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

With Jace gearing up for school, he wants Ike again in his nook after a quick separation. However will Ike make match at Jace’s new college? 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 superb at what you do.

Swagger recap: ‘The World Ain’t Prepared’

Season 2, episode 1: Jace Carson (performed by Isaiah R. Hill) is unstoppable. Once 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Royale (Ozie Nzeribe) and Musa (Caleel Harris) — are crushing the opposition, which occurs to incorporate their outdated teammate Phil (Solomon Irama).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 crew when Jace and the remaining 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 college. And meaning he has loads of robust selections to make. Plus, persons are beginning to acknowledge him on the road.

He’s not the one one, both. Jace’s greatest good friend and ex-girlfriend Crystal (Quvenzhané Wallis) simply landed a full experience 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 crew 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 educate for. It is a loaded choice for him, as he was taking part in below his dad’s teaching when he was accused of throwing an necessary finals recreation.

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

Ike meets with the college’s athletic director, Dr. Emery Lawson (Orlando Jones). Though Lawson’s hardcore capitalist ethos doesn’t sit effectively with Ike, they bond after they go to the physician’s workplace and uncover his vinyl assortment. Over a Chuck Brown and the Soul Searchers tune, they notice 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 acquired his faculty diploma). Nevertheless, when Swagger’s outdated athletic put on hookup, Alonzo (Tristan Mack Wilds), provides to outfit the entire Cedar Cove athletic division in the event that they take Jace and Jenna severely, Lawson has little alternative however to supply Ike the job (offered he will get his diploma).

Ike accepts. After all, simply because Jace has his outdated coach in his nook doesn’t imply it’ll be easy 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 after 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 large schools and likewise understanding it is probably not 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 Recreation. However Swagger creator Reggie Rock Bythewood (who directs and writes this week) shoots for one thing quieter and, in its method, scarier.

Simply because Jace has a assist community (and a much bigger home, because of his sponsorships and his mother’s beauty model) doesn’t imply he’s acquired what it takes to hoop within the large leagues. He and Phil’s speak 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 could be. (Jace and Phil’s lovingly contentious relationship since Phil moved to a special college is completely drawn, BTW.)

Bythewood movies a lot of this episode, from the video games to the necessary conversations, in single takes to spotlight the excessive stakes of each alternative. Very effective 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 collection The Unloved for RogerEbert.com. He has written for The Village Voice, Movie Remark, The Los Angeles Assessment of Books and Nylon Journal. He’s the creator 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 characteristic movies, and the director and editor of greater than 300 video essays, which could be discovered at Patreon.com/honorszombie.