How ‘Swagger’ Raised Its Game
The first season of “Swagger,” a sports drama set in the high-stakes world of high school basketball in the Washington, D.C., suburb of Seat Pleasant, Md., was released in fall 2021 to moderate critical acclaim. The creator, Reggie Rock Bythewood, and his cast and crew were proud of what they had accomplished.
But for the show’s second season, which premiered on Apple TV+ last week, Bythewood’s ambitions were much bigger. He wanted the narrative to be more complex. He wanted the basketball to be more exciting. And he wanted to use the story of a prep school sports team to make a statement about the country.
“There is that athlete mentality of wanting to be challenged,” Bythewood said in a recent video interview. He put the challenge like this: “How do you take Season 2 of ‘Swagger’ and hold up a mirror to America?”
The series is about Jace Carson (Isaiah Hill), an elite high school athlete who is ranked among the top basketball players in his region and is expected to land a college basketball scholarship and, eventually, a spot in the N.B.A. Over the course of the first season, Jace both clashed and bonded with the people around him, including his single mother, Jenna (Shinelle Azoroh); his lifelong best friend, Crystal (Quvenzhané Wallis); and his demanding but supportive coach, Ike (O’Shea Jackson Jr.). The second season jumps ahead to Jace’s senior year as the demands of budding fame and the pressure of mounting expectations reach a fever pitch.
Source: The New York Times
