Janke could turn out to be right, and I will look like a sucker. Which is fine. Maybe I am a sucker, but there are worst things that being a plain old sucker…or are there? My overall point is that we’re one season in on a series that is an unfolding drama. Things that seem anti-American now might not be in the grand scheme of things.

Even with that qualifier, I don’t think Season One of the show is anti-American.

Spoilers Aplenty Ahead

As the series opens, CIA field agent Carrie Mathison (a seriously, ridiculously superb Claire Danes), learns from an imprisoned CIA asset in Iraq that an American P.O.W. has been turned by Al-Qaeda. She thinks nothing of it because there was no reason at the time to believe that Al-Qaeda had American POWs, much less that one had been brainwashed.

But then a Marine named Nicholas Brody (Damian Lewis, also great), is rescued in a Delta Force raid on a compound owned by a vile terrorist named Abu Nazir (Navid Negahban). Carrie immediately suspects that Brody is the Marine who has been turned. She scrutinizes his every move, gesture and tic, bugs his house with the help of Virgil, a surveillance expert (scene-stealer extraordinaire David Marciano). No one believes Carrie, least of all her immediate superior Saul (Mandy Patinkin, soooooo good), and he doesn’t even know she’s on anti-psychotic medication.

Brody is a reluctant hero. He comes back home to a family who thought he was dead. His wife (alien Obama stand-in Morena Baccarin) is sleeping with his best Marine Buddy Mike (Diego Klattenhoff), his daughter’s a budding pothead, and his son, um, takes karate. Brody doesn’t easily slide back into domestic life. And he is, in fact, a Muslim who sneaks into the garage at night to kneel toward Mecca.

Which doesn’t necessarily make him a sleeper agent, except that he is. In the series most unconvincing turn, Carrie meets him, clumsily, and falls in love with him, even more clumsily. He tells her that Abu Nazir offered him aid and comfort, “And I loved him for that.” At just that moment, Carrie learns that the long-thought dead Tom Walker (Chris Chalk) — Brody’s partner who was also captured — is alive. And he’s the terrorist.

Most Americans believe that in the War on Terror we’re the good guys, and it’s pretty cut and dry. But human emotion and conflict muddy the waters. Fairly late in season one, we learn how Brody was turned. Abu Nazir pulled him from a hole and offered him a nice place to live. Nazir asked him to teach his son Issa to speak English. He grows close to the son, and mourns when Issa and 81 other children are killed in a drone attack ordered by current US Vice President William Walden (Jamey Sheridan). Watching the news footage, Nazir sneers, “And they call us terrorists.”

To me, the irony of this and other emotional complications is the heart of the series. The death of 82 kids is certainly tragic. Brody had a personal connection to one of them that, for him, was larger than the War on Terror. But while I can recognize the tragedy, I can’t claim the same emotional connection to the kid. Furthermore, I’m not convinced Nazir was really mourning the loss of his son. At that moment, he knew he had Brody. He couldn’t connect with 300 Million Americans, but he didn’t need to. He just needed one.

Brody’s relationship with Nazir isn’t all lollipops and sunshine. Nazir has Brody convinced he killed Walker, and when he finds out Walker’s alive, he is justifiably angry with Nazir. But Nazir consoles him and brings him back into the fold. Nazir’s relationship with Brody is one built on false pretenses, and I’m hoping that this will play into the series in season 2.

The emotional bonds shared by many of the characters complicate this particular front of the War on Terror. Virgil helps Claire illegally bug Brody’s home because they’re friends. Saul indulges Claire because of their history. Her other superior doesn’t indulge her because of their very different history.

Even when things are black and white, complications ensue.

Janke took issue with the series finale, in which Brody films a martyr video, blaming VP Walden for the death of 82 kids. The video has not yet been exposed, and I think it’s going to be exposed only when Brody has switched back to the good guys. I’m pretty convinced he’s going to realize something awful about Nazir, and the video will become a liability for him. Another of Janke’s complaints was a particular line of dialogue uttered by VP Walden. When Saul takes Walden to task for ordering a drone attack on a school, Walden says, ““Don’t cloud the issue. If Abu Nazir is taking refuge among children, he’s putting them at risk, not us. It’s our joint opinion the potential collateral damage falls within current matrix parameters.” Saul is disgusted, and apparently so was Janke, but you know what?

