A Different World Boss Untangles All Those Messy Relationships and Previews Season 2

[Warning: This story contains major spoilers for Season 1 of A Different World. Read at your own risk!]

Class is back in session at Hillman College. Exactly 39 years to the day after A Different World debuted on NBC, a long-awaited sequel to the beloved spin-off of The Cosby Show has launched on Netflix — bringing a new generation of students at the most famous (fictional) HBCU back into the cultural zeitgeist.

Executive produced by Debbie Allen, who is widely credited with revamping the original series, the 10-episode first season follows Deborah Wayne (Maleah Joi Moon) — the youngest of three children of legacy characters Whitley Gilbert (Jasmine Guy) and Dwayne Wayne (Kadeem Hardison) — and her eclectic group of friends during their freshman year at Hillman. Much like its predecessor, the new sequel explores timely issues specifically affecting young Black people.

“It was really important for us to maintain the political consciousness that came out of the original series,” showrunner Felicia Pride told TV Guide. “So what that means is [exploring]: ‘OK, what are HBCU students facing today, and what are HBCUs facing today?’ We wanted to look at that both internally within their HBCU community and then externally. Internally, there are the funding challenges that HBCUs face across the board. And then externally, we wanted to look at the threats to safety — from bomb threats to ICE — that students experience when they’re just trying to go to school.”

While stopping short of calling out President Trump by name, the first season makes reference to “an oppressive federal administration” that has waged “attacks on DEI” and caused “federal funding cuts to HBCUs.” From the outset, Pride says, the creative team wanted to honor “the spirit of HBCU activism” by introducing a storyline about a sit-in protest organized by Hillman students to rally against budget cuts across their campus. (The awkward wrinkle is that the man who was responsible for making those cuts — not entirely by choice, but rather out of necessity — is Dwayne.)

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By the end of the season, with the help of Senator Byron Douglas (Joe Morton) and Congresswoman Lena James (Jada Pinkett Smith), Hillman is able to get enough funds from both private donors and the state government to make up for the federal cuts — just in time for the student’s highly anticipated Light the Night Gala, where numerous personal relationships across generations come to a head.

All of those cliffhangers are clearly designed for audiences to demand a second season. “When I go into a [writers’] room, or even returning into a room, I always like to start with: What do we owe the audience? And I think coming out of Season 1, we’re going to owe the audience a lot,” Pride said with a laugh.

In the wide-ranging chat below, the showrunner pulls back the curtain on some of the major creative choices she made for this first season and attempts to explain — without a clear blueprint just yet — how that finale sets up a potential sophomore season.

Deborah discovers in the finale that she didn’t exactly get into Hillman entirely on her own merits — her parents were donors of Hillman to guarantee her acceptance as a back-up — but Whitley and Dwayne reassure her that they were only acting out of parental instinct after her NYU acceptance was rescinded because they see so much of themselves in her. How did you want Deborah to forge her own path at Hillman?

Felicia Pride: We wanted her to be able to have her own identity at Hillman outside of her mother Whitley, whose name is on buildings, and her father Dwayne, who is also now a provost and interim president. One of the things that we’re playing around with is that her older sister and brother very much followed in the paths of Whitley and Dwayne, in terms of the success and how they move through life — and Deborah’s different. She’s kind of the black sheep, so [we were focused on] her being able to find her version of the Hillman experience that matches her artistic pursuits, and her wanting to go against the grain and being able to do that.

We see that too in the pilot with the way that she stands up to President Davenport (Jenifer Lewis). That is something that Whitley and Dwayne would not have done in that way, but that’s Deborah’s way. So we wanted her to be OK with the fact that she’s going to do things differently, but still have a similar intention that her parents would’ve had. So we leave her very solid in her Hillman experience — that she deserves to be there and she’s glad to be there — and then also hopeful for the future.

Deborah’s official character description reveals that her NYU acceptance was rescinded for burning down a warehouse. There are a couple references to that fateful night — we learn it’s the night Deborah lost her virginity to Shaquille, and someone they were with at a party got drunk and set off fireworks — but I was waiting for a fuller explanation. Can you clarify what happened that night?

