Often times, the audience for teen shows consists more of nostalgic adults than
fellow teens, because the latter do not need to revisit their high school
years. They’ve still living them. Coach Jordan Baker understands. Not too many
seasons after he graduated, the former Beverly Hills High star quarterback returned
to high school, taking a coaching position with their rivals, South Crenshaw.
In contrast, the CW is largely graduating from its high school-centric
programming. In fact, it is the beginning of the end for showrunner Nkechi
Okoro Carroll’s All American when the eighth and final season premieres
with two episodes tonight on CW.
Baker
and Cassius Jeremy are rival coaches and also cousins. The big playoff game
between South Crenshaw and Beverly Hiils could have permanently ruptured their
frayed relationship, but instead, they made great strides rebuilding their friendship
during the last six months. As it happens, his wife Layla missed it all,
because she was away on a national tour. When she returns, she finds him
cooking, cleaning, and on decent terms with Jeremy, so she immediately starts
looking for the alien body-snatching pod.
Unfortunately,
those six months were not kind to both coaches’ star QBs. Jeremy’s son Kingston
(a.k.a. “KJ”) and Baker’s QB, Khalil Edwards. One still has no scholarship
offers and the other’s is so tentative, it will soon evaporate. Consequently, the
two coaches decide they must take concrete action to help their players.
What a difference
five years makes. Back in 2021, the All American episode that served as
a backdoor pilot to All American: Homecoming came fully loaded with
social messages. In contrast, the first two episodes of season eight focus
almost entirely on sports and teen angst. The only progressive holdover
elements come from legacy character, lesbian lawyer Tamia Cooper, who dates
back to season one. Isn’t it amazing how that works when a show has to fight
for its final renewal?
It is the same teen angst, but with a different mix of sports. One of the
tennis-playing stars of CW’s All American will be visiting Bringston
University, a HBCU. Remember college visits? Those were fun if you could afford
them. Simone Hicks does not think she will be applying there, but she has to
apply somewhere after Princeton turned her down. Highly touted MLB prospect
Damon Sims is not planning to apply either, but he is also drawn to Bringston
in the backdoor-ish spin-off pilot of All American: Homecoming, which
airs Monday as part of the current season of All American.
Sims
is trying to avoid the media, who are eagerly awaiting the announcement of
which team he might sign with. Ostensibly, he wants to hang with an old buddy
on the Bringston baseball team, but there are other reasons (to be revealed
later) why he is visiting. It is super awkward when he meets Hicks, but as
their paths keep crossing, they start to develop some friendly chemistry. Not
too much though, because she is still married to the football star of All
American.
Presumably,
if you enjoy All American, you will enjoy the Homecoming pilot, especially
since it is technically episode S3E17. There are all kinds of romantic
melodrama and athletic rivalries. A subplot involving NCAA violations in the Brightson
baseball program also add a passably interesting element of topicality.
However, writer Nkechi Okoro Carroll frequently includes PSA-like discourses on
the importance of HBCU’s and black culture in general that are not smoothly
integrated into the script. A character might as well preface them saying: “and
now a word from our sponsor.”
