Swarm's First Trailer Is Serving Shades Of A Darker Beyhive
With a title like "Swarm," it would be reasonable to expect that Donald Glover's upcoming horror series would be about killer insects – bees, maybe. But as it turns out, and as the show's new official teaser clearly indicates, this show is about another kind of swarm altogether, even though the bee imagery is still appropriate.
According to its official description, "Swarm" is all about "Dre (Dominique Fishback), a young woman whose obsession with a pop star takes a dark turn." Parallels to Beyoncé are unmistakable, given the infamously devoted nature of many of her online fans, known as the Beyhive. And just in case that's too subtle, the teaser features a prominent drone of bees buzzing on the soundtrack as well.
As innocuous as it might be to post walls of bee emojis in Instagram comments or on Twitter, it seems clear from the teaser for "Swarm" that this Beyhive gets involved in some significantly more terrifying activities. But the mystery of "Swarm" will stay as such until its premiere in March.
Showrunner and co-creator Janine Nabers has called Swam 'an antihero story'
You can see the official teaser for "Swarm" above, but for more details about what to expect from that mysterious collection of disturbing images and sounds, a recent Vanity Fair piece about the show offers insight. In it, show co-creator Donald Glover likens it to a blend of "The Piano Teacher" and "The King of Comedy," while Glover's fellow co-creator and showrunner Janine Nabers brings the show's inspirations a little closer to the expected realm for a new TV series.
"We were really interested in creating an antihero story," Nabers said, directly comparing Dominique Fishback's Dre to infamous prestige TV antiheroes like Don Draper of "Mad Men" or Tony Soprano of "The Sopranos."
Glover reportedly directs the show's pilot episode, which, like the rest of the show, is shot on film and features "intimidatingly long takes." It would seem to be cut from a similarly challenging cloth as Glover's previous series "Atlanta," which he once said he had to "trick" FX into making.
Viewers anticipating a grisly exploration of the dark side of cultish pop fandom have to wait until "Swarm" premieres on Amazon Prime Video on March 17. Hopefully, the series will meet with approval, or at least tolerance, from the real-life Beyhive as well.