Season 3 of Homeland just as great as Season 2

Season 3 of Homeland absolutely picks up with 2 left off and is every bit as gripping as the first two seasons - a rarity among series that often deflate as they move beyond the initial plot lines - and the first disc, with 4 episodes, has very helpful "previously on" sections at the head of each episode (on the other hand, these discs, from Fox 21, are horribly designed and require you to sit through endless previous each time you re-open). A couple of the great things about Season 3: most of all the incredible Claire Danes with the most expressive face on film or television, clearly at the center once again, suffering from her bipolar disorder, off her meds, blamed as the consort of Brodie who is suspected (even by us, perhaps) as the one who bombed CIA headquarter, and thrown "under the bus" by Saul (Mandy Patinkin), now acting head of the CIA - she knows or believes that they want her out of the picture because she knows too much and that they will no doubt kill her and make it look like a suicide of a mentally ill person; she goes to the press but her behavior is so frantic and bizarre that nobody is likely to believe her rant that the CIA is out to get her - sounds like classic paranoia (some may recall the very funny take on similar dilemma in the old Jerry Lewis movie The Big Mouth). As she's held against her will in a psychiatric hospital, we see Brody (in episode 3) held by some thugs in a cell-like housing complex in Venezuela - not completely clear yet who they are or why they're holding him except that he, like Danes/Kerry knows too much. Brody's daughter, Dana, runs off with a boyfriend in a plot element that seems increasingly peripheral except that she is emerging as a terrific young actress - perhaps the Claire Danes of her generation. Tremendously interesting plot twist in episode 4 that I won't divulge. Altogether a great series - two oddities, though. So funny to see not only Patinkin but alongside him F Murray Abraham as the two honchos running the CIA: who knew it was an agency run by a couple of aging Jewish tummlers? Second, Brody's sudden appearance in Caracas (he'd fled north to Montreal, last we saw) and his temporary escape into a nearby mosque (!) seems so odd - a relic from the original Israeli series when no doubt the Brody character escaped to Lebanon or Jordan: couldn't they have made a more credible plot element here? Third, some of the CIA agents and actions seem almost absurdly competent - impossible to reconcile with an agency that didn't even recognize the terrorist in its midst.