Hello and welcome to TV Tuesday! Today I’m going to be talking about the second season of Netflix’s Dear White People.

This season takes what we knew in the first and goes deeper, and I love it. I love that we’re getting to explore these characters; I love that this show takes its time with them instead of trying to introduce new characters.

This season also focuses on the integration of white people now in A-P house – a house that was originally only Black people but because of what happened at the end of last season, it’s now mixed.

The first episode takes a look at Sam once more. She’s dealing with losing Gabe and trying to keep momentum going with her “Dear White People” radio show.

She finds out that Gabe is flirting with another Black girl in her class, and she can’t stand it, plus she’s seen Reggie talking to him too.

She also finds herself down a rabbit hole trying to set this racist troll online straight… which seems very exhausting and her friends are worried about how invested she’s gotten into it.

When white people start their own podcast “Dear Right People” that just causes a lot more anger – and honestly the things they were saying sounded so dumb. I kept questioning, ‘can they hear themselves talk?’

The second episode looks at Reggie and how he’s been doing, and it’s not really great. He’s still trying to cope with the gun being pulled on him and he’s not really sure what to do to let all his pent up rage go.

Troy, who’s out of college prison after breaking the window, tells him he needs to get laid… and Reggie has no problem with finding women to sleep with him… woman come to him because they “feel bad” about what happened to him and he’s able to sleep with them… but that isn’t doing it for him.

He then decides to talk to the dean after the dean made him go to therapy – but that doesn’t really help; the dean does tell him he needs a place or something to let himself relieve him of his rage. So he takes Gabe up on his offer… talking on camera about his experiences, as Gabe is creating some sort of documentary.

The next episode focuses on Lionel, my favourite character! Oh, my, gosh I love this boy so much! So he’s been hanging around with Silvio, the editor from the paper but Lionel is starting to question what Silvio’s motives are. Silvio invites Lionel to places but then as soon as they get to a place, he dips to hang out with someone else, leaving Lionel alone.

This starts to tick Lionel off, as it should, and one night he meets Wesley, a nice boy who he has interests in common. When Silvio comes back, Lionel just walks away. I’m so proud of how far Lionel has come. From dreaming about being with Troy, who he now knows will never happen and has moved on, to dealing with Silvio’s flaky butt, I’m proud of him.

He tells Silvio just how it is, he asks Silvio why he kissed him, where they’re going and Silvio goes “I don’t know how I feel about you” UGH! They are such a cute ship if they could just get their shit together. But when Silvio says we could be a cute ship, I was like “YAS” but then he adds “but I don’t know what kind of ship, friendship, relationship, partnership” I was like come on! But I get the type of guy Silvio is, he’s the kind who goes with the flow and doesn’t want to put a label on things; whereas Lionel is very cut and dry, needs to know relationship or not and I’m such a Lionel and I think that’s why I resonate with him so much because I’ve had my fair share of Silvios.

The next episode dives into Coco, and wow this episode came out of left field. She finds out that she’s pregnant and she doesn’t know what she wants to do. She doesn’t know if she should keep the baby or abort it. It’s Troy’s baby and she has a hard time figuring out if she should tell him.

We get these “what-if” scenarios, that at first the viewer thinks is real life, but later we learn that it’s just how she thinks things will go. She imagines that she keeps the baby, tells Troy and they support each other to raise their daughter. It even goes so far as to jump eighteen years into the future where their daughter gets into Winchester. But then, poof, we’re back to reality and none of that has happened and she instead opts to have an abortion.

This episode really dives into how hard a decision this is. She even says it so well “even though we have the choice, that doesn’t make the choice any easier” very true words.

We then dive into Joelle, I really like her as a character too. When she meets her competitor for top grade in her anatomy class, Trevor, he’s sweet and nice to her, treating her like a queen and obsessed with power. She’s reluctant to bring him over to her group of friends but in the end she does, and wow does she get a taste of the real person he is.

He can’t understand why she spends her time with them, he can’t believe that he takes her “orders” from Sam, who he calls “African American” and that she’s sneaking around with Gabe, a white guy. That’s when Joelle asks if he’s a “hotep” conspiracy theorist who – this website describes it really well:

“In the current U.S. political climate, and globally, Black pride and social justice movements such as Black Lives Matter are critical to the resolve held by those who fight against systemic racism. Not all of the ideals expressed within the Hotep movement, however, are celebratory or progressive. Hotep memes often denounce homosexuality and interracial marriage, and spread conspiracy theories or inaccurate ideas about history. They also place women as secondary to men; Hotep memes often preach that Black men should strive to fight the oppression that has disenfranchised them, but they tend to be silent about the oppression of Black women.”

https://www.sapiens.org/culture/hotep/

This is exactly what Trevor spews at Joelle, she does an amazing job of telling him to get the fuck out, which I love and then I love that it’s Reggie who comes to her defence… and completely knocks Trevor out! I love that he has her back… another ship I sail.

