Supacell.

Guys, I am obsessed with this Black British show Supacell, and Netflix was very cunning in how they lured me in. First, on Instagram, they showed a clip from Supacell of this cute Black couple (which made think this show was a drama). Then, when Supacell came up on my recommendations, Netflix showed another clip of two roommates (which made me think this show was a drama). Then, they said I would really love this show (which made me think this show was a drama) so I clicked on it, and the vibes up top were far more Stranger Things than cute Black dramedy, but I was still—with my hands over my mouth, gasping (!)—intrigued. 

I’m only like two and a half episodes into what seems to be a six-part season, so I can’t speak to all of it yet, but Netflix did inform me (another tactic to reel me in) that Supacell has gotten a 100% on Rotten Tomatoes. From what I’ve seen so far, this is not surprising, as every scene is tight—it follows that classic scene structure of someone wanting something, someone having a hard time getting the thing they want, and then them getting the thing they want but in a way that’s sort of twisted, sort of complicated, not what they had in mind. This is true for the superpower scenes but also for the interpersonal scenes, the drama that makes this show more than one kind of show and able, because of that, to pull in more than one kind of audience. 

Netflix was right to lure me in because I love the drama elements of this show, like the relationship culture of the mid-to-late twenties Black couple Michael and Dionne. I don’t know what these actors’ vibe is like off-set, but on camera, their chemistry is everything. The way they communicate how the characters they’re playing love each other is so unique and well-done in the sense that it is not just gushing or just simple happiness at being together—it is more nuanced maybe, something like need mixed with admiration, like you fill me up and also you’re my friend. They depend on each other, and they’re afraid to lose each other, but the necessity of being together doesn’t overtake their dynamic—it is still primarily warm, kind, most of the time. I think this combination of cute love plus something heartier like dependence is so rare to see in television—it’s either all gushing, it seems like, or all need. I appreciated how well this combination of love and need is rendered on screen, especially for a Black couple, one who is neither perfect nor fully falling apart at the seams. 

I feel similar with how Supacell portrays Tazer, a Nigerian-British teenager who is the full-on ringleader (!) of this gang of kids who is constantly at battle with this other gang of kids. It is wildly intriguing to watch their drama because it isn’t the flat drama of these are gang members watch them scramble and kill each other as much as it is these are gang members and high school boys and sons and friends and people trying to fit in with their peers. It’s a fuller picture, and the power dynamics are rendered way more complexly than they usually are, at least (especially) in American TV. Tazer has abandonment issues and he has superpowers that he’s trying to control and he’s trying to stay on top of the little power he has which results in him (somehow still surprising every time) pulling a knife out on anybody who gets in his way. He is clamoring to take care of himself even though the social pressures around him keep him in place more often than not. It is almost impossible (at least so far) not to root for him, despite all of the chaos that happens because of him and his choices.

So I love (as Netflix predicted) the drama elements of this show, but I also love the fantasy part of it. I have been such a sucker for this blend of realism and fantasy in Black culture lately. Stories where everything is mostly as the real world would have it but there is more room for Black people to breathe, to fight back, to have agency in a way that they wouldn’t otherwise. If fiction can be anything, why can’t it be a group of Black British people down on their luck who—instead of having to die—realize they have powers that can keep them alive? Powers that they have to navigate, have to harness, powers that other people are watching and want to take away. We don’t have to follow the predictable paths we’ve been given, in fiction, at least, and if in fiction now, maybe in the real world one day, we can also have (if not superpowers) the opportunity to do things previously rendered impossible, out of reach. 

Image: Netflix