Characters / Homecoming

Characters from the Amazon Original series, Homecoming.

Homecoming

Heidi Bergman

Played by: Julia Roberts

Dubbed by: Céline Monsarrat (European French)

A psychotherapist with Homecoming who gradually learns the truth about what they are doing to veterans.

• Amnesiac Hero: Heidi can’t remember anything from her employment at Homecoming, which serves as a detriment to both her and the investigator probing her for evidence. She wiped her own memory to escape the guilt of what she unwittingly did to her patients.
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: She tracks Walter down at the end of the season, but upon discovering that he's happy, chooses not to tell him about the suffering of Homecoming and leaves him to live out the rest of his life.
• Jaded Washout: Downplayed, but still played seriously. She was a promising psychotherapist in 2018 at the Homecoming facility. In the future, she's a friendless waitress.
• My God, What Have I Done?: The reaction of Heidi when she realizes the entire goal of Homecoming has never been to prepare these soldiers for civilian life but to aid these soldiers in forgetting the horrors of their past service so they can be redeployed for "added use." Worse is when she discovers this is no sudden decision but has always being the plan and rocked that she's been aiding these men into what amounts to lives of endless service.
• Naïve Newcomer: Hasn't been qualified that long when she joins Homecoming, a fact that people around her find instantly suspicious.
• Nice Girl: Heidi truly only has the best intentions towards her patients.
• Only Sane Employee: Heidi is apparently the only employee of Homecoming who cares about the ethics of wiping patients' memories.
• Reluctant Mad Scientist: She's in favour of wiping patients' traumatic memories, but has no idea that it'll be exploited to send the soldiers back.
• The Shrink: She is thoroughly well-intentioned, but ultimately falls under the "well intentioned but dopey" variant.
• Token Good Teammate: To Homecoming/Geist.
• Unwitting Pawn: Heidi only ever intended to help the veterans, and is genuinely horrified when she discovers that they're indiscriminately wiping memories to return them to active service.

Walter Cruz

Played by: Stephan James

Heidi's patient and the other protagonist of Season 1, a soldier returning from active duty.

• Getting Smilies Painted on Your Soul: What Homecoming's treatment does to him. Sure, he's happier, but it's for the express purpose of sending him back to duty, which he doesn't want to do. It actually works out in the end when Heidi intervenes to prevent him going back to duty.
• Nice Guy: Walter is nice to everyone.
• Race Lift: Guatemalan Oscar Isaac voiced him in the podcast. African-Canadian Stephan James plays him in the series.
• Reluctant Warrior: What Homecoming wanted to turn him into. Luckily Heidi intervenes.
• Scary Black Man: Teased, but ultimately subverted. It's constantly teased that Walter hurt Heidi and resulted in her resigning in Homecoming, but he didn't, and if anything, it was the other way round. He never hurts anybody.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: Downplayed, but is obviously traumatised from his war experiences.
• Stoic Woobie: Walter goes through a series of disturbing and upsetting events, such as losing friends in the war and then realising that Homecoming plans to send him back but he remains heroic and brave throughout.
• Zen Survivor: It's subtle, but Walter is extremely calm, gentle, and wise despite the hardships he experienced in the Middle East.

Joseph Shrier

Played by: Jeremy Allen White

A friend of Cruz's from his military days and a fellow patient at Homecoming.

• The Cassandra: He is very obviously unstable, but instantly intuits how bad things are in Homecoming.
• Insane Equals Violent: Is the most obviously unstable and unhinged member of Homecoming, and also the only one shown to be violent.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: And how.
• Thousand-Yard Stare: Sports one throughout, both in the past and present.

Geist

Colin Belfast

Played by: Bobby Cannavale

Heidi's boss.

• Ambition Is Evil: Thoroughly motivated by self-interest and advancement, and gets punished for it by the end of the season.
• Asshole Victim: Somewhat. He's completely complicit in Homecoming, but becomes a scapegoat for it by Geist, when it's clearly a much larger conspiracy.
• Bad Boss: To Heidi, and it's revealed that nobody likes him.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: As nasty as Colin is, he does seem to genuinely love his wife, and he even appears to be having a good time at his nephew’s birthday party.
• Fall Guy: Becomes this for Geist after the failure of Homecoming.
• Paper Tiger: He manipulates his way back into Heidi's life and bullied her in the past but he actually has no power to hurt her or anyone else by the end of the season.
• Small Name, Big Ego: Played incredibly seriously with Colin. On one hand, he's Heidi's amoral Bad Boss who treats veterans as playthings to get the results he desires, and ruthlessly manipulates and intimidates others to achieve these ends: a promotion to Redwood. However, his hypercompetent façade crumbles in spectacular fashion: Heidi avoids being his fall guy by overdosing both his star client and herself; he loses face in front of the DoD presentation as a result; and after all that, his personal assistant pulls a Starscream, takes his boss' position, and forces him out of Geist for being "a problem in need of a solution."

Audrey Temple

Played by: Hong Chau

Colin's assistant and later takes over his role.

• Beneath Suspicion: For Colin, when she backstabs him.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: Especially for Colin, but everyone thinks she's just a timid, somewhat ditsy assistant.
• Plucky Office Girl: What she appears to be.
• The Star Scream: The end of Season 1 reveals her to be this.
• You, Get Me Coffee: Colin treats her like this constantly.

Law Enforcement

Thomas Carrasco

Played by: Shea Whigham

A DoD investigator tasked with finding Walter.

• Almighty Janitor: Colin mocks him for his lack of actual power. He still manages to help out Heidi a great deal and investigate towards finding the corruption of Homecoming.
• Badass Bureaucrat: Extremely. He only has bureaucratic power, but he goes above and beyond in investigating Homecoming because he knows something's wrong.
• Beleaguered Bureaucrat: Thomas admits that he's just a low-wrung pencil pusher and has almost no authority, but it's his job to identify important matters and push them up the line, which he takes very seriously.
• Big Good: Thomas goes through many difficulties and disrespects when he's investigating Homecoming, but he is probably one of the most moral characters.

Family and Friends

Ellen Bergman

Played by: Sissy Spacek

Heidi's mother.

• Obfuscating Insanity: Somewhat. She pretends to be very absentminded, but when she notices that Heidi is in trouble, she instantly uses this ruse to rescue her.
• Silk Hiding Steel: She's very sweet and apparently gullible towards Thomas, but when she discovers that Heidi is on the brink of being hurt, she snaps into protective mom mode.

Gloria Morriseau

Played by: Marianne Jean Baptiste

Walter's mother.

• Mama Bear: Just try to get between her and Walter. Just try.
• My Beloved Smother: Walter's sister blames her for Walter's signing up, saying that Gloria is too protective. But she's also proved completely right.
• Properly Paranoid: She hates Homecoming from the beginning, and she's completely right about everything.