Was Timothée Chalamet in Homeland? His role in the drama series, explained

Homeland dropped on Showtime on October 2, 2011. The espionage thriller soon turned into a cultural phenomenon. It won several Emmy Awards and earned people’s hearts with its intense depiction of post-9/11 American anxiety.

Buried in the talented cast was young Timothée Chalamet, way before he was breaking hearts in Call Me by Your Name or stomping around Arrakis with a sandworm in Dune.

In Homeland Season 2, 2012, Chalamet showed up as Finn Walden, the Vice President’s bratty teenage son. He was 16 and proved his knack for playing complicated, messed-up characters. His part was minimal, but it was a little preview of the talent that would turn him into every indie director’s dream.

Finn’s story arc was chaotic. The character was involved in the most talked-about story arcs of the season that would put to the test the moral limits of the show’s heroes and reveal the series’ core concepts about privilege, power, and the fallout of actions.

Timothée Chalamet’s role in Homeland

Timothée Chalamet showed up in Homeland for the first time in Season 2, Episode 1, titled The Smile. He played Finn Walden, who just happened to be the Vice President’s son. His timing was kind of perfect, too, since the show was flipping the script: Brody was out of the POW and gunning for a political career. So, naturally, his family gets put into a power-soaked DC world.

Once Brody starts chasing politics, his kids, Dana and Chris, end up at the same school as Finn. And since Finn is the same age as Dana and sitting in her class, everybody just assumes they will hit it off. However, Dana is not thrilled. At first, she sees Finn as the poster boy for everything she hates about her new life. He has a smug, rich-kid attitude that Dana detests.

But Chalamet didn’t just phone it in with a flat, spoiled brat routine. He gave Finn more depth than we expected from the character. He played the rich-kid arrogance, but then he would turn on the charm, and you get why Dana falls for him. It’s annoying, but believable. Throughout the season, Finn starts pulling Dana into his world with late-night trips to the Lincoln Memorial, secret spots, and all the privileged shenanigans. She gets a taste of that life, whether she likes it or not.

The Finn x Dana in Homeland season 2 was a wild ride. However, things got out of hand when Finn, being reckless and way too privileged for his own good, ran over a woman while joyriding with Dana. Everything changed after that.

So, fast-forward a bit: there’s a fundraiser, and Dana is losing it over when they are gonna tell the truth about the hit-and-run. Finn is just kind of moping, not really wanting to deal with it, while Dana is falling apart from guilt. When they finally tell their parents, Finn’s mom, Cynthia, doesn’t even blink. She wants to keep things hush-hush to save face politically. You could really see the giant moral gap between Finn and Dana right then. One is drowning in guilt, the other just kind of going along with whatever the adults say.

And then the plot gets all merged with the spy arc. Brody drags Dana to the police station so she can confess. Carrie explicitly ordered Brody not to submit the report, as it would mean losing Walden’s support, hence his relationship with Abu Nazir would be in danger. This incident made it very evident one of Homeland’s major themes: the moral sacrifices of the good and evil, and also, the question of whether the ends truly justify the means.

Meanwhile, Finn starts to feel guilty later, telling Dana he thinks about the woman every day, and she is the only one he can talk to about it. But by that point, it’s too late. Most people watching had already written him off as another entitled kid who would never really face consequences.

Finn’s story came to an abrupt and tragic end in the season finale. While Carrie is at a somber CIA memorial, a car blows up, and the whole building is leveled. The explosion took the lives of many, including David Estes, Cynthia Walden, Finn Walden, the Secretary of Defense, and the Secretary of Homeland Security. Carrie and Brody’s escapade at the ceremony was followed by a tragic bombing in Langley, which was the last act planned by Abu Nazir before his death, resulting in the death of Finn and many others.

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Finn’s arc was like a lightning rod. Viewers couldn’t stop arguing about that hit-and-run plot. Was it a sharp look at privilege and consequences, or just a pointless detour from the spy story? But even if Finn wasn’t around for long, the car crash storyline highlighted some big themes.

Timothée’s time on Homeland set the tone for his career. He never shied away from roles that made people twitch or second-guess. You see it here, and you see it even more in projects like Lady Bird and Beautiful Boy.

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