Janelle Monáe joins Homecoming as details emerge about the Amazon hit's second season
Because one does not simply lock down Julia Roberts for multiple seasons of TV, the Oscar-winning actress won’t be returning for the second season Amazon’s Homecoming. Her replacement, though is no slouch. Acclaimed actress and pop star Janelle Monáe will headline the new season, playing what Deadline describes as “a tenacious woman who finds herself floating in a canoe, with no memory of how she got there—or even who she is.” Makes sense, what with this being a show about the manipulation of memory.
Though the season will deviate from the podcast upon which the series is based, it won’t be adopting an anthology approach. Deadline says they’ve heard that season one regulars Bobby Cannavale, Stephan James, and Hong Chau could return, as well as Shea Whigham, though they sound less sure about whether his Thomas Carrasco will return. This also makes sense, as the first season ended with a stinger that found Cannavale’s Colin Belfast cast in the shadow of Chau’s Geist Group honcho Audrey Temple.
The first season of the compelling drama, which was directed by Mr. Robot’s Sam Esmail, told the story of a transitional support center for soldiers that secretly toyed with the processing of its clients’ trauma. “We’re working on a second season, but we have a very different trajectory for our show,” Esmail recently told THR.