Haterade

Jace is haunted by the fears that he could be overrated. Jenna does her best to reassure him, telling him he’s alright. But it’s clear that Jace is not. Jace wakes up and back on the training, only to find himself haunted by the fears that he could be overrated. Jenna does her best to reassure him, telling him he’s alright. But it’s clear that Jace is not.

Jace has a great attitude and decides to try and let his fears and worries out. This has helped him improve his game and show everyone that he is a good player.

Meanwhile, Ike is conflicted about whether or not to go to the coaches’ meeting. He’s got a baby on the way and he needs to focus on his work at the hardware store, but he’s also been offered a business opportunity by one of the other coaches for Team All Day. In exchange for financial backing, they’ll team up together. ..

As we haven’t had any social issues for a while, Jenna starts driving as we hear a radio report about the coronavirus. Jenna is excited because she knows how to drive and because she loves cars.

Ike encourages Jace to become more valuable to the team by adding assists to his game. There’s no ‘I’ in team, of course, but for Jace there is a ‘me’. Either way, Ike wants him to begin contributing more. ..

The team head to training with Team All-Day and the SPs working together to create a super-team. There are obviously hostilities between the lads, at least at first, but Royale and Jace soon patch up their differences at the barbers.

Jace is not happy about his DMV ranking dropping but Jenna encourages him to look past that and focus on his new opponent, Darius. She points out footage on YouTube and tells him to focus – but Jace isn’t. In fact, at training the next day he only makes 30% of his shots but Ike tells him he needs to focus and work on his game if they’re going to be successful.

After another tough training session, the two teams come together and decide to rename their team – Swagger. With this sorted, Swagger prepare to face their new opponents, fronted by Darius. ..

It’s an away day and 40 minutes into this episode, we see the first person wearing a mask. Along with a quip about the pandemic, A.C. Elite take the lead early but Jace and Ike both realize they need this win more than anything else. So despite the message of this episode being about assists, it falls on Jace to score shots on his own. Literally, this entire footage doesn’t show Jace with a single assist. Still, they win the game and turn it around. ..

After the game, Jace heads out to play some hoops with Crystal while Ike reflects on his own history, including how he lost the state championship. ..

The Episode Review

Jace didn’t get a single assist in the game, which was pretty humorous to see.

Anyway, the biggest problem with this episode comes from the forced social issues that were inserted into it. Last episode it was racist cops which made sense in a way, given the neighborhood that Jace is from. However, the COVID references are horrendously misplaced. We see a single person wearing a mask, along with a remark about the pandemic, before showing another scene involving a news report. It’s so ill-placed and a problem this show will need to deal with quickly because, like most series in the west now, it’s turning into message over story. ..

This drama has good basketball parts and is shaping up to be a decent watch. However, the main focus of the story is Swagger’s personal life and how he will expand his basketball skills in order to become great.