Julia Roberts won't return for Homecoming's podcast-defying second season

Note: This article contains plot spoilers for Homecoming.

Julia Roberts turned in a hell of a performance on Amazon’s Homecoming, the acclaimed podcast-turned-series from Mr. Robot’s Sam Esmail. Unfortunately, it’ll have to suffice for fans of the show. Per The Hollywood Reporter (with a confirmation from Entertainment Weekly), the actress won’t be returning as the memory-bereft Heidi for the show’s planned second season. She will, however, remain an executive producer on the series.

This provides some clarity for why the first season ended with Heidi tracking down and finding her former patient, Walter Cruz, when, on the podcast, that search comprises much of the second season. Esmail, though, has made it clear he was never beholden to the podcast’s structure. In an interview with The A.V. Club last year, he told us he didn’t even listen to the second season, saying he and his team “wanted the TV show to be its own thing.”

“We’re working on a second season, but we have a very different trajectory for our show,” Esmail told THR, who note that the second season will be built around Bobby Cannavale’s Colin Belfast and Hong Chau’s Audrey Temple, who now lords over him at The Geist Group.

One can likely assume, then, that Stephan James’ Walter and Sissy Spacek’s Ellen, won’t be returning, what with their roles being Heidi-centric. It does, however, mean that we could see more of Shea Whigham’s Thomas Carrasco, whose interest in Geist has, shall we say, been piqued.