When Homeland left off last season, viewers had a lot to take in and much to consider in terms of how the show would evolve with Brody no longer in the picture. A trailer for Season 4 has been released and allows us to see CIA agent Carrie Mathison dealing with a new life.

We'll watch as she grapples with how to handle motherhood, mental illness and what to expect as she settles into her new position as Station Chief halfway across the world.

Showrunner Alex Gansa, who produces and writes for Homeland, has been talking to the media en masse in anticipation of the launch of Season 4 on Sunday, Oct. 5. And while the trailer doesn't give a whole lot away in terms of specifics on what's to come, Gansa has been dishing all over town about the show's evolution.

According to several reports, while the show is reportedly set mostly in Pakistan and Afghanistan, it's actually filmed on-site in Cape Town, South Africa.

Gansa discussed the choice of location for filming for the new season in a place so far from where the show is supposed to be centered, during a recent interview with Newsday.

"Cape Town might not seem like an ideal place to shoot for Islamabad, it's actually amazing," Gansa said. "A lot of Bollywood films have started shooting in Cape Town, and there's a big expatriate community of Pakistanis and Indians there, which provides us with extras and great character actors."

So here we have Carrie in a new role, in a new home overseas, and a big question on everybody's mind is how she is going to cope with all of the major events that have occurred and will occur in her life.

According to Gansa, since the Season 3 finale Carrie has reportedly become stable in terms of the mental illness that plagued her so publicly. However, Gansa adds that emotions will play a big part in the new season as Carrie must come to terms with and grieve over Brody's death. And with that game changer in mind, how can we expect to see Carrie adapt to being the mother of Brody's child?

The answer to that question, according to Newsday, is that we won't. In order to take on her new position, Carrie reportedly chose to leave the baby at home in her father's care.

"The baby exists as a marker for [Carrie] emotionally," Gansa said. "But the place that she's in now is a place where you cannot have dependents, so she was forced to leave the child..."

Stepping back to look at the bigger picture on what Homeland Season 4 is supposed to represent, Gansa gave Entertainment Weekly some inside information on what the upcoming season will actually center on during a recent interview.

Gansa explained that the goal in Season 4 is to see Carrie "for the first time doing what she was trained to do." Her mission this season is to succeed as a senior CIA official in a dangerous and unfamiliar foreign capital, according to the Entertainment Weekly report.

"We're going to see what an intelligence officer does on the ground," Gansa said during the interview. "[We'll see] how she recruits assets, how she deals with the foreign government and her country team - the people she works with in the embassy - and the host country's intelligence services."

According to Gansa, this season will take place in "a complicated and murky world."

When asked if there were any real-life incidents from which the show is drawing, Gansa held no punches. He laid everything out, explaining that the entire reason he and his colleagues had chosen this change in environment for Season 4 was in response to the American armed forces pulling out of Afghanistan.

Gansa went on to question what the United States was doing there for the past 14 years. He sought to find out whether when American soldiers are out of the country, will the Taliban seize power and take over again? He wants to know what all the blood and "treasure" spent was worth. In considering the specific point in which our military forces are finally and fully pulled out of the country, who are the people left behind, Gansa asks.

Well, Season 4 was designed to show you just that.

"People like Carrie Mathison or [new character] Martha Boyd -- the CIA and the State Department people are the ones left on the ground when the military leaves, and it's up to them to try and keep that country intact," Gansa said. "Carrie's on the ground in a dangerous place trying to break the law which puts her in a very charged situation."

Want a sneak peek of the action? Check out what's to come on Season 4 in the new trailer from Showtime (below) as you prepare for everything heading your way on Homeland this fall.


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For the latest news & updates, follow reporter Bary Alyssa Johnson on Twitter: @MissBary