I think the VP is right. It’s cold, it’s vicious, but…as I recall, we haven’t yet learned how America learned of Nazir’s location. What if Nazir wanted the attack to happen? What if he was grooming Brody all along?

Perhaps I’m totally wrong, but the first season of the show was exciting enough for me to tune in for season two so I can see where they take us. I’m not going so far as to say the show is conservative, but I’m not ready to call it anti-American, either.

But the drama, released today on DVD and Blu-ray, deserved a smattering of Oscar buzz all the same. What other movies bring the issue of Sharia law to light in such fashion? More importantly, why didn‘t Shohreh Aghdashloo’s blistering performance earn her a place in the Best Actress category?

“Stoning,” directed and co-written by “The Path to 9/11” screenwriter Cyrus Nowrasteh, takes us to a remote Iranian village under the thumb of Sharia law. Young, attractive Soraya (Mozhan Marno) is raising four children with little help from her husband, Ali (Navid Negahban). When Ali decides he’d rather be married to a 14-year-old Iranian girl, he tries to pressure Soraya into granting him a divorce.

When she refuses, Ali accuses her of sleeping with a villager for whom she provides housekeeping duties.

She’s clearly innocent, but Ali is able to muster enough manufactured evidence to reinforce his case. What follows is a harrowing march to the titular stoning, an unblinking vision of a culture which subjugates women and human decency.

What sets “Stoning” apart is the detail Nowrashteh brings to the narrative. The villagers aren’t caricatures save for the villainous Ali, and we get to see the smaller moments of the village come alive.

The stoning itself is a horror movie more frightening than “Saw” or “Hostel.” It’s difficult to watch, but the director clearly wants people to understand the ramifications of cultural rot.

The film’s framing device delivers some clunky exchanges, but the sheer power of “The Stoning of Soraya M.” cannot be denied.

The Blu-ray extras include a three-part documentary detailing how “Stoning” came to be. The featurette could use some editing, but it’s noteworthy for showing a film director lose his cool on the set. Most DVD extras are simply glib shout-outs to the product in question.

The extras also detail the balancing act the crew accomplished in dealing with untrained movie extras and physical hardships which made each day of shooting a struggle.

Nowrasteh, an Iranian-American himself, says he insisted on casting Iranian actors in the main roles as a way to honor the country.

The modestly budgeted film suffered from on-set language barriers, a remote location with limited transportation access and having to stop production five times a day to allow for prayers.

“The surrounding craziness helped the movie,” Nowrasteh says. “It gave an air of reality to everything. This was not make believe.”

Betsy Giffen Nowrasteh, the director’s wife and “Stoning’s” co-screenwriter, says the film was meant to honor real women, like Soraya, who suffer at the hands of cruel cultural traditions.

“We’re trying to illuminate something that isn’t talked about enough,“ she says.

Directed by Cyrus Nowrasteh (The Path to 9/11) and written by Nowrasteh and his wife Besy Giffen-Nowrasteh, Soraya is based on the 1995 non-fiction book of the same name by Freidoune Sahebjam. Soraya takes place after the Islamic revolution in Iran and centers around Soraya (played by Mozhan Marnò), a woman whose husband, Ali (played by Navid Negahban), has tired of her after 20 years of marriage and wishes to discard her for a younger woman. Actually, “younger” is an understatement, as Ali lusts after a 14-year-old girl. Soraya knows about Ali’s plans, but won’t agree to a divorce because she knows she will be unable to provide for her two young daughters (the two sons will stay with Ali, of course). Ali must then come up with another scheme for getting rid of his uncooperative wife, and he uses guile, cunning and good old-fashioned blackmail to get the key players in place for what is passed off as a religious cleansing rite.

Intricately involved in the plan to rid Ali of his wife are the Mullah (played by Ali Pourtash), Ebrahim, the Mayor (played by David Diaan), and Hashem, the village mechanic (played by Parviz Sayyad). When writing the script, the Nowrastehs stayed true to the real-life characters, but felt they needed to add shading to the characters of the men in order to more broadly reflect how different people react under extreme peer pressure and mob rule. “Frankly, we humanized many of the male characters to show their inner conflicts and dilemmas, whereas in the book they are all evil to the core,” said Cyrus. Each of these men has a reason for his complicity, and while some of their reasoning is almost understandable, it doesn’t make it any easier to accept. In fact, the entire village is swept up in this religious fervor, and the relish with which the village men (and even some of the women) take part in the repulsively violent proceedings is truly a window on the failings of mankind.

