SPOILER ALERT! This story contains details from the Season 2 finale of The CW‘s All American: Homecoming
The school year has officially come to a close at Bringston University, and, after a season of wavering between two suitors, Simone (Geffri Maya) finally made a decision about her love life during Monday’s Season 2 finale of All American: Homecoming.
Her choice will settle a love triangle that co-showrunners Nkechi Okoro Carroll and Marqui Jackson have been building since the end of Season 1. But audiences will have to wait to find out who Simone actually chooses, because Monday’s episode ends with Simone supposedly professing her love to either Damon (Peyton Alex Smith) or Lando (Martin Bobb-Semple)…but viewers don’t see who it is.
“The love triangle was absolutely built into the season. It’s the reason why we introduced Martin Bobb-Semple as Lando at the end of last season, to plant the seed for his character to come this season to really shake things up. He did it in such a great way and also you would never believe he wasn’t a part of the fabric of the show from the beginning,” Carroll told Deadline. “Truthfully, I would go back and forth about who she chose.”
She explained that it was ultimately the arguments occurring in the writers room that encouraged her to refrain from giving viewers an answer at the end of Season 2.
“Our writers were very split…I don’t think anything brought me more joy than listening to the two camps argue for their person. I thought, ‘This is the story. This is the conversation right here.’ And so it was one of those things where I was like, ‘Oh, that’s too good to give an answer to right now,’” she said.
But, have they decided who the lucky suitor will be? Well, that depends on who you ask.
“If you ask the writers room, it’s still TBD,” Carroll joked, adding that she “absolutely” has an answer.
For the record, Maya told Deadline that she’s rooting for team Lando.
“I think that Lando is just a breath of fresh air and like one of the first romantic relationships that she’s had that didn’t feel forced. It feels very genuine and it feels like they both gain from each other in a very pure way. Not saying that she didn’t have Jordan or with Damon, but I just feel like there’s a certain amount of baggage that she has with both that is just not present with Lando. So it’s nice to explore. It’s different,” she said.
Simone’s love life wasn’t the only story left unfinished at the end of Season 2. While the series hasn’t officially been renewed for Season 3, Carroll and Jackson have already begun brainstorming what’s to come for the students at Bringston.
Another season-long arc involved Sylvester Powell’s JR, who was the Dean of Pledges for the new KEK line, including Cam (Mitchell Edwards). In the finale, JR tells his brothers that he’s planning on taking the fall with nationals for the allegations that their chapter had been involved in hazing and underground lines.
As expected, his brothers are not on board with the plan, considering that JR had been the one discouraging the hazing all along. Taking the blame would likely mean he’d be stripped of his letters, which would definitely be a blow to JR, who cherishes his involvement in KEK. However, Jackson argued that his bond with his brothers wouldn’t go away just because he could no longer don the letters.
“He’s bonded with KEK, and regardless of whether nationals recognizes his letters, in his heart that journey will always continue. I think the impact that he’s made on Cam and his line brothers, especially, that impact and that legacy will continue as well,” Jackson said. “So even though he did make the sacrifice, I think when we get into Season 3, we’ll see the sacrifice was for a reason. We will see a different version of KEK. We will see them embracing what brotherhood means in a different way because of it. So I think that’s what we’re really excited about is like JR, even as a sophomore in college, how can he build a legacy already through his actions?”
For his part, Powell says he’s happy for JR to “sacrifice himself” if it means that his brothers can continue to thrive.
“A big thing that was on JR’s mind is the fact that Cam needed a scholarship. So the whole chapter goes down, and my brother doesn’t get a scholarship. If I go down, it’s not really risking anything. I feel like I’ve served my purpose, if it has to end now. If it’s for the betterment of everybody, that’s what JR’s about and that’s the reason why he loves being DP so that he can help others,” Powell told Deadline.
Perhaps the biggest surprise of them all was the revelation that Marcus (Cory Hardrict) is married. During the final moments of the episode, he and Amara (Kelly Jenrette) are celebrating the fact that they’d finally told the kids they were dating when his wife knocks on the door of his apartment. Her presence comes as a shock to both Marcus and Amara, who wasn’t aware that he’d ever been married at all.
While the news will certainly come as a shock to viewers, Carroll explained that the writers had always been planning to dive deeper into what she dubbed Marcus’ “missing years.”
“He’s the one person that left Bringston, had a whole life that even Amara doesn’t know a whole lot about. Yes, he was drafted into the MLB. He went to play with the minors. It was this whole high pressure situation that she wasn’t a part of. He sort of pushed her away and then when he came back, he’d clearly been through something. So we touched on the mental health side of it in Season 1,” she said.
She continued: “We hadn’t specifically landed on the wife of it all for Season 2, but we knew there’s a chunk of time in Marcus’s life that shaped the man he is today. You don’t become the man he is today who is the father figure to the boys, the coach figure, the pillar of strength and support and everything… you don’t become as enlightened a man as he is now, without going through some stuff. Those are the gaps that we’re starting to fill in. And one of the things that happened in those missing years was that he got married. We will explain in Season 3 how and why she technically is still his wife.”
Both Jenrette and Hardrict said they were caught off guard when they learned that this is where their story was headed, but as always they’re rolling with the punches.
Considering that Marcus and Amara already struggled with trust issues in the past, this will likely bring those feelings back to the surface, prompting some new tension for the once happy couple moving forward.
“I’m very curious to see how it unfolds,” Jenrette said. “In a perfect world. I would love for there to be a reasonable, logical explanation. However, I feel that Amara is going to be sucked back into the past and the painful hurt that she experienced when he turned his back on her before.
Hardrict seems confident that Marcus will be able to turn things around, telling Deadline: “[He’s] gonna make it right.”