Pride: We had scenes that we had to cut, but she was the one who organized the party and rented the warehouse. So because it was under her name, she was the one that got in the most trouble.

In Episode 8, Deborah and her childhood friend/on-again-off-again love interest Shaquille (Cornell Young IV) have a heart-to-heart about the nature of their relationship, and they lament how bad they are at communicating. Case in point: Deborah decides to break up with Shaquille at the end of the season after discovering that he slept with her RA Candace (Renee Harrison) when they were “on a break.” Why do you think Deborah and Shaquille have such a difficult time being honest with each other?

Pride: Most couples have issues. [Laughs.] I think it’s a theme that is very germane to most couples across ages. And then when you add youthfulness to it, it makes it very challenging. You also add in this particular generation that have grown up on their phones, on social media, and I don’t know if they even have a lot of space and time to process feelings and emotions and communicate those things in person to each other. So I think there’s a lot of factors to add to that [conversation].

Deborah and Shaquille have essentially cut off all contact with each other, but did you ever play around with a different ending where they were still in contact or tried to reconcile before the end of the school year?

Pride: We always had the version where he blocked her because she said she was done. At the gala though, she is kind of like, “Should I talk to him?” And that’s when she’s going home. After a conversation with Amir, who’s giving her psychology advice [about Shaquille], and as she’s walking towards her dorm room, she’s attempting to contact him and realizing that she can’t. I think that feels like the end of that for her, so, yeah, we didn’t play around with that piece.

Deborah ends the season by kissing Ellington, a student assistant who actually encouraged her to get tested for a learning disability, in her dorm room. Ellington — who is also the son of Denise Huxtable, the original lead of A Different World, played by Lisa Bonet! — apologizes for his past mistakes and tells her, “I can’t let someone like you get away from me. Not again. I want to be with you, Deborah.” Did you ever play around with a different ending?

Pride: We did. We have an ending where she doesn’t decide; we just end on her. She doesn’t walk towards Ellington and kiss him. So we shot it both ways, of course, to have options [in the editing room]. I remember sending it to Netflix without the kiss. We wanted to play up the drama of it, so we even, for that version, made sure that we made it as impactful as possible. I said, “But, hey, I have the kiss. I want to send it to y’all.” And they were like, “OK.” And once I sent it, they were like, “Yeah, this is the one we want to go with.” I’m like, “Great.” So that’s how we made that decision. I think we like the idea that she makes a choice in the moment. The version that people may have been expecting is that she doesn’t make a choice, and this feels a little bit unexpected that she chooses Ellington.

Meanwhile, Shaquille, who is a college football star, leaves for Colorado after receiving an offer from Coach Deion Sanders to be on the University of Colorado Boulder football team. Does this mean he’s gone for a summer training camp, or has he officially transferred to Colorado?

Pride: I don’t know. We’re going to have to see if we get a Season 2. People gotta watch so we can get a Season 2!

In the other major love triangle, Kojo (Chibuikem Uche) learns in the finale that Rashida (Alijah Kai) lost her virginity to Andre (Joshua Suiter), and that Kojo and Rashida didn’t lose their virginity to each other after all. Can you walk me through your decision to end their relationship that way in Season 1?

Pride: There was a point where Rashida was hurt by the dissolution of her relationship with Kojo. Andre is a comfort for her, and they have a lot in common. I think she felt that, as she says, it felt right in the moment to have sex with Andre, especially after seeing Kojo at the club. She and Kojo had that [tense] exchange at the club, and the idea that happens offscreen is that Andre takes her home and was a comforting ear. It felt right for her, so she did it [with him].

What we wanted to play around with is this idea that young women may have regret around losing their virginity — not because of any trauma or anything like that, where something bad happened from the sexual experience. But “I wish I would’ve done it or saved it for someone else” is [a feeling] that we were playing around with. Also, we wanted to have Rashida make a mistake and have Deborah be able to comfort her, and [for it] to ultimately be OK. Of course, we play with the drama that Kojo finds out, and that’ll be something that will have to be dealt with in Season 2. But Rashida made a mistake, and I think it’s a mistake that a lot of young women can relate to.

