Can 'Homeland' survive the aftermath of Nicholas Brody's death?

This time around Homeland will go through quite a revamp following the events of the previous season. The horrible but inevitable death of Nicholas Brody (Damian Lewis), who was the main focus of the first two seasons and the secondary focus of season three, will weigh heavily on the rest of the cast this season.

The new season of the hit Showtime drama will start by phasing out the rest of the Brody clan, and will focus more on Carrie Mathison (Claire Danes) and her relocation to Pakistan. Carrie will brave through the season as she tries to deal with the death of Brody, fighting against a relapse of her bipolar issues and mental problems that she's faced throughout the series. She was also revealed to be pregnant in the previous season's final episodes, which will be explored more this season.

As per Executive producers Alex Gansa, Alex Cary and Meredith Stiehm, the relationship between Carrie and Peter Quinn (Rupert Friend) will also develop and will be explored further. A new character - Aayan Ibrahim (Suraj Sharma​) will also be introduced, and will be a source that Carrie tries to get close to. This is also revealed to be a major plot point.

"The show is about the private and public costs of keeping America safe," Gansa says when explaining the new direction of the series. "We put a character at the center of that -- a compelling character, hopefully, in Carrie Mathison -- to really identify the personal costs of the journey. But there also is a national cost to our policies, in Afghanistan and Pakistan specifically," he continues. "That's the story we're going to explore this season. It's got some juice to it."

This is the new trailer of Season 4.

- But can Homeland rise above Brody's death? -

The show will take a different direction, of that there is no question. But can that be done? Nicholas Brody should have died in season 2 itself. His story-arc was dragged on, and in season 3 when he finally died, it seemed like there was a void within Homeland. Although the previous seasons focused a lot on Carrie, her fate was always intertwined with Brody's. But now, she's leading the charge alone and the biggest question is can she do it? It's possible. She's a broken yet strong female character. But as we've seen from dozens of other shows, the strong female lead is a gamble that almost always pays off.

I'm hoping that Saul Berenson (Mandy Patinkin) gets a lot more screen time, which has been increasing rapidly with each season. Patinkin's portrayal of the CIA operative is easily one of the best the show has to offer, and his story-lines are always well constructed - filled with complexity and emotionality. Quinn is another strong character they should focus more on, there's still so much we don't know about him. And from the looks of the new trailer, he's right in the thick of it with Carrie, so he's going to be getting a lot more screen time.

Homeland will return for its 4th season on October 5, 2014.