Plot: Jackie wakes in a rowboat adrift a lake, with no memory of how she got there — or even who she is. Her ensuing search for identity will lead her into the heart of the Geist Group, the unconventional wellness company behind the Homecoming Initiative.
Review: The first season of Amazon Prime's Homecoming was a pretty significant debut in that it was Julia Roberts' first leading role for television. With every episode directed by Mr. Robot creator Sam Esmail, the thriller series blended a complex narrative between multiple time periods which were reflected in changing aspect ratios. Adapted from the hit podcast of the same name, Homecoming was a mystery that was a lot of fun to unravel. With Amazon Prime securing the series for two seasons out of the gate, how would the sophomore run compare against the first? The answer is mixed because while Homecoming's second season still aims to be as intricate of a mystery, it fails to be as enthralling.
Connected to the story from the first season, the second series of Homecoming no longer has Julia Roberts in the lead. Singer and actresss Janelle Monae is front and center on the marketing for this new season but her role is shared equally with Hong Chau (HBO's Watchmen) who reprises her role as Audrey Temple from season one. While we also get to see Bobby Cannavale in a brief appearance as well as Stephan James as Walter Cruz, the new cast includes Chris Cooper as CEO Leonard Geist and Joan Cusack. While this new season does have flashbacks to fill in the gaps between the two storylines, the scope and focus this time around is much different. Season one tried to explain what was going on at the Homecoming facility where season two shows just how the ramifications of Geist's experiments reach.
As I watched each episode of Homecoming, I felt more and more misled by the story. The vague marketing of the first season allowed the story that unraveled on screen to be picked apart by the viewer and left the finale ambiguous. With this season, there is very little left unexplained which should feel more concrete but ends up just being disappointing. This season really feels like a retread of the first season but from a different point of view and feels like the back end of the first season rather than a fully realized second story. Yes, this is the second season of Homecoming but it feels a lot more like Season 1.5. The additional cast flesh out the story, but do we actually need any of this? The answer, unfortunately, is no.
While I could nitpick the story here, this is still an enjoyable watch if only to see Janelle Monae. From HIDDEN FIGURES to MOONLIGHT and the upcoming ANTEBELLUM, Monae is proving she is as good an actress as she is singer. Monae really dives into this role and her character is so intriguing that it is a shame that she is not highlighting a different series. This story feels so indebted to the first season of Homecoming that it never really functions on it's own. Chris Cooper, who is always a welcome addition to any cast, really sinks his trademark mannerisms into a character that I really expected to end up differently than he did. Homecoming certainly does a good job of subverting expectations but not always for the better.
As talented an actress as Monae it, this series gives Hong Chau the spotlight. But, taking a minor character from the first season and giving her such importance feels forced and a bit arbitrary. With a season of only seven episodes (three less than the first season), there is no time to spare and every episode is tense and yet you never quite feel like they are earned. There are a lot of red herrings here that try to build the mystery element but it never ends up equalling the sum of it's parts. The music is still excellent and the structure and camerawork try to mimic the first season, but at the end of the day, it just doesn't amount to a while lot. The journey just doesn't result in a pay off that is worth anything.
Like many stories that hinge on a mysterious twist and reveal, the second season of Homecoming had to come up with some new methods to keep the story interesting and fresh. Rather than try to duplicate the first season, this new run builds on the first while diving deeper into elements of the tale that I never thought would need to be explained further. Homecoming still makes great use of the short half hour running time of each episode. Each chapter feels as robust as an hour long drama and fans of the podcast may not find much new here especially since the story deviates from the audio version. Fans of the first season may not feel as invested this time around with the shift in focus, but it is still a rewarding drama and one of the better concepts airing right now. There certainly could be a third season that continues to mine this story in different ways, but if the tale ends here, these two seasons are nice compliments to one another even if this one doesn't feel as vital as the first.
Season 2 of Homecoming premieres May 22nd on Amazon Prime.