“Who’s your favorite artist?”
Swarm is a 2023 horror thriller series created by Donald Glover and Janine Nabers. It stars Dominique Fishback, Chloe Bailey, and Damson Idris.
Fishback plays Dre, a young woman with an unhealthy obsession with a famous pop star - an obsession that threatens to take her to some very dark places. The series premiered on March 17, 2023 on Prime Video.
Swarm contains examples of the following:
- 20 Minutes into the Past: The series was released in 2023, though it is set between 2016 and 2018. References to the rise of singer Halsey, as well as the Trump administration and its numerous controversies are background elements in the show.
- Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: Rashida's parents tell her girlfriend where she was conceived when they come over, which she chides the two over.
- As Himself: Donald Glover in "Fallin’ Through The Cracks".
- Ax-Crazy: Dre to a tee, becoming a Serial Killer in the process.
- Bad Influencer: Dre runs into a racist Internet-famous writer called Alice who drags Ni'Jah for being "racist against white people".
- Bee Afraid: Ni'Jah's fans are associated with bees, and bees are the animal motif throughout the show. For instance, Dre wears a two-piece marked "HONEY", and Dre hears buzzing whenever she goes insane.
- Berserk Button: Criticizing Ni'Jah in any capacity is a surefire way to get on Dre’s bad side, at the very least. Similarly, mentions of her late sister Marissa make Dre uncomfortable at best and violent at worst.
- Black Comedy: A lot appears in the show considering the premise.
- Brick Joke: Hailey mentions her love of the singer Halsey, which confuses Dre because she doesn’t know who she is. After nonchalantly shooting Hailey in the face when she proves too much of a chatterbox, Dre asks Siri who Halsey is.
- Bug Buzz: Loud insect buzzing happens whenever Dre is shown unraveling mentally.
- Casting Gag:
- A series about a woman obsessed with a Beyoncé like idol has Chloe Bailey (who has opened for Beyoncé and has several songs featured in the show) in the cast portraying Dre’s foster sister Marissa.
- The stripper Hailey, who identifies as Black despite looking very white, is played by Paris Jackson, who is biracial. Additionally, Paris is the daughter of Michael Jackson and niece of Janet Jackson, two singers with massive fandoms.
- Billie Eilish, a multi-winning Grammy musician, portrays a women’s empowerment cult leader who tries to trap Dre in her group by preventing her from going to a concert.
- Rory Culkin playing a one-night stand of Dre’s. One of his biggest roles is in Scream 4, where like Dre, he plays a serial killer who murders because of their obsession with a piece of media (music for Dre, horror films for Rory’s character Charlie).
- Crime Reconstruction: Episode 6, "Fallin' Through the Cracks", makes it clear that the previous five episodes were one long re-enactment of actual murders, directed and produced by Donald Glover for Amazon.
- Cult: Dre (initially under the name "Kayla") briefly stays with one led by Eva (portrayed by Billie Eilish). She seems to bond with the girls at least until she realizes that Eva took her phone and made her miss the Ni'Jah concert. It doesn't end well for Eva and several other women in the cult.
- Dead Star Walking: Chloe Bailey plays Marissa, Dre's foster sister, who commits suicide halfway through the first episode. Though she does appear posthumously.
- Deep South: Dre is originally from Houston, Texas and the majority of the series takes place throughout the American South.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Dre’s modus operandi. She stalks and kills any person who voices their dislike of her favorite singer Ni’Jah, all to prove her devotion to her.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: The "female empowerment group" led by Eva is based on the NXIVM cult, down to the branding of a symbol on the members' skin and techniques like gathering information that could later be used for blackmail purposes.
- Driven to Suicide: Marissa, Dre's sister, after her boyfriend cheats on her. Maybe.
- Expy: Ni'Jah is one for Beyonce.
- Foreshadowing: Khalid mentions that Dre and Marissa don’t look like sisters. They’re foster sisters, or at least were until Marissa’s parents sent Dre back into the system.
- Formula-Breaking Episode: “Fallin’ Through the Cracks” is a Documentary Episode that focuses on Detective Loretta Greene’s investigation into Dre’s murder spree and the events that led up to it. It doesn’t feature Dre personally and we see different actors portraying the characters than the ones we’ve seen before — and the episode straight up confirms that the show Swarm that the audience has been watching is a true crime recreation of the "real-life" events helmed by Donald Glover.
