The Emmy-winning sensation is back and the stakes have never been higher…
Director and Executive Producer Greg Whiteley:
“I feel like we’re at our very, very best as storytellers when we are a blank slate. We simply show up and take account of what we’re seeing. We try to avoid familiar tropes. We try to avoid having an agenda that prevents us from seeing what’s really going on. And the best way to do that is to just show up and be open and curious.
“When we arrived at Navarro to film season two it was impossible to ignore their fame. It was such a big part of their lives that it would have been dishonest not to account for it when filming.”
Cheer returns for its second series comprising of nine hour-long episodes. The show opens with the buzz around their newfound stardom threatening to alter the dynamic of Navarro Cheer.
However, the team finds no amount of press frenzy could compare to the challenges they must face when COVID-19 upends the 2020 cheer season and a serious criminal accusation is levied at one of their teammates.
Against that dramatic backdrop, this second run of episodes sees the scope expand to showcase Navarro’s fiercest rival, Trinity Valley Community College. As with the Navarro team, TVCC has a charismatic coach and breakout stars whose struggles, triumphs and stories extend far beyond the mat. As both teams push for the 2021 championship in Daytona, familiar faces take compelling detours and new contenders make a name for themselves.
The programme also deals with the sexual misconduct and child pornography charges against Jerry Harris – which he denies entirely – who had been a series one favourite with viewers, as Greg Whiteley explains:
“The news of Jerry’s investigation broke… I think I was very much like everybody else. I was floored and heartbroken. I tried to unpack what it was that I was feeling. Here was a person that I felt
like I knew very, very well. But then there was news that led me to believe I didn’t know everything about this person and that led to, in a weird way, me mourning the passing of the person that I thought I knew.
“I didn’t find that there was anybody that was reluctant to talk about it on camera. And I really appreciated that, because just like their fame was impossible to ignore, what happened with Jerry would’ve been impossible to ignore because it impacted the team so severely.”
Cheer, series two, available from 8 am on January 12th on Netflix UK.
