Why Does Everyone Sleep So Hard in ‘Supacell’?

Grab your English-to-English dictionary, because Netflix’s Supacell has been passed the torch as the next frenemy affair to deal with a conspiracy against the Black community. Black people are going missing and a strange collective of white people has something to do with it. Each character of an all-Black ensemble of South Londoners wields a newfound superpower (or two), and they are all being targeted for it. Michael (Tosin Cole), Sabrina (Nadine Mills), Tazer (Josh Tedeku), Rodney (Calvin Demba), and Andre (Eric Kofi-Abrefa) must find each other in order to stop a group of supernaturally powered hooded foes from harming Michael’s fiancée, Dionne (Adelayo Adedayo). Though more drama than comedy, series creator Rapman presents an engaging commentary on Black-on-Black crime and unjust racial power dynamics.

There’s plenty of room for Supacell’s growth as far as varying plot devices and establishing a few more ground rules within the series, but as the first season is all there is for now, what we have is entertaining enough. Currently, the priority of the stakes seems to teeter between Black people going missing all over South London and these five specific people looking to protect or avenge their loved ones. Unloading such a handful of exposition may have evicted some minor values of the genre which fans might be missing, the foremost being that significant groups of people haven’t been given names yet. For example, together this team of five strangers with supacell shall be known as… “the team”? The people targeting those with supacell are called the diabolical… “organization”? There is much to be clarified, but while we wait on those details to be ironed out, we can ponder such things as why everyone sleeps like a rock, and why it should be important to the audience.

Supacell

When five ordinary South Londoners discover they have extraordinary powers, it’s down to one man to bring them together to save the woman he loves.

Genre

Superhero

Debut Date

June 27, 2024

Sleepy-Cell Is Going Around In ‘Supacell’

Supacell takes dedicated time to recognizing its cast of Black Avengers sleeping through persistent wake-up calls. In fact, a majority of the phone calls in this show (and there are too many to count) are sent to voicemail due to characters being knocked out. Heavy sleeping appears to be a mere side effect of having supacell, as Rodney voices, “The powers take a lot out of you. You kind of run out of juice.” When Michael passes out after returning home safe from a shootout, he wakes up to Dionne complaining about his stubbornness. Without so much as a heavy sigh, Andre sleeps through his son repeatedly banging at his door and calling his phone to talk to him. After escaping a late-night ambush by the hooded agents, Michael, Rodney, Tazer, and Sabrina remain asleep until the latter part of the day.

While they are all under heavy pressure, it’s difficult to believe that all five of them would be worn out in the same manner. Rodney, with his supernatural speed, and Andre, with his superhuman strength, might have a more immediately recognizable need to rest their bodies for a long while, as they are imbued with physical enhancements. But Sabrina’s telekinesis is paired with an occupation as a healthcare worker, and Tazer uses his invisibility when faced with the dangers of running with a gang. Wouldn’t it make more sense that the less tangibly-powered members of the team would be losing sleep due to stress and anxiety? Regardless, this super sleep tends to get in the way of the characters’ personal lives in Supacell. So who’s to say it won’t become an issue when the stakes are inevitably raised with the underground organization suddenly undergoing new management?

Who Has the Hardest Job in ‘Supacell’?

Obviously, Michael is dealt the worst of the cards. If anyone should be knocked out solely by exhaustion, it’s Michael (who bears both the power of teleportation and the power to freeze time) because of the emotional responsibility he carries in trying to assemble this team of superpowered strangers. Having just proposed to Dionne, his powers could not have emerged at a more inconvenient time. He is forced under an unfathomable amount of pressure, and no one else (but himself in the future) can share in his position. The stress he’s under makes whatever rest he takes perfectly understandable. But let’s not discount that the other four members also have complex social situations.

The characters’ circumstances with supacell have uprooted their individual social lives, and the effects of their powers become mentally taxing with each move they make. Rodney runs (pun intended) a drug-selling business with his roommate, Spud (Giacomo Mancini), and uses his super speed to perform his job at alarming rates. Spud decides to make a deal alone and let Rodney rest in bed, but the deal results in violence, leaving Rodney to feel responsible for Spud’s hospitalization. Andre has trouble appeasing his son’s mother and struggles to reconnect with his son on a meaningful level. When he accidentally smashes an ATM open, he uses the money to prove himself financially responsible to his ex and shower his son with expensive gifts. Andre’s brief stint of care-free living is interrupted when bailiffs come to collect payment from him in front of his son, making him feel like an unreliable father.

Sabrina is a reputable nurse beloved by her patients. She looks out for her younger sister, Sharleen (Rayxia Ojo), who has a tendency not to take matters seriously and to make reckless decisions. The randomness of her power causes her distress at work, resulting in a loss of focus enough that she nearly misdiagnoses a trusting patient. When Sharleen is violated by a man, Sabrina accidentally takes the assailant’s life in self-defense with the wave of her hand. Tazer’s just trying to take care of his Tower Gang, sticking to the mantra, “Money, power, respect.” He flaunts his ability to “go ghost” after discovering its usefulness in diminishing Krazy’s (Ghetts) power as a gangster. During a confrontation, Tazer’s lack of control over his powers costs him the well-being of one of his boys. His focus is shifted from respectably looking after his gang to destroying Krazy for his betrayal. And for the sake of honorable mention, even Dionne held her own without powers as she investigated a number of missing persons, leading Michael to the dreaded Ashington Estate, also known as A-Town.

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What Are the ‘Supacell’ Bad Guys up To?

Spud was onto something when he stressed to Rodney a caution about publicly using his powers. “They’ll take you in and run experiments on you,” he warns of the government when Rodney speedily consumes a large meal at a diner. An organization of white people are pitting Black folks with supacell against each other by bribing and threatening those they capture. The organization does indeed have surveillance cameras posted around the city, and is holding subjects captive for observation while they let such violence play out above ground. In particular, they seem to keep the closest eye on Jasmine Johnson (Monaé Wilson), a young girl who has the ability to heal people simply by touching them. They exploit her power in order to revitalize their wounded and send them back out to hunt down more patients. Might Spud be related to the organization, or had this instance of foreshadowing come from an innocent friend minding the safety of his mate?

A stark shift in power dynamics is evident after Krazy, the most formidable supacelled character we’ve met, is brought back to the underground labs. Victoria Kesh (Siân Brooke) comfortably asserts her dominance as the most important antagonist in the first season’s final episode. She manipulatively explains to Krazy that she “saved his life on multiple occasions,” and asks, “What did I get in return?” before ordering him to be executed. An apparent “white savior” theme slinks about the organization. There are more than enough scenes depicting white agents leaning into a Black person’s face, patronizing them with sentiments that they are safe, protected, and taken care of thanks to this facility.

Supacell has a lot to clear up with its audience. Will the priority of the stakes lean to one end or remain split until the two converge in another climactic season finale? Is Spud involved with the heinous organization? What exactly led to the catastrophe that Michael saw in the future? Just as we can hope this super sleep plays a major role later in the series, let’s hope some of the other considerably illogical moments are addressed as well, like why Rodney didn’t just roll over onto the wet ground when his back was on fire, or why Michael didn’t just pull a Dr. Strange and keep going back in time to before the demise of Dionne. There’s still time to make it all make sense. Who knows, perhaps a group nap will be the key to bringing the entire operation to, or rather above, the ground.

Supacell is available to stream on Netflix in the U.S.

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