoid these hard-hitting, controversial issues and instead insult the intelligence of its viewers with this unnecessary, incongruous plot twist is highly disappointing. Its status as a realistic, titillating show that I once promised my unwavering attention to is unfortunately becoming second-rate. I am hoping that this new plotline involving the infiltration of the terrorist group behind the attack will provide us with some much-needed first and second season worthy thrill. I hope that during the next episode I won’t be so keen to open a new tab and start aimlessly scrolling down my Facebook newsfeed, simply because I’m tired of looking at Carrie’s upside-down, quivering and obnoxious chin for the umpteenth time.

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