Part of that may be my fault. The show's audio is horrible on my TV's (a Sony and a Sharp.) It's the only show I watch I can't make out what is being said more than half the time. One week I turned on close captioning. (Since no one else has written about this to my knowledge, I assume it's the fault of my TV, or my settings, not a Homeland problem. Although I do have a friend who has had the same problem. )

That said, I also found the multiple plot lines confusing to follow without reading a review of the episode after I had watched it to figure out what was happening.

I thought some were too complicated and others were too banal and stereotypical. Examples: I had trouble following the Russian/Allison double agent subplot until the end. I didn't understand the Israeli subplot.

As for those I didn't care for: I didn't like turning Saul into a caricature of a newly divorced middle aged male, likely to fall for the charms of a younger (and not particularly physically attractive) female agent who of course was using him. (The Variety reviewer aptly describes him as "a vulnerable middle-aged divorcee who lost his killer instincts to his need for canoodling.")

I was totally bored by the sub plot of the expat American blogger-journalist in Berlin and her stereotypical right to privacy tirades. She was so predictable, I could have recited her lines without hearing the audio. She turned Edward Snowden into a caricature -- was he a hero and truth teller or a traitor? The Variety reviewer loved her and thought she should get her own spin-off. I won't be one to watch if shee does. (Her hacker buddy came off as more real than she did, and I liked watching his scenes.)

I thought the subplot involving Carrie and her daughter were too sappy, especially the shooting of that goodbye video. There just weren't enough episodes showing Carrie and her daughter's close relationship to turn her into mother of the year so fast. And let's face it; Same as Good Wife, why do these shows always have to foist irrelevant kids on us when the show is about something else? Homeland is about the U.S. fight against terror. The Good Wife is about a cheated on wife who returns to the workplace and becomes a good lawyer. They can have kids, but there's no need to make them a centerpiece of even one episode.

As for Quinn, I couldn't stand to watch one more scene of him frothing at the mouth or spewing some ugly liquid like a character in a horror movie. Who would live through the first one, let alone two, three or four? For that matter, all of Quinn's physical exploits this season had a cartoon-ish, superhero quality to them that strained credulity. Shoot him, stab him, hang him up, fill him with gas -- he would still land on his feet and take the offensive. His scenes were so overblown that I had a hard time crediting any of them.

Maybe I was less convinced than others by the sudden devotion at the end because I never found his and Carrie's romantic relationship believable in the first place. I still don't think she was romantically in love with him, it was more like a one-sided appreciated crush -- he was fixated on her and she took comfort in knowing he was there to watch her back.

Quinn's best scenes from a character standpoint to me were those from a past season, with the overweight woman he wasn't ashamed to have an affair with and violently defended. His best trait was his unwavering loyalty to his principles and those he cared about.

I also found the scenes about whether Carrie should take her meds unnecessary, evoking a "been there, done that" reaction.

With all these criticisms, was there anything I liked about Homeland this season? Yes. I liked the plot about Carrie and her German boyfriend (minus the daughter. His connection to Carrie's daughter was more credible than Carrie's connection to her -- they never worked for me as a cohesive threesome.) What really stuck with me was the scene where his son was kidnapped and he calls Carrie out for being completely non-sensitive to it. At that moment, I realized they would never get back together.

I liked the female German officer (especially when she got the better of the cliche-spouting journalist). I liked CIA double agent Allison's Russian sidekick. I liked the plot of the sarin bomb and Carrie in the finale (in her typical superhero mode) stopping it at the last minute by running down a railroad track in the darkness firing her gun. I liked Carrie's compassion toward the reluctant jihadi who let her stop the attack.

In a nutshell, I think the best part of the season was Carrie -- her rawness was expertly written and played. The reviewer for Variety says it better than I could:

But in this episode in particular, it’s the work turned in by Claire Danes, who never ceases to impress with her dexterity, that makes the whole thing tick. There is not a glamour shot in the episode. Carrie is shot to look like hell — lines and crevices on her face, blotchy skin, eyes sunk into dark circles and tangled hair. Even when she’s wearing Jonas’ sweatshirt and little else, she doesn’t come off as a sexy so much as scattered and desperate.

(I would just have added the unattractiveness of her slumped posture, her overbite, her trembling chin and her masculine gait to that description. Props to Claire Danes for agreeing to be shot like that all season.)

As for those saying the season ended on a suspenseful note, I don't get that. I thought this finale wrapped up every conceivable plot line -- Quinn is dead (you shouldn't need an autopsy to know that -- the bathing white light when his spirit went out and Carrie pulling the plug off his fluids or whatever she was pulling showed that); double agent Allison is dead, shot up like swiss cheese in the trunk of a car; Saul is pitiful, begging for Carrie to return to work for him; the German industrialist makes a most unromantic offer of a romantic relationship to Carrie; the terrorist plot failed; the German boyfriend dumps her after makeup sex. The show is called Homeland because it's about the U.S. fight against terror. Unless they are going to kill off Clair Danes, she'll be back working for the Government at some point in Season 6. The show isn't going to morph into a show about Carrie raising her daughter. That's called a spin-off. So what was left unresolved?

I also don't understand the reviewers calling the show "prescient" about ISIS. Where have they been for the last year a half? ISIS has been in the news daily since at least June, 2014 when al-Baghdadi declared his Caliphate. The U.S. began airstrikes in early August 2014, which ISIS claimed led to the beheading later in the month of James Foley. ISIS was an obvious theme people would connect to by the time writers began scripting Season 5. The director recently explained:

Every season we reinvent the wheel. We have a series of meetings — myself, the writers, Claire (Danes) and Mandy (Patinkin) — with an incredible variety of intelligence experts in Washington. And we get this amazing series of seminars on what’s going on the world. Obviously no one’s talking about what’s classified.

(Showrunner) Alex Gansa starts off the conversation with what keeps you up at night, what’s your biggest nightmare. The things that became the key topics in this last session [when we met] last January were Putin, ISIS and all the issues around privacy and how’s that’s impacted security.

The director says the finale of Homeland filmed during and after the Paris attacks.

I was in the middle of shooting the season finale when (the attacks on) Paris happened. We were shooting in the subway tunnel under the Reichstag.

How did it feel to film there after the Paris attacks?

It was very intense. Sometimes when you’re reading the news, it can feel very distant. This felt very up close and personal. We were in another European capital. I felt it personally, having lived in Paris for three years. It’s a city I love. Sadly, it could have been anywhere. And that’s very sobering.

In other words, ISIS was a no-brainer for Homeland this season.

Is there such a thing as a terrorist with redemptive qualities? If so, no one, including me, is going to admit it in today's climate. But I do think it's okay to give Homeland props for giving us some unforgettable terrorists, like the one who turned Nicholas Brody and this guy. I hope Season 6 puts the focus back on terrorism and less on Carrie's personal life, reduces the number of plot lines, and skips the ones that have already turned into cliches.