#rayxia ojo

SUPACELL (2024– ): Interesting but uneven Black British superhero drama, created by Rapman, about five seemingly unrelated South Londoners — delivery driver Michael (Tosin Cole), nurse Sabrina (Nadine Mills), ex-con Andre (Eric Kofi Abrefa), pot dealer Rodney (Calvin Demba), and gang leader Tazer (Josh Tedeku) — who discover that they have superhuman powers. Michael sets out to find the others after getting a glimpse of the near future in which he learns that his fiancée Dionne (Adelayo Adedayo) will soon be killed. However, Andre is more concerned with reconnecting with his teenage son (Ky-Mani Carty) and finding a job, Sabrina is desperately trying to keep hers while also trying to keep her sister Sharleen (Rayxia Ojo) out of trouble, Rodney is using his super-speed powers to run London's fastest weed delivery service, and Tazer is enmeshed in an escalating gang war against his former mentor Krazy (Ghetts).

The cast is great (Abrefa, Tedeku, Ghetts, and Ojo are especially good), the characters are engaging, and there are some clever touches (including the eventual explanation of the title in Ep. 6). However, while watching the ways the characters' emerging powers impact their lives is engrossing, the actual superhero plot (which has distinct echoes of the late and unlamented HEROES) feels a bit stale, the characters' powers are not always clearly delineated, the big fight scenes are sometimes blah, and there are some hokey touches (like over-use of the glowing eyes effect seen on the poster image above).

More concerningly, SUPACELL's attitude toward and treatment of Black women is frequently troubling. The very talented Adedayo is wasted — I hated the way the narrative treated Dionne, which at points had me tempted to nope out — and most of the show's Black female characters consistently get very rough treatment with noticeably less sympathy than the men, which cast a gloomy pall over an otherwise compelling series.

Supacell Trailer

"A group of ordinary people from South London unexpectedly develop super powers with no clear connection between them other than them all being Black. As they deal with the impact on their daily lives, one man has to bring them together to protect the one he loves — all while avoiding the powerful and nefarious agents that have noticed their special abilities." (Netflix)

The series is created, written, and (lead) directed by Rapman, aka Andrew Onwubolu. The series stars Tosin Cole, Nadine Mills, Eric Kofi-Abrefa, Calvin Demba, Josh Tedeku, Adelayo Adedayo, Rayxia Ojo, and Giacomo Mancini.

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