Let’s talk about some of the other cliffhangers. While Rashida is comforted by her mother (played by Kai’s real-life mother, Tichina Arnold) for making that mistake, Kojo leaves the gala with Nneka (Uche Moxam), the head of Hillman’s top fashion organization. While they are flirting, Kojo and Nneka are stopped by an ICE officer who asks if Kojo has “his papers” on him. Did you introduce a foreign-born Black student at Hillman specifically to explore the current concerns around ICE?

Pride: That came later on. We always wanted to have an expansiveness of Blackness, because the diversity of Blackness at an HBCU is vast, and we wanted to show students from the diaspora. So that was where Kojo’s character came from. And then with ICE being so prevalent during the time we were writing this show, we wanted to explore it that way, but we had to earn [that cliffhanger]. So having Kojo’s parents come to America and express their fears helped us to earn that moment in the end.

Amir (Jordan Aaron Hall) decides he wants to be with Jalen (Elijah J. Roberts), only to discover that there is now a warrant for his arrest due to his failure to check in with his probationary officer during the sit-in protest.

Pride: If we get a Season 2, we definitely want to unpack what happened [that led to his time in juvie]. But, also, for young people who are involved in the juvenile justice system, it doesn’t just go away. So we wanted to explore what that looks like when you’re trying to do right. It’s still there hanging over you.

Hazel (Kennedi Reece), ironically, seems to have the most going on of all the main characters — she unwittingly found herself in a love triangle with Amir and Jalen; she was accepted into the student leadership institute with Lena James; she is seen flirting a little bit with self-proclaimed Republican Xavier (Dasan Frazier); and now her long-distance boyfriend Roger from back in her hometown just got into Hillman, so we will presumably meet him next season. What’s next for this poor young woman?

Pride: Poor Hazel had such a time at Hillman! [Laughs.] We wanted to open up a potential love interest for her in Xavier, so we’ll see if that sticks in Season 2. Also, I think it’d be really interesting to see someone from Hazel’s life to give us some context around how she was raised and how she was living, and why she moves and thinks the way that she does. So Roger was very interesting. I love that twist at the end when she tells Amir that she’s always had this boyfriend, because everybody’s messy. That’s the thing about the show — no one is not messy. Hazel could not get out of that situation without having her own kind of mess, which is that she had a boyfriend the entire time. We just thought it could be fun, in a potential Season 2, to meet this boyfriend.

Even though this iteration of A Different World was billed as a “passing of the torch” to the next generation of Hillmanites, the sequel still made a point to bring back a lot of original characters. Did any of the legacy cast members feel particularly strongly about where their characters would be in the present day? And if so, did you incorporate any of that feedback?

Pride: Yeah, absolutely. Everybody had thoughts! [Laughs.] With Dwayne and Whitley, we wanted to explore our favorite couple when life gets in the way. One of the things that is interesting to us is giving hope to relationships — just because you have a rough patch or just because life gets in the way does not mean you can’t find your way back to each other. That’s really what we’re exploring with Whitley and Dwayne. We know they’re soulmates. They’re going to be together — that, to me, is a given — but what does it mean when you lose your way a little bit, and how do you get back to that?

One mandate that Debbie had [for the sequel] was that the show follow Dwayne and Whitley’s daughter at Hillman. I think Jasmine and Kadeem were very happy about that. Also, Darryl having a son in Shaquille was great. And then thinking about [the alumni’s] relationships to the school and their continued support of Hillman was something that we talked about.

And just across the board, when our new cast had ideas, we implemented them. Kennedi was like, “I want to explore pageant culture,” so that’s why we implemented the Ms. Gilbert Hall storyline. It was actually Chib’s idea to have Kojo be a virgin. At first, I was like, “I don’t know. This whole time, Rashida’s scared to tell him that she’s a virgin — and he doesn’t say anything?” But I think he really helped to make that work through his performance. Also, it was actually Kadeem’s idea to somehow incorporate Denise, and we were like, “OK!” [Laughs.]