- Freudian Excuse: Zigzagged. Dre is gradually revealed to have been a Foster Kid who was kicked out by the Jacksons after a violent incident when she was about 13 — but she is also described as being “weird” and “very” shy and lonely before moving in with Marissa’s family. Loretta Greene tries to find out about her background, only for the case worker to criticize her and the cameraman (and possibly the audience) for trying to use her background as the reason for why she does the things she does, and categorically refuses Loretta’s request for Dre’s records.
- Gainax Ending: The season 1 finale sees Dre finally attend a Ni'Jah concert. She somehow walks up on stage and is apprehended by security only for Ni’Jah — having the face of Marissa — to accept Dre and take her to her limo, finally achieving her life goal of being accepted by her idol. The episode's title? Only God Makes Happy Endings. See Unreliable Narrator below.
- Genre-Busting: The series is a combination of horror, thriller, Black Comedy, psychological drama, and at one point, Mockumentary.
- Hate Sink: As the Villain Protagonist of the series, Dre just goes from one psychotic murder to the next. Even though many of her victims are awful people, none of them deserve to die, making it impossible to watch Dre work without rooting for her destruction.
- I Have Many Names: Dre uses multiple aliases throughout the series.
- I Just Want to Be Loved: Implied to be the case with Dre. She’s obsessive to an unhealthy degree, but much of it appears to come from a desire to be understood and loved unconditionally. Dre is absolutely devastated when Marissa dies, and subsequently turns her sights to Ni’Jah, hoping to get her attention and be loved.
- Karma Houdini: Subverted. While it's easy to believe that Dre is still at large by the end of the series due to the season's bizarre ending, the previous episode does show Dre's mugshot and Detective Greene's excitement to finally meet her.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Not really “jerkass” but Rashida’s brutally honest points about “Tony” buying tickets for an artist she doesn’t even like (having voiced this opinion beforehand) when the money could’ve gone to the couple’s rent and other essential payments aren’t actually wrong. Nevertheless, Dre strangles Rashida in a fit of rage and relapses back into her obsession with Ni’Jah.
- Life-or-Death Question: "Who's your favorite artist?" If the person in question doesn't answer Ni'Jah, they're in trouble.
- Love Confession: Rashida tells Dre she loves her, and Dre says it back as she's later strangling Rashida to death.
- Male Frontal Nudity: Marcus offers Dre a drink the morning after they slept together, with his penis pressed right up on the glass.
- Masculine–Feminine Gay Couple: Dre, after adopting the name Tony and a more masculine look (short hair, T-shirts, jeans, boxers) becomes involved with Rashida, a feminine woman with long hair who wears fairly revealing blouses or dresses.
- Moody Trailer Cover Song: A very haunting rendition of The Pixies’ “Where is My Mind” plays over the main trailer.
- Morality Chain: Marissa. Dre only starts her killing spree after she commits suicide, while she was always weird and violent beforehand, Marissa being around gave Dre someone to care for. With her gone, everything goes to hell.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: Ni'Jah is a fictitious version of Beyoncé with a lot of similarities:
- There are references to her having a wealthy rapper husband and a famous if underrated singer sister. They also have a mysterious "elevator incident".
- Ni'Jah gives birth to twins in June 2017, like Rumi and Sir Carter.
- The show's bee motif is a reference to Beyoncé’s Fan Community Nickname, the Beyhive.
- Ni’Jah’s hometown is Houston, Texas, the same as Beyoncé.
- Ni’Jah even releases a surprise visual album titled Festival inspired by her husband’s infidelity, much like Beyoncé did with Lemonade.
- Plus, it's called Festival, and the associated music video has a distinct medieval motif. Beyonce's 2022 album? Renaissance.
- The penultimate episode, "Fallin' Through the Cracks", drops the pretense entirely. While the name is censored throughout the episode, it's pretty obvious that the characters are saying "Beyoncé" instead of "Ni'Jah." One interviewed fan is shown wearing what looks like authentic Ivy Park clothing (which is designed by Beyoncé) and his poster of the actual Destiny's Child is blurred out behind him. Likewise, the "Beyoncé" in "The Beyoncé Experience" is blurred out on a concert ticket found in Marissa's home, with the tour date on the ticket matching the actual date that that Beyoncé concert was in town.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Dre's fellow strippers save herfrom Reggie, assuming that they're walking in on an Attempted Rape situation, and shoot him before he can strangle her to death. She rewards them by fleeing with the gun and leaving them stranded at his house with his dead body. It's later revealed they were arrested for supposedly murdering him during a robbery gone wrong.
