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9/28/2023 0 Comments Swagger (season 2) Swagger is one of the better shows on streaming that no one ever seems to talk about. The Apple TV+ drama - which focuses on teenage basketball prodigy Jace Carson (Isaiah Hill), while grappling with everything that being one happens to entail - isn’t on the same level as Friday Night Lights (another show whose quality, sadly, far exceeded its buzz)… but it’s basically the next best thing to that pantheon series and its incredibly successful blend of coming-of-age melodrama, athletic competition, and tight-knit community saga.
Season one followed Jace as a 14-year-old, playing for his AAU team in the DC suburbs (the show was loosely inspired by NBA superstar Kevin Durant - who's credited as executive producer - and his upbringing)… with “Swagger” serving as both team nickname and the show’s guiding philosophy in terms of how one faces the challenges and adversities of life. Season two actually time jumps over three years, picking up with Jace on the cusp of his 18th birthday and starting his senior year at prestigious Cedar Cove Prep, where he thankfully (and perhaps conveniently) still plays with all his prior middle-school teammates we grew to know and love. It’s also pretty much a plotting formality that he’ll somehow be reunited with his former coach, mentor, and father figure Ike “Icon” Edwards (O’Shea Jackson Jr.) on the court before the season premiere is finished. Unfortunately, Swagger saw its second season slashed from ten episodes to eight, and one can feel the slightly truncated strain. Creator Reggie Rock Bythewood has a lot on his mind; he and his writing staff perhaps try to cram one too many issues into the margins of each episode. Certain characters get the short shrift - Shinelle Azoroh, so good as Jace’s mother Jenna in season one (the fiercely protective steward of her son’s NBA dream, though not always necessarily in the best way), is still very much present, but feels less instrumental (likewise, Caleel Harris seemed like an early breakout star as point guard Musa… until he was curiously exiled to California as part of the first season’s Covid storyline. Just as his character must contend with reduced minutes on the court in season two, he feels like an actor who never quite regained his place in the starting rotation). On the other hand, Solomon Irama remains an absolute standout as the soulful Phil, while Shannon Brown proves a fine addition as sophomore CJ - struggling to live up to his father’s legacy as an NBA star, amongst other burdens weighing heavily on his shoulders. For better or for worse, much of the second season is a reckoning tied to a specific incident from the first season… in which Jace learned his BFF Crystal (the Joey to his Dawson, played by Oscar nominee Quvenzhane Wallis) was being molested by her basketball coach, leading to him and his teammates carrying out a vigilante assault. The creative decision makes sense. The dramatic fallout (Jace sees everything he’s worked towards suddenly teetering on a knife’s edge as D-1 offers are swiftly revoked) touches upon so many of the social issues the show is concerned with. A bracing episode built around a visit to a youth detention center for a pickup game underscores that a single mistake can derail an entire future, no matter how promising… particularly in a society where young Black men aren’t typically afforded second chances. But our affection for these characters is so great, there’s a protective urge to push back against the storyline. Logical or not, it’s dramatic territory we aren’t necessarily keen to venture into. Nonetheless, Swagger remains, on the balance, an enormously entertaining show. The basketball scenes are filmed with a thrilling, free-flow immediacy (the aforementioned pickup game is shot and staged in a single take of smoothly choreographed technical virtuosity)… the real-time social media updates (reflecting the fickleness of athletic adulation) an innovative flourish. Those who heart Jace and Crystal (and really, why wouldn’t you? Hill and Wallis have terrific chemistry) will be delighted with the arc of their relationship. The core of the show though remains the bond between Ike and Jace (the former desperate to ensure the latter avoids his own missteps as a one-time b-ball messiah), with Jackson and Hill both outstanding. Hill in particular has a quiet magnetism that anchors the drama - it’ll be interesting where his career goes from here. The second season builds to what feels very much like an emotionally satisfying series finale… we could, of course, theoretically follow Jace on to college, but with the characters all pursuing different paths, this feels like the end of the show as we know it. The measure of closure is nonetheless gratifying. As Swagger makes clear, the NBA may be the destination, but the journey itself is far more compelling.