What exactly was Kadeem’s pitch?

Pride: He pitched Denise coming back at the end, and we were like, “OK, if we could ever make that happen, we’d want to make a meal out of it. But how can we tip to it in this season?” So that [cliffhanger, where Dwayne answers a late-night call from Denise] was our way of taking the pitch and tipping our hat to it.

Have you had any conversations yet with Lisa about revisiting Denise?

Pride: If we get a Season 2, that’s when all those conversations would happen! [Laughs.]

Dwayne and Whitley have reconciled, but they are surprised to hear that Byron is recommending someone else to be the full-time president of Hillman — a position that Dwayne believed would be bestowed upon him. Have you decided who that mystery person will be?

Pride: We actually were thinking about writing someone in, and I’m glad we didn’t because it leaves us open for Season 2 so that we wouldn’t have to be locked into a specific person. But we have lots of ideas, a range of ideas, that we discussed in the [writers’] room.

Whose idea was it for Jaclyn — played by Halle Berry — to be Ron’s (Darryl M. Bell) late wife and Shaquille’s late mother?

Pride: It was someone in the room. It might’ve been Des [Moran]; it might’ve been Ashley [Laverne Jackson]. I can’t remember who it was, but once it was pitched, I was like, “Yes!” It was so good. And even working to get that picture [of Ron and Jaclyn on Shaquille’s desk] was a whole adventure. Darryl Bell was very helpful in that because we had to eventually be like, “Darryl, do you remember who took this picture? Who owns the picture?” He’s like, “Yeah.” But sometimes, it’s just so good that you have to do it.

I’m assuming that the door is open for Jaclyn to make an appearance in a flashback, but does Halle know that her character is part of this sequel in spirit?

Pride: I believe she knows at this point.

In a fun twist, the final minutes of the season reveal that Ron and Freddie (Cree Summer) hooked up again after the gala for old time’s sake.

Pride: Both Darryl and Cree liked that.

I’m sure they did. What does this mean for their characters’ relationship? Was this just a one-night stand, or have they opened themselves up to a different kind of relationship again?

Pride: I love these questions, because you really want us to get into Season 2, and I love that. [Laughs.] I think that there are fans like myself who would love to see them rekindle, but I also know that there’s a lot in between them. I’m not sure if Ron has finished grieving the way that he needs to, but it’s good to see them back together, especially in such a funny way. There’s a lot of possibilities for them, for sure.

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Looking ahead — because you know I love hypothesizing about a Season 2 — is the plan always to have each season focused on one academic year?

Pride: If I had my dream, I would mix it up down the road. I would love to see a summer between semesters, but there isn’t a strict plan.

Would you want more episodes per season, or do you think 10 episodes is enough?

Pride: Oh my gosh, I would want so many episodes. [Laughs.] As you know, we have 10 characters for a half hour, and we have 10 episodes. So I’ve been re-watching the original again, and you just have so much more space with 22. Not to say that I want 22, but 15 would be nice. With 15, we’d be able to do a lot. So yes, absolutely, we’d love more episodes.

Would next season pick up in the immediate aftermath of the finale, or would there be a time jump over the summer?

Pride: I don’t know. That would be a Season 2 question, for sure. But, of course, the idea would be to answer a lot of those questions that Season 1 ended with while also using those to open up the stories for Season 2. Because when I go into a [writers’] room or even returning into a room, I always like to start with: What do we owe the audience? And I think coming out of Season 1, we’re going to owe the audience a lot. [Laughs.]

Do you envision your take on A Different World to be exclusively set at Hillman, or do you eventually plan to follow these characters into post-grad young adulthood, similar to how the original series matured?

Pride: I would love to do that, similar to the original series, while still having Hillman be the hub. The original series definitely still had Hillman as the hub. The characters were still connected to the school, and I think that’s important. That’s what makes the show. But, absolutely, we want to see them in their post-grad. If we had our way, we’d run for six-plus seasons, too!

The entire first season of A Different World is now streaming on Netflix.