Has there ever been a show about a group of people with superpowers where the group is made up exclusively of black people? Probably not; programs like Black Lightning and movies like Black Panther It used to be more about one superhero than a group. But now, thanks to British hip-hop star Rapman, there’s a show about an all-black superhero team.
Supplement: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
Opening shot: A woman in a hospital gown runs down a dim, poorly lit hallway. Guards chase her, and when she crashes into a door, her eyes turn yellow and she blows the huge door off its hinges. The guards then shoot her dead and drag her past the glass-walled cells of the other prisoners, leaving a bloodstain behind.
The essence: Michael Lasaki (Tosin Cole) has plans. He’s a delivery driver, but he and his girlfriend Dionne (Adelayo Adedayo) have scrupulously saved up enough to buy themselves a flat, and after doing some math, he pulls up alongside D, who’s cruising around his south London neighbourhood, behind the wheel of a brand new blue BMW. He’s finally ready to pop the question to D, whom he’s known and dated since they were both kids.
Andre (Eric Kofi-Abrefa) is trying to get his life back together, but his ex is mad at him for not being able to pay the child support he owes. Still, she lets him spend time with her teenage son AJ (Ky-Mani Carty), which makes AJ happy. He has a new job in telemarketing and seems to be doing well when his boss calls him; his background check turned up a conviction and his boss has no choice but to let him go.
Tayo (Josh Tedeku) is known to most of his friends as Tazer. We see him and his red gang get into a fight with a rival blue gang at a house party. His children run after Tazer is stabbed and visit him in the hospital. He lives with his grandmother, who doesn’t know exactly what Tazer is doing, but when she sees his blood-soaked shirt, he has an idea. When he mentions the promise he made to her mother, Tazer tells him to never mention it again.
Sabrina (Nadine Mills) is a nurse who seems to have trouble with guys; when her boyfriend stands her up on a date, her sister Sharleen (Rayxia Ojo) convinces her to go to his house; of course, she discovers right there that he’s been cheating on her.
Rodney (Calvin Demba) is a small-time drug dealer who seems to have clients who pay him in small amounts and has to approach strangers and make a sales pitch. When he is about to get a bigger client, his car breaks down. However, as he runs towards the bus, his eyes turn yellow and he finds himself on a country road, on the outskirts of Edinburgh, Scotland.
When Sabrina finds out her boyfriend is cheating on her, she walks away from him. When he tries to get her to talk, her eyes turn yellow and she telekinetically throws him out the door of her building.
After Andre goes to an ATM and sees that he has a negative balance, his eyes turn yellow and he hits the ATM so hard that the wall surrounding it cracks and bills pour out.
Eventually, Michael encounters Tazer’s gang on his route, who demand money from him to allow him to deliver the package he has. Tazer, still angry from being stabbed, ends up plunging a knife into Michael’s chest. But then Michael’s eyes turn yellow and he gets back in the delivery truck, driving toward Tazer’s neighborhood. This time he manages to save himself, but he can still hear the previous confrontation buzzing in his head.
He successfully executes his proposal to D, but as they celebrate sex on the wall, his eyes turn yellow again. This time, however, she finds herself in an abandoned Piccadilly Circus, watching five black-clad people with powers fight a common enemy who has passed through a strange portal. One of them is Tazer. Another one looks exactly like him.
What shows will it remind you of? Supacell It feels like a more dramatic version of Boysor an all-black version of Heroes.
Our opinion: Created and written by Rapman (aka Andrew Onwubolu), Supacell The beginning is a little slow, as the stories of the five budding superheroes discover that they have these superpowers. In attempting to present the stories of the five heroes, Rapman attempts to show the inpidual struggles that they all go through, struggles that may not necessarily be unique to the black community, but are definitely ones that they may have to deal with more than the most.
The person who gets the most backstory is Michael, as he weaves in and out of the other future heroes’ lives, not realizing that he has something in common with these strangers. He delivers a package to Sabrina’s sister, has Rodney try to sell her drugs, and walks down the hall from where Tazer is recovering in the hospital, so his mother can hear the people at a sickle cell treatment center. .
That’s intentional, too; each of the first five episodes is named after a different member of this super crew, so it seems like we’ll be focusing on each person as they grapple with these powers and try to figure out how to use them to help themselves and their loved ones.
But there’s also the prison business we saw from time to time in the first episode. There seems to be an organization, led by a man named Ray (Eddie Marsan), whose goal is to get these superpowered Londoners off the streets. So as these people discover their powers, there’s an existential threat not only to them but to the people they love, as Michael discovers when his future self shows him that D died a few months after they got engaged.
So despite how slow the first episode was, there’s a lot going on. What will he do? Supacell One satisfying observation, however, is whether Rapman is able to balance superpowers with the black experience in South London in 2024.
Sex and skin: Michael and D have sex on the wall before Michael transports himself to that strange future date. Don’t you love how easy it is for people on TV and movies to have vertical sex?
Parting shot: Future Michael tells Michael, “The fact that you’re here means you can stop this. It means you can save her.”
Sleeping star: We can’t wait to see Eddie Marsan as Ray, because Marsan gives his all in any role he plays, whether sycophantic or sincere.
Pilot’s most typical phrase: Twosie (Andy Thompson) raps a song the rival gang created about a stabbed Tazer. Is he really that stupid?
Our calling: STREAM IT. While there is a lot about Supacell that we’ve seen before, there’s also enough new stuff to keep us watching, especially given the performances of its main cast.
Joel Keller@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting, and technology, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV addict. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.comFast Company and elsewhere.