At its most untamed, fandom poisons. It contorts logic into blind worship. It bites and stings and slices something in its path. It gnaws on tendon meat, a large ruby-red smile, unkind and uncaring about its goal, its prey. Fandom crushes complete and curdles into cancel tradition. It’s all mob instincts. It’s collective brute pressure. It’s “Stand on our side or get whacked,” Soprano type. In probably the most excessive instances on-line, fandom asks: What received’t you do for the particular person or group or factor you like probably the most? 

For Dre (Dominique Fishback), the reply is a no brainer. She’ll do no matter she has to. Go to no matter lengths she wants. Everything is in service of Ni’jah, the Beyoncé-level pop star she will be able to’t dwell with out. Dre is Ni’jah’s most-everything fan: most devoted, most educated, most deserving (that’s how she sees it, no less than). She runs a well-liked stan account with a formidable half 1,000,000 followers, however her on-line actuality, the place she finds validation and neighborhood, does not replicate her lived expertise. Dre prefers the isolation of her personal thoughts, a honeycomb of sticky traumas and thickening delusion. Things are simpler to regulate there. Or so we predict.

How these traumas spring to the floor, effectively, that’s the place Swarm—the brand new restricted collection from Janine Nabers and Donald Glover, simply launched on Amazon Prime Video—is keenly centered. It is a portrait of superfandom in kamikaze kind. Self-destructive. Savage. Illogical. That it occurs to be impressed by the BeyHive—maybe the web’s most infamous legion of superfan—do with that what you’ll. A title card earlier than every episode belabors the purpose: “This is not a work of fiction. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, is intentional.” I’ve a sense that Hive members received’t be too completely satisfied concerning the characterization, however don’t let the framing impede what tempting treats Swarm has to supply. It’s fairly enjoyable.   

This being a Glover car, the present is as a lot a personality research as it’s an appraisal of a spot. Atlanta was all inertia. With the exception of season 3—probably the most formidable season or the worst, relying on who you ask—it by no means left the boundaries of town, its hidden treasures and trapdoors. Swarm is the alternative. It’s acquired keys within the ignition and a tank stuffed with gasoline, slinking from Texas to California to Tennessee and again. It has someplace to be. (Yet unusually, for a present that covers a lot territory, it feels, thematically, very claustrophobic). The jewel of the collection is its dedication to sharp turns—simply whenever you assume it should veer proper, it places the automotive in reverse and runs over a pile of our bodies. 

Dre’s fandom turns killer. When we first meet her, tragedy is a thorn in her aspect. She’s carrying a load of damage, the sort of damage that makes you need to damage others. So she embarks on a cross-crounty journey, killing anybody who speaks negatively of Ni’jah. Death is “beautiful,” Dre causes, as a result of “it’s equal, it happens to everybody.” According to Nabers, a former author on Atlanta, the cerebral structure of the present originates from area of interest thrillers like The Piano Teacher (2001) and Elephant (2003), the place the marriage of loss, rage, love, and obsession are framed with razor intimacy. 

The most convincing side of the collection is Fishback. Her physicality is masterful, which received’t come as a shock in case you’ve seen Judas and the Black Messiah (2021) or Apple TV+’s The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey (a private favourite). In Swarm, she’s trance-like. The manic foot tapping. The shrieks of respiratory. Her siren track of a stare, the way in which her eyes ping-pong throughout an iPhone display screen one second and invite empathy the following. There’s each depth and shock in each gesture, in each motion. This is very affecting in a present that doesn’t maintain on to characters for too lengthy (one other drag, given its spectacular roster of cameos: Chloe Bailey! Billie Eilish! Leon! X Mayo!). In the top, Fishback’s distinct draw is greater than sufficient.