Television viewers striving for a gripping drama to become hooked on should look no further than Amazon Prime’s latest original series Homecoming to satisfy those cravings. Released this past November, Homecoming gradually unweaves the complex truths of what actually occurred at a transitional facility for veterans returning from war across ten half-hour long episodes. Filled with enough suspense that urges viewers to keep clicking on to the next episode, all of Homecoming can be binged too easily. This series will be one to know for the upcoming awards season, since it has already received three Golden Globe and Critics Choice Award nominations each.
Homecoming follows two timelines made distinct through different aspect ratios; the opening of the Homecoming transitional center and its resulting problems as well as several years into the future where a previous complaint against the program is being investigated. Julia Roberts executively produces and stars in one of her first major television roles as Heidi Bergman, a counselor who becomes personally invested in the soldiers’ transition back into civilian life and later has completely distanced herself from the program. Stephan James cements his status as an up and coming actor to know (James also stars in this year’s upcoming Barry Jenkins film If Beale Street Could Talk) through his character Walter Cruz, an easygoing former soldier eager to participate in the program and return home. The development of Heidi and Walter’s relationship is one of the more intriguing aspects of the show. Both characters share similar desires to do right by others, Heidi through her social work and Walter through his service, but become too involved with a suspicious system attempting to orchestrate their experience at Homecoming.
Homecoming additionally features standout performances from Bobby Cannavale as corporate ladder-climber Colin Belfast, Shea Whigham’s U.S. Department of the Defense employee Thomas Carrasco who investigates Homecoming years later, Jeremy Allen White’s distrustful veteran Joseph Shrier, and Marianna Jean-Baptiste as Walter’s mother Gloria Morisseau who searches to find out why her son is at the center.
While the series may be initially slow to build up the action throughout the first three episodes, the resulting revelations about what the center actually did and each character’s involvement are well worth the wait. Viewers are constantly kept guessing – you’ll think you finally understand what happened at Homecoming one moment, and then be thrown a curve-ball the next. Homecoming takes a seemingly simple premise and gradually injects more mystery into the story as more twists are increasingly uncovered. The show is also very layered in the sense that many of the conversations have double meanings or are parallels to several other storylines.
Directed and executively produced by Sam Esmail, the creator behind the acclaimed USA drama Mr. Robot, this series shares similar visually captivating elements and psychological storylines. But what really sets Homecoming apart from most other shows is its eerie soundtrack which can make scenes as mundane as an office worker retrieving files compelling. If it feels at times as though to score came directly from an old-school horror movie, that’s because most of the music used in the show actually did. Scores from films such as Vertigo, Carrie, Halloween 3, The Thing, and The Amityville Horror were featured in the series.
Since Homecoming has already been picked up by Amazon Prime for a second season, viewers can be certain that any questions left unanswered (and there will be many) may be addressed in the following season. And be sure to keep watching the final episode after the credits begin to roll for an additional scene that hints at what’s coming next. The Homecoming series was also based on a twelve-episode podcast, which may give significant clues to what’s in store for season two.