If you haven’t seen “Homeland,” the addictive-as-potato-chips spy series that returns to Showtime Sept. 30, you really must and you can begin with the first season, now on DVD. Damian Lewis – so  brilliant as the hero of HBO’s “Band of Brothers” and the sympathetic antiheroes in PBS’ “The Forsyte Saga” and NBC’s late, lamented “Life” – is just spot-on as Sgt. Nicholas Brody, a former  Marine POW turned into an Al Qaeda agent. Claire Danes is his match as the obsessive, bipolar CIA agent on his trail, and soon, in his arms.  Mandy Patinkin as her compassionate handler at Langley completes this acting trifecta.

Such kudos, however, barely do justice to a series that is all about serpentine manipulations, not the least of which is the way the creators slither around the viewers, transfixing them.