I reviewed the first season here; to recapitulate above cut, it's the Israeli show that inspired Homeland but while it shares some themes, tropes and the occasional storyline goes about them in quite different ways. Since Homeland started to lose me after its mid s2 downwards turn in quality (I stopped watching early in s3), I'm happy to report Hatufim, by contrast, manages to stay good tv.

( Why and how is revealed beneath the spoiler cut )

I've started to watch Hatufim, the Israeli series which inspired Homeland, am three episodes in, and so far, it's as good as advertised, with because there is no Carrie and no "is she crazy or is he a terrorist?" first season story arc the focus being instead on how the released hostages (Brody's role given to two guys, one of whom has the bratty daughter named Dana and the other has the significant other who found another love while he was gone) and their families cope. Which is really well done. However. One thing that's increasingly hard to watch is how Noorid (I hope that's the right spelling) gets slut shamed by everyone - not the show, I hasten to add, which relates it from her pov and has her as a sympathetic character - for daring to fall in love again during the 17 years which in the Israeli version her husband was gone. In Homeland, you get one episode in which Jessica realises she's been very unfair to Thomas' wife in the past because she remarried, and now that she herself fell in love again is painfully aware of the irony. In Hatufim, the shaming of Noorid happens in the present storyline. I have no idea how realistic or not it is - I mean, I can believe that the girlfriend/fiance/wife of an imprisoned soldier who'd been build up in to a sympathy figure would get some media backlash if she stops waiting for him and has a new relationship - but Noorid practically can't go out of the house without running into people calling her whore and betrayer of the nation. It's really disturbing.

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In Yuletide news, I hit upon another crazy idea and decided to nominate the Beatles' Seargent Pepper's Lonely Heartsclub Band album as a fandom, with Billy Shears, Lovely Rita, Lucy, the girlf from She's Leaving Home and Sgt. Pepper as possible characters. A few years ago, before I dared to write Yuletide, someone nominated Revolver and got plenty of stories, so there is precedence. Also, this nomination spreadsheet offers a handy overview of what everyone else thinks of nominating, and I've spotted a few possibilities where I could offer - I'd definitely like to tackle Connie Corleone from The Godfather, because I thought while Coppola's film version and Talia Shire's performance (Coppola casting his own sister as Connie is an interesting subtext) improved somewhat on Mario Puzo's horribly sexist writing of her, there is still a lot of fleshing out and exploration possible, especially given the gap between II and III and Connie basically becoming Michael's consigliere in between. Sharon Penman's Welsh trilogy also offers intriguing possibilities (what were Davydd ap Gruffyd's years as a hostage at the English court like, for starters?). And someone else kindly offered to nominate Bates Motel so I can get another historical fandom in. It's all proceeding very promisingly indeed.