HOLY SHIT. The person behind trolling Sam is Silvio! OH MY GOD. When Lionel puts it all together, he’s furious. It explains why Silvio never wanted him to write on it but wow, my mouth dropped when we find out. Silvio is all for free speech and he wants to write what most people on campus are thinking but too afraid to say. Holy, I’m glad Lionel has moved on from him because wow.

Speaking of, Lionel and Wesley are actually really, really cute!

It’s interesting to see Lionel and Brooke work together, even though they absolutely despise each other. Lionel wants to explore underground societies at Winchester… but I guess that whole expose is out the window now that he knows it’s been Silvio the entire time.

We then flip to Troy where we find out he wants to be a comedian… and he’s not really good at it. This episode traveled back and forth through time, from freshmen year to now, all in his quest to find his voice and figure out who he wants to be and not who he needs to be.

He has a lot riding on him because his father expects him to be President of A-P house because his father was and so many prestigious Black people before him were so Troy feels this pressure to live up to it. Instead he acts out, gets high and finds himself in a fountain one too many times.

Of course his father is beyond angry with him, but I like the conversation that came out of it. Troy tells his dad how he feels; he tells him that he couldn’t believe when Reggie said he talked to him that he just listened and didn’t tell him what to do or who to be, just listened. That’s when his dad takes a toke with him and doesn’t tell Troy what to do. It was a great bonding moment and I truly hope they become closer.

We also see Troy as an actual funny comedian, so I think he’s started to find his voice.

The following episode is about Gabe. I was hoping we’d get an episode about him this season. So we find out that he’s creating a documentary called “Am I Racist?” and he’s been speaking to a lot of Black people, interviewing them on their experiences.

It’s now Sam’s turn to be interviewed and I’m a little surprised she agreed to do it.

But she does, and well, it goes about as well as to be expected. First of all, there are a lot of feelings involved with these two, so it makes it harder to have a level-headed conversation, but I do think the conversations that they had were some that needed to happen. The two have finally cleared the air and they held nothing back; it was good to see both of them so honest.

Sam also touches heavily on being biracial and what that means to her and I think that was a really important topic to talk about and be aware of.

As the two fight and get everything off their chest, they get close again and they realize they really miss each other. I won’t lie I think they’re cute together.

But then Joelle bursts in and tells her she has to go home – end of episode.

Something has happened to her dad, which we find out is he passed away.

It’s been sprinkled in here and there throughout the season that her dad has heart problems, but it wasn’t let on how bad they were. We were introduced to her white dad in the first episode of this season, but it was really brief and we later learn that was the last time she spoke to him.

Now this leaves Sam feeling really guilty and angry and sad. I like that both Joelle and Coco are there for her. Even though Sam and Coco aren’t really on friend terms anymore it’s good to see her still there for Sam, plus Coco had gotten close to Sam’s parents when they were friends, so there’s that too.

The season ends with the guest speaker who Sam tried to get, falling through and now Sam has to figure out what to do about it. She ropes Lionel into her plans to finding something better. When she was at home she found a book in her father’s study about an underground society and she wants to know if it still exists.

Meanwhile, the “Dear Right People” group bring in their own guest speaker, a famous Black TV show host, Rikki, who pretty much talks down racism and Black people in order to fit in and make a name for herself. Sam can’t believe the words coming out of her mouth. Rikki tells Sam that one day she’ll be just like her and that her show “Dear White People: will become a character.

This really puts Sam down and she feels like she needs a win.

Aside from working to find this secret society, Sam is still dealing with her father’s death, but she’s gotten back together with Gabe, very cute. And speaking of very cute, Joelle an Reggie finally get together! Yes! But poor Lionel finds out that Wesley doesn’t want to be exclusive and this crushes Lionel, I just want to give him a hug.

Lionel and Sam go looking for the underground society, Order of X, they think they’ve hit a dead end, when a figure comes out of the dark and the narrator of the show appears.

I’m curious to see where they’ll take the next season, and how they’ll incorporate the narrator into the story as a person. The narrator has been really good at giving the viewer information on the history of the school and the history of Black people at Winchester so it’ll be interesting to see.