But this past season, the training wheels started to come off. Homeland, Louie, Enlightened, and Girls refuse to unpack their characters’ baggage for us; they let the viewer do it. Homeland, which returns this month, is exceptional in this regard; it might be the least viewer-­coddling drama on American TV. From the very first scene, you felt unbalanced because the characters are so complex and elusive. The show’s heroine, Carrie (Claire Danes), was bipolar and sneaked off-the-books medication from her doctor sister so that her bosses wouldn’t learn of her condition and revoke her security clearance. She’s the heroine, but we’re never sure how much we can trust her. Carrie’s quarry, Brody, was presented as a traumatized but essentially decent Marine, just telegenic enough to run for office, but he pulled our sympathies every which way, and even after the season finale we still can’t quite read him. Carrie’s boss, Saul (Mandy Patinkin), seemed honest, wise, and patriotic, but near the end of season one we weren’t so sure; between his marital woes, unshakable belief in his own rightness, and fatherly indulgence of Carrie, he could be primed to self-destruct, too. Each character contains multitudes. None is “likable.” And you can’t predict the plot because Homeland is without precedent, as strange, new, and endlessly fascinating as that show with the gangster squirming in his chair.