Donald Glover’s acclaimed Atlanta only came to end last year, but his follow-up series is already close to arriving on our screens. Before he joins Maya Erskine in Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Glover is bringing Swarm, a horror thriller series, to Amazon Prime this Friday, 17th March. It stars Dominique Fishback (The Deuce, Judas and the Black Messiah) as Dre, a young woman obsessed with a pop star and is part of a fandom known as “The Swarm”. However, her obsession takes a dark turn, and her life into dark places.
While Atlanta was a mix of dark comedy and surrealism, Swarm leans much more into horror. Drawing from his experiences performing as Childish Gambino and some of the biggest names in pop like Beyonce, the new series is a look into how fan obsession can go too far. Glover said in an interview with Vanity Fair that Swarm takes inspiration from the 2001 film The Piano Teacher and Martin Scorsese’s The King of Comedy. Most of the plot, however, remains under wraps, and the creators are keeping things ambiguous as to what exactly to expect in the show’s seven episodes. What seems obvious though is that things will get pretty violent, with a poster and promo image showing Dre mopping up a pool of blood, with a hammer lying next to it.
The official trailer gives a few more hints, with our antihero protagonist being seen running a Swarm fan account. “She’s a goddess”, Dre says, as she splashes $1800 to sit as close to the stage as possible. She’s dealing with difficult problems in her life though, with what appears to be the death of her sister (Chloe Bailey), and she beings to go down a dark spiral. She’s seen hitting somebody in a kitchen with a hammer and trying not to let her friends see what’s in the trunk of her car- laughing at their suggestion of a dead body being in there. Throw in plenty of references to bees and beehives, and it’s clear that Swarm takes inspiration from the rabid Beyonce fanbase (the BeyHive) in particular.
If you’ve already binged through You Season 4 and are looking for another thrilling show about murderous obsessions, then be sure to check out Swarm when all episodes drop on 17th March.
