Apple TV+ sports activities drama Swagger returns for a second season in fantastic type this week. Reggie Rock Bythewood’s account of a highschool basketball star and his supportive coach continues with recent challenges for Jace and his staff to face.

With Jace gearing up for school, he wants Ike again in his nook after a quick separation. However will Ike make a great match at Jace’s new faculty? This week’s episode, entitled “The World Ain’t Prepared,” is thrillingly alive in its depiction of life in Baltimore and the pressures of being excellent at what you do.

Swagger recap: ‘The World Ain’t Prepared’

Season 2, episode 1: Jace Carson (performed by Isaiah R. Hill) is unstoppable. After we meet up with him, he and his teammates — Nick (Jason Rivera-Torres), Drew (James Bingham), Royale (Ozie Nzeribe) and Musa (Caleel Harris) — are crushing the opposition, which occurs to incorporate their outdated teammate Phil (Solomon Irama).

Phil determined to go play for one more staff when Jace and the remainder moved to a prep-school squad as a result of he was sick of, as he places it, taking part in a supporting half within the Jace Carson present. Now, Jace’s being courted aggressively by faculty groups as he enters his senior 12 months at Cedar Cove Prep faculty. And meaning he has a whole lot of robust selections to make. Plus, persons are beginning to acknowledge him on the road.

He’s not the one one, both. Jace’s finest good friend and ex-girlfriend Crystal (Quvenzhané Wallis) simply landed a full trip to school. She’d textual content him about it, besides she nonetheless hasn’t forgiven him for the way issues shook out between them (a between-seasons, off-air growth).

Coach Ike faces some selections

The boys aged out of staff Swagger, the native crew they performed on coached by Ike Edwards (O’Shea Jackson Jr.) and his assistants, Naim (Sean Baker) and Meg (Tessa Ferrer). Ike’s busy elevating his daughter and training the brand new Swagger gamers when he will get a job supply — the school his dad used to teach for. It is a loaded choice for him, as he was taking part in beneath his dad’s teaching when he was accused of throwing an essential finals recreation.

This may be heavy sufficient with out one other bombshell: Jace’s coach at Cedar Cove is leaving, too, which implies that staff want a alternative. Jace and his mother, Jenna (Shinelle Azoroh), give Ike the arduous promote to step up as a alternative.

Ike meets with the college’s athletic director, Dr. Emery Lawson (Orlando Jones). Though Lawson’s hardcore capitalist ethos doesn’t sit properly with Ike, they bond once they go to the physician’s workplace and uncover his vinyl assortment. Over a Chuck Brown and the Soul Searchers tune, they understand their variations aren’t as nice as their similarities.

A brand new coach for Cedar Grove

Lawson doesn’t love Ike (particularly the truth that he by no means obtained his faculty diploma). Nevertheless, when Swagger’s outdated athletic put on hookup, Alonzo (Tristan Mack Wilds), presents to outfit the entire Cedar Cove athletic division in the event that they take Jace and Jenna significantly, Lawson has little selection however to supply Ike the job (offered he will get his diploma).

Ike accepts. In fact, simply because Jace has his outdated coach in his nook doesn’t imply it’ll be clean crusing till he will get drafted into the NBA. He doesn’t even learn about Coach Warrick (Al Mitchell), the man he, Drew, Musa and Phil beat up final season once they discovered he was sexually abusing Crystal and different gamers on his groups.

Seems Warrick’s been watching footage of the Cedar Cove video games — and he thinks he acknowledges a few of their voices.

By no means be afraid to be afraid

It’s nice to have Swagger again for a second season on Apple TV+. I just like the stuff with Jace getting courted by massive schools and in addition figuring out it will not be sufficient to ensure him the life he desires. Spike Lee lined this floor in a way more closely stylized vogue in his superlative 1998 film He Obtained Sport. However Swagger creator Reggie Rock Bythewood (who directs and writes this week) shoots for one thing quieter and, in its means, scarier.

Simply because Jace has a assist community (and an even bigger home, because of his sponsorships and his mother’s beauty model) doesn’t imply he’s obtained what it takes to hoop within the massive leagues. He and Phil’s discuss in regards to the future, and the way straightforward it might be to screw up, is an effective reminder of what’s nonetheless up towards them, proficient although they might be. (Jace and Phil’s lovingly contentious relationship since Phil moved to a special faculty is completely drawn, BTW.)

Bythewood movies a lot of this episode, from the video games to the essential conversations, in single takes to spotlight the excessive stakes of each selection. Very fantastic work throughout.

★★★★☆

Watch Swagger on Apple TV+

New episodes of Swagger season two arrive Fridays on Apple TV+.

Rated: TV-MA

Watch on: Apple TV+

Scout Tafoya is a movie and TV critic, director and creator of the long-running video essay sequence The Unloved for RogerEbert.com. He has written for The Village Voice, Movie Remark, The Los Angeles Evaluate of Books and Nylon Journal. He’s the writer of Cinemaphagy: On the Psychedelic Classical Type of Tobe Hooper and However God Made Him A Poet: Watching John Ford within the twenty first Century, the director of 25 function movies, and the director and editor of greater than 300 video essays, which could be discovered at Patreon.com/honorszombie.