TCA press tour: Season 3 of ‘Homeland’ finds Carrie off her meds, Brody MIA

Caution! “Homeland” spoiler alert straight ahead: Carrie becomes a hair dresser in Ohio 17 years from now.

OK, so Claire Danes was joking when predicting the fate of her “Homeland” character, if the Showtime series proves enduring. The 34-year-old actress was joined Monday by co-stars Damian Lewis and Rupert Friend as well as the show’s executive producers Alex Gansa and Howard Gordon at the Television Critics Ass. press tour in Beverly Hills.

Judging from how expertly she can tack paper to walls, we can only imagine how crafty she’d be with a pair of scissors. For now, there are more pressing matters. When “Homeland” returns for its third season, things are a bit in disarray, with the ramifications from the massive explosion at CIA headquarters in the season 2 finale coming to light.

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“Certainly one of the themes of season 3 is the cost of being an intelligence officer,” Gansa said. “Saul and Carrie are prime examples of that this season.” (Stop reading here if you don’t want details for next season.)

The third season, which returns Sept. 29, will also see Saul [Mandy Patinkin] assume control of the CIA after the death of the organization’s director of counter-intelligence, David Estes (David Harewood). And his crying protege Carrie will find herself once again off her bipolar meds.

“Carrie is always sitting on her own personal ticking bomb,” Danes said. “It’s always an impossible dilemma because she is not great on her meds and even worse off them,” but there’s a “sweet spot” when she finds the balance between the states.

The season is also a case of “Where’s Brody”? The mysterious former POW-turned-terrorism-suspect is absent from the season’s first two episodes to emphasize his flight from America.

“Whether there’s a backlash [to Brody’s absense] is completely out of our control,” Gansa said. To keep some nature of suspence, Gansa would not say what episode the character does finally present himself in — though expect a shaved head, judging from the trailer.

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“Brody is on the lam, he’s disappeared into a network,” Lewis said. “He’s the most wanted criminal in the world, so he has to lay low. I think when you do see Brody, what state will he be in? Is he swanning around a yacht on the Cote d’Azure with a bevy of Russsian beauties — which I pitched? Is he hidden away? Is he lost? When you do see him, I hope it will be interesting.”

Last season came under a bit of scrutiny by critics; some questioned its believability, and others wondered whether the show was being too heavily influenced by the producers’ “24” past — a notion both played down, pointing out their 11 Emmy nominations and saying they were more influenced by the Benghazi hearings that were held in the early part of the year.

But their former hit show is proving influential in other ways. The pair are working on “Homeland” concurrently with Fox’s revival of “24,” which opened up its writers room last week and is slated to roll out next summer.

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