‘Homeland’ Fans Are Beside Themselves After Series Kills off Major Character

As Homeland inches closer towards its series finale, Sunday night’s episode confirmed the death of a beloved character. While it’s not uncommon with this particular series, which has been known to kill off its main characters, this one hit fans particularly hard. Just a warning: spoilers for Homeland’s most recent episode, “Threnody(s),” will follow.

After years of dedication to Claire Danes‘ semi-rogue intelligence agent Carrie Mathison, Maury Sterling‘s computer whiz Max Piotrowski was, indeed, dead. While his death technically occurred at the end of the previous episode, “F—er Shot Me,” Sunday night’s had Carrie coping with his loss. Especially considering she’d put considerable effort to rescue Max after he was captured by the Taliban in Kabul, only to have it end the way it did.

Max dated back to the show’s pilot episode, and remained loyal to Carrie, no matter how far she’d stray off the beaten path. Given his long tenure on Showtime‘s political thriller, which is coming to a close in a few weeks with the Season 8 finale, the audience took to Twitter to share in her grief.

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Although it was shocking, Sterling had teased his death back in February in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. Nobody is safe,” Sterling said. “That’s part of what makes it good.”

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Sterling himself had planned on live-tweeting the episode with fans but ended up checking into the hospital with his wife, Alexis, who gave birth to a baby boy. 

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Alexis Sterling shared a photo of their newborn son in an Instagram post on Wednesday. 

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“Welcome to our little bear,” she wrote in the caption. “Ford Bryant Sterling was born this morning at 4:08 a.m. He’s healthy and we cannot thank the staff at [Cedars Sinai] for taking amazing care of us as we bring a tiny human into a pandemic.”

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Sterling also urged everyone who could to donate items to their local hospital and clinics to help them be better prepared to deal with coronavirus. 

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Homeland will continue toward its series finale Sunday nights at 9 p.m. ET on Showtime.