What I’m Watching: Homecoming

Homecoming: Season 1, Episode 8 “Protocol” (B+)

Now, this was an immersive episode, one that barely took place at the Homecoming we know and instead brought together the three main characters in the future as they stopped by that familiar but different-looking site. What we did see was Heidi’s breaking point, when she got stuck on this devastating news from Colin about preparing the soldiers she was treating to go back into combat, and how she snapped out of it into a forced smile when Craig stepped in to try to get her back onto the script that she herself had written. Stephan James, Julia Roberts, and Shea Whigham are the players who have earned awards recognition for their performances, but I continue to be equally hypnotized by Bobby Cannavale as Colin. He was stuck in the mode of trying to be casually supportive of Heidi’s expedition in this episode, and then he turned into something much more dangerous when she was triggered to remember exactly who he was. The bumbling Carrasco also saw them together and confronted them, prompting Colin to get in his face and demean all sense of purpose that he had, daring him to try to take him in and see if anyone cared. I don’t know where they go from here, as we likely see Heidi tell Cruz what happened, which might be what sets him off to attack her (or some other scenario that gets framed that way). A second season was already commissioned even before this one started, and I’m very interested to know what’s next.