Season 2 of ‘Homecoming’: Will it jump the shark like ‘Mr. Robot’ did?

Both Homecoming and Mr. Robot deal with the unsettling nature of corporations and their pervasive grip on our lives. If you’ve already seen the first season of Homecoming, you know just how ubiquitous Homecoming Transitional Support Center’s control is over its staff & residents is. This quasi-corporation has embedded itself into our protagonists’ lives and won’t let go until it seizes all it wants. 

Mr. Robot shares many of the same qualities as Homecoming, but Mr. Robot’s second season had reviewers complaining about the many questions left unanswered. Is protagonist Elliott in control? Who’s the person he keeps talking to? Is Mr. Robot trying too hard to be GenZ’s Fight Club? Though Homecoming is unlikely to draw comparisons to Fight Club, will its second season give us any answers?

What’s the shtick?

Spoiler ahead!

At the end of the first season of Homecoming we watch a strange web develop around the Homecoming Transitional Support Center as records materialize to show why a former employee was discharged. To cover up the mess, someone will need to take the fall. It becomes unclear who will do so by the end of the last episode, as Colin’s newly appointed boss has an anxiety attack and deletes her memories.

Like season two of Mr. Robot, Homecoming season 2 relies on the cheap trick of building a reality so garbled & fuzzy it’s hard to make out the message. The allure of a memory-erasing fruit can only last for so many episodes – and by the end of season 2 we think the trick has run its course.

Who made the decisions?

It’s no coincidence that some of the same production companies behind Mr. Robot’s second season are also producing Homecoming. Though the writers & directors are different, the overall production was pushed to follow the same formula, making for a tired premise by the end.

A hard balance to maintain

With all art that tackles the question of perspective, there’s always the risk of losing the audience. Good art is complicated & nuanced; it takes effort to appreciate complicated subjects, even if they’re presented in easy-to-swallow 30-minute episodes. Just because the first season of Homecoming was astounding doesn’t mean it won’t also fall victim to this truth. 

How is this season different?

Homecoming season 2 does have a new director, and follows a fresh storyline that deviates from the first season. Seeing the Homecoming Transitional Support Center from a new angle provides a better understanding of the overall narrative, burrowing deeper into a strange world. But momentum is lost by overreliance on the memory-erasing fruit crutch.

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Homecoming season 2 aired in May 2020 and has had mixed reviews so far, but we’ll leave it up to you to decide. You can catch all the newest episodes of season two on Amazon Prime. 

Hopefully you won’t forget what’s happened by the end of Homecoming season 2.