'Homeland' Stars on What's to Come in Season Two (Spoilers)

Season two of "Homeland" premiered on Showtime last night.

ByABC News
September 27, 2012, 4:45 PM

Oct. 1, 2012 — -- Still perched on the edge of your seat after last night's "Homeland"? Join the club.

Sunday's season two premiere of Showtime's thriller was a reminder of why the show hauled home four Emmy awards last week. It was a gripping, nail-biter of an episode that showed Claire Danes at her breathtaking best (Carrie's facial contortions: mesmerizing) and had Damian Lewis' Sgt. Brody achieve levels of two-faced-ness you didn't know existed (though the whole last-second safe pillaging was more than a little unrealistic, but then, so is a lot of this show).

According to Lewis, it only gets more intense from here.

"It will surprise people, how accelerated it is," he told ABCNews.com. Lewis had what he called a "what-the-f**k" moment when he saw the script for next week's episode. With "Homeland's" writers, that happens a lot.

"They continue to surprise us," he said. "They're very generous with their information. If I ask, they'll tell me, but I quite enjoy the surprises."

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Claire Danes promised a more stable Carrie. The bipolar former CIA agent has gone through a full course of electroconvulsive therapy by the time we meet her in season two, teaching English to American newcomers and tending to, of all things, a garden. And yet -- the groin-kick getaway she pulled in last night's episode was a moment that warranted getting on your couch and shouting, "SHE'S BACK!"

"Things become really heated, but she's not as erratic as she was last season," Danes said. "She's very intense."

But the character who's evolved the most between seasons, judging by the first two installments of season two, is Brody's wife Jessica, played by Morena Baccarin.

"She's more dialed into what's going on," Baccarin said. "She finds out that he's Muslim -- it's nice to have that shift in power."

While she'll butt heads with daughter Dana throughout the season -- "she's just a little s**t," Baccarin joked, "she makes me crazy" -- they end up bonding over their shared desire to figure out Brody's deal.

"This season, we start to connect more," Baccarin said, "and it helps the two of us be more attuned to what's going on with him."

Of course, for the sake of the series, they won't find out everything, and neither will we.

"The show is brilliant when whatever the thriller element is, whatever the plot is, whatever the sit on the edge of your seat white knuckle part of it is, it ends up in something confused and murky, and dirty, and psychological," Lewis said. "It has a devastating impact. And I think that's what this season will do."

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