- No Periods, Period: Dre gets hers just when she's busily making out with Rashida. On the other hand, Rashida doesn't gets hers as she's gotten an IUD.
- One-Drop Rule: Hailey mentions that her father is half-Black and she identifies as Black as a result (despite being very white), which confuses Dre.
- Pixelation: The man who asks to jerk off while watching Dre eat has his penis censored this way.
- Pop-Cultural Osmosis Failure: Hailey mentions to Dre that Halsey is her favorite singer; Dre doesn’t know who she is.
- Real Life Writes the Plot: Several elements of the plot actually did happen. Beyoncé was actually bitten in the face
at an afterparty; a fan did run on stage during a Beyoncé and Jay-Z concert; and the character of Marissa Jackson comes from an internet tall tale about a woman with the same name who committed suicide upon learning that Jay-Z cheated on Beyoncé. Additionally, the murders in the first five episodes have details lifted direct from actual crime cases, with the exception of "Running Scared", which was based on the real-life NXIVM cult. - Road Trip Plot: Almost every episode focuses on Dre traveling the country to see Ni’Jah in concert, to kill anyone who insults Ni’Jah, and to avoid the authorities.
- Same Surname Means Related: Loretta Greene has the same surname as Dre. She wonders if this is what drew her to the case to begin with.
- Shout-Out:
- In the scene where Dre is fleeing a party, she runs past two guys. One claims to recognize her as "the chick from Love & Basketball".
- In the episode about Ni'Jah giving birth to twins, Dre runs into a stripper's boyfriend called Sir.note
- A Camp Gay white man mistakes Dre for the woman who does braids for Chrissy and John.
- Show Within a Show: In a bizarre example, there is not only a documentary on the supposed story of Dre and the murders she committed, but the Prime video series gets mentioned as based on them too. So apparently it's also a show in the documentary's reality as well.
- Sucks at Dancing: Dre gets a job as an exotic dancer. Her twerking and pole dance moves leave a lot to be desired. Combined with her choice of music (a song by Ni'Jah about a dead baby) and unpleasant attitude toward customers, she earns very little. She improves.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Dre attempts to kill Reggie, the guy who insulted Marissa after her death. However, because Reggie is a very large man and Dre seems most successful at killing people when she ambushes them (which wasn’t the case here), Reggie nearly strangles her to death. If it weren't for her stripper co-workers returning to the house and shooting Reggie dead, Dre would’ve died there and then.
- Take That!:
- The very white-passing Hailey's fandom of Halsey might be one to Halsey in general, and the fact that she's also white-passing (it could also apply to Paris Jackson, who's also white-passing).
- At an afterparty, Dre meets a light-skinned actor called Jesse from Grey's Anatomy who claims to have invented the term "black girl magic".
- Unreliable Narrator: It becomes pretty clear that Dre will weave any tale so long as it gets her closer to Ni'jah. What isn't immediately apparent until the 3rd episode, "Taste", is that our perspective is being coloured by Dre's.
- At the end of "Taste", Dre approaches Ni'jah's table at an afterparty, grabs a rather large chocolate off the table and sensually bites into it a few times as the audio distorts. She then looks mortified and walks away as the crowd around her begins remarking that she just bit Ni'jah's face.
- In "Girl, Bye", Dre lies about being a makeup artist for Ni'jah's mother which she extrapolated from her sister Marissa's dream to be a makeup artist for celebrities. The former friend's incredulous look during the tale says a lot.
- The penultimate episode, "Fallin' Through the Cracks", puts several events and motivations in a different focus. For example, it's possible that Marissa's scar isn't from self-harm but was part of Dre's infamous attack at the sleepover; and her nursing of the wound is her way of atoning for hurting the friend she was trying to defend.
- The final scene of the series. Dre (now disguising himself as a man named Tony to stay on the run) gets into a Ni'Jah concert, gets on stage, is captured by security...only for Ni'Jah to magically let her go, invite her to sing, and then get Dre's assistance to get into her limo after the show, where Ni'jah holds Dre as she sobs. And Ni'Jah has Marissa's face during this entire sequence. Keep in mind, the true crime episode that came previously ended with confirmation that "Tony" had been arrested, complete with mugshots that definitely look like they were shot in a backstage hall of a big venue.
- Ultimately, even Marissa's suicide can be brought into question. Did she actually commit suicide, or did Dre kill her and then use Marissa's phone to text herself as a way of covering it up? (The posthumous "I miss you." / "I miss you too." texts include the same syntax choices.)
