Even as Homeland largely sat out 2016, the series’ future is at least assured through Season 8; likely 2019 overall. There’s no telling what political landscape the series might have to reflect by then, but showrunner Alex Gansa thinks the next two seasons will likely prove the final, getting Carrie back to work as an Intelligence offer.

Speaking with Deadline after Sunday’s premiere, Gansa cautioned against predicting how the series might alter its storyline to better match the current political climate, but nonetheless suggested that Season 8 would likely prove the last for Homeland. And where Season 6 has Carrie back in New York, rather than abroad (producers wanted to give Claire Danes a break), the final years will likely take Carrie abroad again:

I’m absolutely building the story toward a conclusion and, barring unforeseen world events, we do really hope to go abroad for the last two seasons and to end the story there. We also hope to get Carrie back into the intelligence agency business. She’s been out of it now for two seasons and I think it’s time that she goes back into the fold and then winds up doing her job overseas somewhere.

That said, Gansa wouldn’t commit to any broad strokes of the series’ endgame, given how different U.S. intelligence might look in a few years:

Really, who knows what’s going to happen? What’s going to happen on the ground in the Middle East? What’s going to happen with the Iranian nuclear deal? What is the United States’ relationship going with Putin going to look like in Russia? These are all the questions that Homeland will be dealing with over the next two seasons, and we’ll take a bit of a wait-and-see posture before we start committing to anything, story-wise.

In the meantime, Season 6 will continue its de-escalation from terrorism thriller to an exploration of the Muslim-American community at home. Have a look at the latest trailer below, and stay tuned.

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