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 Jinkies! On paper, Velma sounds like a potentially fun time - a satirically deconstructionist Scooby-Doo prequel specifically built around the titular character (voiced by Mindy Kaling), who’s always enjoyed a particularly devoted cult following within Scooby circles. In practice, however… ruh-roh. It’s hard to remember a pilot that more discordantly strikes all the wrong notes than this one (after a while, your facial muscles acclimate to the cringe and just sort of settle into a numb grimace of disbelief). Whatever the show’s intentions, it’s hard to read the tone as anything but aggressively hostile towards its source material. Who on earth is this series for? Not Scooby-Doo fans, that’s for sure. This iteration of Velma comes across an awful lot like a Daria clone garbed in a familiar orange sweater - a pariah at Crystal Cove High, who nonetheless embraces her lack of social standing and maintains an open air of smug superiority in regards to her fellow classmates. Meanwhile, Fred (Glenn Howerton) is an entitled and dim-witted man-baby, Daphne (Constance Wu) is a stuck-up mean girl with adoptive lesbian moms, and Shaggy (going by his given name of “Norville”) is a drab straight edge who carries a torch for Velma and feels a lot more like an animated extension of Sam Richardson’s comedic persona than anything Hanna-Barbera related. Well, at least his shirt is green. Ostensibly this is a Mystery Incorporated origin story (God knows how Scooby eventually factors in), even though the main foursome basically detest each other and revel in their own hostile dysfunction. In its rush to establish a tone of ironically detached self-awareness, the show goes scorched earth on its own IP. The series does commendably commit to a season-long arc, as Velma attempts to unravel the mystery of her mother’s disappearance while a serial killer is busy harvesting brains from popular girls. And if we’re being honest, there’s way too much vocal talent assembled here (Howerton and Richardson in particular, but also the likes of Cherry Jones as Fred’s domineering mother and Wanda Sykes and Jane Lynch as Daphne’s aforementioned moms) for some jokes not to squarely land. But Velma is one of those irritating shows that feels as if its writers were cultivated in some sort of TV incubator - it has little to offer beyond pop culture references and meta-snark. Too many punchlines are punctuated with a whiff of self-congratulation (“It’s just until you’re popular enough to do whatever you want… like a homophobic chicken sandwich chain”). At worst, the series feels more like a fumbling attempt by conservative writers to lampoon their lazy interpretation of “woke comedy” (“Hey, no offense, but can we just let the actual doctor explain? Just being a white guy with a clipboard doesn’t cut it anymore”). In spite of overwhelmingly negative online buzz, the show was renewed for a second season (I watched all ten episodes, so I guess I have no one but myself to blame)… nonetheless, one senses a distinct shift in the cultural sea breeze. There’s less appetite for this brand of snide subversion. It sounds crazy, but most people would rather just celebrate the things they grew up loving, rather than trying to act cool by crapping on them.  Gremlins is an anomaly - the rare 80s classic that’s remained largely untouched and unexploited for nostalgic gain… though it’s not difficult to see why. Few films better exemplify just how hard that decade went, particularly where kids were concerned (the 80’s just hit different, man - why do you think we all revere our Gen-X childhoods so much?) - by today’s standards, it’s literal nightmare fuel (the kitchen scene, with gremlins getting eviscerated in blenders and exploding in microwaves; Kate’s infamous tale of Christmas woe; Stripe graphically melting into a puke-like puddle) - and this was after Chris Columbus’s original script was drastically toned down (no more Billy being greeted by his mom’s severed head being tossed down the stairs). There is simply *no way* this movie could realistically be remade today, regardless of how many cuddly Gizmo dolls Warner Bros. yearns to sell to subsequent generations of kiddie filmgoers.
An animated prequel series, it would seem, was the most palatable compromise. Unlike Velma, Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai makes no attempt to dampen its obvious reverence for Joe Dante’s cinematic efforts - when the familiar theme kicks in over the opening titles, it brings a surge of giddy delight. Set in the early 1920s, the show leans heavily on Chinese folklore as it delves deeper into the mythology of the Mogwai (let’s just say it has a lot more to do with Gods and human creation then you might have assumed in 1984). When Gizmo is taken from his village in the Valley of Jade, he winds up in Shanghai as a circus performer… but soon crosses paths with 10-year-old Sam Wing (Izaac Wang) - yes, the old Chinatown antique dealer from the film - who works in his parents’ apothecary shop and is known for his kind soul, if not his aptitude for risk-taking or adventure. Long story short, Sam must team up with hardened street urchin Elle (Gabrielle Nevaeh Green) - who’s all about risk-taking and adventure, but a bit less kind-souled, at least on the surface - to help Gizmo get back home… while being relentlessly pursued by the power-hungry sorcerer/industrialist Riley Greene (Matthew Rhys, chewing the scenery with chest-puffing gusto), who believes ingesting a Mogwai will grant him immortality. The series has more than a little in common with Avatar: The Last Airbender - another animated show filtered through a compelling lens of Eastern mythos that follows a mismatched band of child heroes as they embark on a coming-of-age journey of supreme importance… and it’s probably as much a gauge for potential enjoyment as one’s own fanatical Gremlins fandom. The episodes have a spirited creativity and visual style very much their own. On the downside, the gremlins themselves simply don’t translate as strongly into animated form - they lack the tactile, reptilian presence… the grotesque impact they had when they were rubbery marvels of 80s puppetry (Gizmo, on the other hand, feels more liberated - he’s a fully realized character, as opposed to a merchandising opportunity). Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai may not match the anarchic turbulence of the live-action films that inspired it, but it’s still a treat in its own right. This is fan service done correctly - with sincere affection, best consumed before midnight. |
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