Homeland fans may have been disappointed by the show’s fourth season, which featured stars Claire Danes and Rupert Friend running wild and battling terrorism in the streets of Islamabad, but no one was more frustrated than the Pakistani diplomats who tuned in.
“Maligning a country that has been a close partner and ally of the US is a disservice not only to the security interests of the US but also to the people of the US,” Pakistan Embassy spokesman Nadeem Hotiana told the New York Post.
“Homeland makes it seem that Pakistan has contempt for Americans and its values and principles. That is not true.”
According to the Post’s Saturday cover story, some Pakistani diplomats were (understandably) displeased with the way the show portrayed their nation as complicit in the terrorist acts they are presumably helping prevent. “Repeated insinuations that an intelligence agency of Pakistan is complicit in protecting the terrorists at the expense of innocent Pakistani civilians is not only absurd, but also an insult to the ultimate sacrifices of the thousands of Pakistani security personnel in the war against terrorism,” a source told the New York Post.
That said, the nation has what Reuters calls a “decades-long romance with jihadi proxies” working with “good Taliban” on regional causes while fighting “bad” anti-state Taliban. The lines between those factions have blurred even in more in the wake of the devastating attack on a school in Peshawar, Pakistan that cost the lives of 132 students, many of whom were the children of Pakistani soldiers. It’s easy to understand why Pakistanis may be uncomfortable having their nation’s power struggles on display—whether or not they were accurately depicted—in Homeland.
Other complaints listed by the Post included the fact that the characters spoke English and when they did speak Urdu “the connotations of some of the Urdu words that are used are out of place,” and that the show’s portrayal of the city failed to accurately reflect its bucolic nature. “Islamabad is a quiet, picturesque city with beautiful mountains and lush greenery,” one source told the Post. “In Homeland, it’s portrayed as a grimy hellhole and war zone.”
The show was actually shot far from Islamabad in Cape Town, South Africa.
“A little research would have gone a long way,” said one Pakistani official.
Homeland won’t be able to address concerns over their portrayal of the city any time soon, though. “They’re not going back to Pakistan,” Showtime president David Nevins told EW about the show’s fifth season.
Hopefully they won’t be headed to Israel, either, as the finale also irked some Israelis when CIA handler Dar Adal (F Murray Abraham) compared the season’s murderous villain Haissam Haqqani (Numan Acar) to former Israeli prime minister–and Nobel Peace Prize winner—Menachim Begin.