Will and his cousin Carlton Banks in the Bel-Air Academy Library.
After one year of waiting, the second season of Peacock’s Bel-Air officially began airing its weekly Thursday episodes on February 23, just ten-days after the one-year anniversary of the series’ initial release.
The drama-driven series is a modern retake on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air which aired from 1990-1996. The series is sometimes referred to as Bel-Air on Peacock to avoid confusion between the two.
The first episode of the new season, titled “A Fresh Start” immediately reveals what most fans have been eagerly awaiting since last spring: what happened to Will after he left his Uncle’s house?
Following his departure from his Uncle Phill’s house at the end of the previous season, Will moves in with Jazz in South Los Angeles and returns to his old West Philly self. He begins making money from street basketball games and attempts to become successful on his own, telling his cousin Carlton “I’m my own man now,” after handing him a wad of cash.
The first two episodes of the new season continue the brilliant character development of Carlton, who was previously hated by some fans who thought he was always out to get Will in trouble. However, this slowly changes throughout the first season and by the time the second season arrives, Will and Carlton have a brotherly bond that we would hate to see broken.
However, Carlton is not the only one who undergoes significant character development. In the second episode titled, “Speaking Truth,” Uncle Phill, who frequently makes stubborn choices, has an epiphany. He realizes that Geoffrey, the former family butler, had good intentions when he decided to tell Will the true story regarding his father Lou’s departure and apologizes for firing him, ultimately leading to Geoffry’s return to the Bank’s estate.
The second episode also shows Uncle Phill apologize to Will for the secrecy regarding his father’s departure and explains why he and his wife Vivian held the truth from him.
Throughout the first season, Bel-Air puts the frustrations experienced by minorities living in predominantly white communities on full-display. This does not stop in the second season.
In one scene, Will attempts to address his school basketball team on how they could improve, when one white player grows annoyed with Will and interrupts him. Will explains that he is not trying to offend anyone and states that on his old team in West Philly, they were honest with each other when they made mistakes and nobody got offended because they understood that it was constructive criticism. The player, still visibly upset with Will, shouts “I don’t give a sh*t how they did things in Philly, We’re not your homies from the hood.”
The second episode also shows Will encouraging Carlton to get involved with their school’s Black Student Union. This ultimately leads them to organize a protest to rally against the firing of one of the school district’s few black teachers, Ms. Hughes, after she was fired and accused of breaking school policies by exposing students to authors who were not part of the approved curriculum, such as James Baldwin. The accusation took place after a young white student witnesses Ms. Hughes give a book by a black-author to Will’s middle-school aged cousin, Ashley Banks.
The second episode ends with a scene at a basketball game in which Will is clearly carrying his team to victory, scoring shot-after-shot and is repeatedly ordered by his coach to pass the ball to a white-player to execute the coach’s “play.” The last time that he listened to such an order from his coach and passed the ball to the same player, his team lost the game, so Will refuses to pass the ball, but carries his team to victory. The episode then ends with the coach, visibly angry at the end of the game and asking to speak with Will in the locker room.
