The short answer is because she's Julia Roberts and she can do what she wants. That's obviously not the whole story, though.

The bigger reason is that she had only signed on for a single season, and the show went in a very different story direction for Season 2. However, it's not clear which came first.

With its second season, the direct-to-streaming Amazon series "Homecoming" became an anthology show — that is, its second season followed new characters and a (mostly) new story (though it retained one or two plot elements to keep it in the same universe).

It's possible that the producers only ever intended to keep Roberts on the show for one season. The first season was based on a podcast of the same name and went on to tell the whole story of that podcast by the end of the season. However, when Amazon signed the deal to turn the podcast into a show, it had agreed to two seasons right off the bat.

At the same time, it also signed the contract with Roberts for one season only, which means it's possible it was already thinking that the second season would go on without her. Of course, it's also possible it was hoping to just sign her second-season deal later.

In that second scenario, it's possible that Roberts was being cagier than Amazon was; just because the company was willing to sign for two seasons up front — essentially placing a big bet that the show would be a hit — doesn't mean Roberts had to make the same gamble.

That all brings us back to Roberts getting to do whatever she wants. Film stars doing TV wasn't a new thing when Roberts signed on to the show, but Roberts is no ordinary film star, either. She was a huge get for "Homecoming" and was likely able to largely dictate her own terms.

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