TV lost a true visionary when Donald Glover’s Atlanta wrapped up a spectacular four-season run on FX last year. Lucky for us, he’s not done making great television yet, and Atlanta fans will feel right at home with his new horror thriller Swarm, premiering this Friday on Prime Video. (I’ve seen all seven episodes.) Brutally violent and darkly hilarious, Swarm is a stunning statement on the dangers of extreme fandom, anchored by a terrific and terrifying lead performance from Dominique Fishback that’s destined to rank as one of the year’s very best.
Glover (credited as co-creator and executive producer) reteams with Atlanta writer Janine Nabers, who serves as showrunner here, and they bring Atlanta‘s unsettlingly surreal tone and dark humor with them to Dre’s story. Swarm is vividly rendered and thick with atmosphere, taking place in mundane settings that make the violence stand out all the more. It also puts us in a queasy moral position: Dre is funny and even sympathetic at times… but then she snaps and sees red, with a disturbing buzzing sound ringing in her ears. (She asks her victims, “Who’s your favorite artist?” and anyone who doesn’t say Ni’Jah soon regrets that decision.) We’re not exactly rooting for her, but she’s undeniably fascinating all the same.
Swarm gets episodic as Dre crisscrosses the country, falling in with a friendly group of strippers and then a NVIXM-like “female empowerment group,” with a stealth appearance from a real-life pop superstar that makes the whole thing very meta. It does grow a bit repetitive — yet another recent example of a limited series that probably could’ve just been a movie. (A detour into true-crime parody, while fun, only serves to blunt the main story’s momentum.) But Fishback’s performance never grows stale, and though Glover and Nabers’ tale takes some pretty wild turns by the end, it’s one hell of a ride that I won’t forget anytime soon.
THE TVLINE BOTTOM LINE: Donald Glover proves he can do horror too with Swarm, anchored by a dazzling lead performance from Dominique Fishback.