Because you know going in what will happen – Soraya is killed in a brutal “religious” stoning ritual on charges of adultery – much of the drama is in what takes place beforehand: seeing how the beautiful, kind, caring Soraya is set up for a fall from which there is no getting up. Her aunt Zahra (played by Shohreh Aghdashlooo) sees what is happening. although she doesn’t know specifics, she warns Soraya that some kind of plot is afoot, but Soraya refuses to believe that anyone would go to such trouble on her account. When she realizes, too late, what is happening, Soraya says, “So he’s finally done it. He’s gotten rid of me.” And she knows she is trapped: there is no escape.

Soraya is at her happiest when she is with her young daughters, and her greatest concern after discovering her own fate is what will happen to them. The tender scene where she says goodbye to them is in stark contrast to her final words with her sons – one of whom tells the other to “act like a man.”

The Mullah prepares for his part in the stoning as he gets his beard trimmed and, when he arrives at the pit, he has changed into a black robe and is wearing sunglasses – like some kind of medieval pop star. The grandstanding is quite sickening to behold.

The script is riveting and the cinematography is fabulous – the stark beauty of the mountain village underlining the bleak outlook on life for the women who live there. As Ali tells his sons, “This is a man’s world. Never forget that, boys.” In fact, such is the man’s world that Soraya’s elderly father turns against her too. He even gets the honor of casting the first stone.

As for the stoning scene itself (achieved by puppetry, stunt performers and CGI), it’s brutal, cruel and shocking. It’s hard to believe the director toned it down: “I didn’t want to have anyone mistake what they were seeing for standard, popcorn movie violence but I also didn’t want it to be so graphic that it overwhelmed the audience.” Nowrasteh added, “All I can tell you is that compared to what I saw and read [about real stonings], the scene in the movie is far less graphic than it could have been.” Be prepared for real tears, and not just during the stoning scene: I had to work hard to keep myself from breaking down completely. Throughout the film I could hear exclamations of disgust from other viewers (especially when God was invoked as a reason for what was happening), and the man two seats away from me was audibly sniffling.

Much of the importance of this film lies in the real-life bravery of Zahra and her determination to tell the story of what happened to her beloved niece. She not only endangers herself, but also journalist Feidoune Sahebjam (played by Jim Caviezel in a small but pivotal role). Their chance meeting turns into what is arguably the biggest story of his career, but he must dodge the mayor, the Mullah, and a couple of members of the Revolutionary Guard after speaking with Zahra. The question that remains, of course, is that if indeed “Islam” demands it” and “it’s God’s law,” why the attempt to hush it all up?

The cast is first rate, with everyone giving solid performances. Aghdashloo shines as Zahra, the fearless woman who will not rest until she does what she can to tell the world of the cruel injustice visited upon Soraya. Marnò plays Soraya with a haunting grace and underlying strength that, despite having all forces against her, can never truly be vanquished. John Denby’s score provides the proper mood throughout, while the photography and editing are also essential to the telling of the story. Except for the scenes where Zahra is telling Sahebjam her tale in English, the movie is in Farsi with English subtitles, which immerses the viewer in Soraya’s world more completely than would have happened had the movie been in English.

As I left the screening room and walked down 48th Street, I was in a daze. It was a beautiful summer evening in New York City and yet I wondered how I could enjoy it after seeing the stark reality of brutality that continues to exist against women (and some men). I walked by a movie set – not unusual in New York – and wondered about the movie being filmed. Was it a comedy? An action film? I’m not a movie or theater snob; I like fluffy entertainment as much as the next guy. You won’t often hear me saying, “This is an important film,” but I’m saying so now. I certainly don’t expect The Stoning of Soraya M. to outperform Transformers 2 at the box office, but it will haunt those who see it. As difficult as it is to watch, Soraya’s story must be told. If it can save lives, she will not have died in vain.

Due to the film’s graphic nature, I would not recommend it for anyone under 17 (hence the R rating).

Rated R (cruel and brutal violence); 1 hr 56 min