By Maliyah Fick
The well anticipated second season of CW’s football drama series “All American” dropped on Netflix mid-Mar, becoming a perfect way to pass the time during shelter-in-place. Based on a retired linebacker for the New York Giants, Spencer Paysinger, the show follows the life of Spencer James (Daniel Ezra), his family, and his friends as he goes back and forth between living in South Crenshaw and Beverly Hills. We continue to follow the lives of Spencer’s friends: Jordan Baker (Michael Behling), Olivia Baker (Samantha Logan), AsherAdams (Cody Christian), Layla Keating (Greta Onieogou), and Coop (Bre-Z).
The show picks up a few weeks after where the previous season ended. This new season centers around themes of loss and uncertainty for each of the characters. Spencer has to decide on whether he wants to return home and be the wide receiver for South Crenshaw High with his dad (Chad L. Coleman), or continue playing for Beverly High under Coach Billy Baker (Taye Diggs).
All characters of the main cast get their own character arc within this season as its revealed they’re all experiencing something that sparks a change in their moods, perspectives, and personalities. Similar to the previous season, we see the contrast between the gang activity and violence in South Crenshaw versus Spencer’s safer new life in Beverly Hills living amongst the rich and popular of the town. This season continues to talk about racial issues like before, and it also starts to touch more on mental illness, feelings of abandonment by parents, rifts in families, drug and alcohol abuse, and death. One of the major events that happen this season is that Spencer is involved in an accident that could leave him not playing football ever again, and the uncertainty of how that injury would heal with time.
This season, while full of entertaining drama, it also consisted of very predictable plot-points. Many of the lines said by characters started to feel very repetitive, and it wasn’t hard to guess how the characters would start to react and what they would say about the situations that they were in.
One part I really loved about this story was the change in personalities for the characters. When faced with the difficulties in the season, some characters stepped up to the plate and had a positive character development while a few started to spiral. This was a very realistic part of the series, to show that not every person is able to cope with life in a positive way, and that especially teenagers will have bumps trying to figure out how to navigate their lives. As someone who stayed up until 4 a.m almost every night binge-watching season one and two all at once, the new season was definitely worth the watch. It’s the perfect fit for those who like an overdramatized teenage series.
