Exclusive: Nkechi Okoro Carroll on what to expect from Season 6 of All American
Currently airing on The CW is the sixth season of All American, with executive producer, writer and showrunner Nkechi Okoro.
The cast includes Daniel Ezra as Spencer James, Samantha Logan as Olivia, Michael Evans Behling as Jordan, Greta Oniegou (Layla), Bre-Z (Coop), Cody Christian (Asher), Chelsea Tavares (Patience), Karimah Westbrook (Grace), Monet Mazur (Laura), Kareem J. Grimes (Preach), Jalyn Hall (Dillon), Mustafa Speaks (Coach Boone), and Miya Horcher (Jaymee).
It’s the start of a new school year and Spencer (Daniel Ezra) and Jordan (Michael Evans Behling) are officially eligible to enter the NFL draft, placing Spencer at the center of the media spotlight. Olivia (Samantha Logan) returns to LA after being changed by her time in London. Layla (Greta Onieogou) plans for the opening of her new lounge which will feature Patience’s (Chelsea Tavares) first performance since being stabbed. Elsewhere, Asher (Cody Christian) and Jaymee (guest star Miya Horcher) navigate their
ALL AMERICAN is from Berlanti Productions in association with Warner Bros. Television and CBS Studios, with executive producers Nkechi Okoro Carroll, Greg Berlanti, Sarah Schechter, John A. Norris, Jameal Turner, Mike Herro, and David Strauss.
For Nkechi Okoro Carroll, who is also the showrunner of The CW’s All American: Homecoming and NBC’s Found, this is the first of her three shows that has really taken off and created a fanbase that can never enough of the lives of the characters. Blackfilmandtv.com caught up with Carroll as she spoke about what to expect from All American this season without giving away juicy spoilers.
Here we are, Season six is now here. What are the big changes we have in store for some of the major characters?
Nkechi Okoro Carroll: You're going to get me in trouble with me trying to reveal spoilers. I'm always telepathic, not to give anything away. But let's see, we've move forward in time. We are seeing a more grown, more mature version of our characters. The stakes are higher with where they are in life. Because now it's not so much that they're young adults. They're actually catapulting into adulthood, into their careers, and really lining things up for outside of college. And so the stakes are just much, much higher for all of them. But especially for Spencer and Jordan as they are now eligible for the NFL draft. And so, the dream is literally within sight. They just have to not mess up before they can grab it.
Was it always mapped out knowing you would go this further along after high school? Sometimes when you get a show and it's set, like, in high school, they always start off as freshmen. And then you're wondering if you are going to slow things down so that way they can spend time before they graduate? But once they get older, how much more can this series go with the characters?
Nkechi Okoro Carroll: Oh, absolutely. Listen, I am about to age myself. Because I grew up in the day with the original Beverly Hills 90210. We took them from high school to college to after colleges to launching businesses to building relationships, marriages, all that stuff. I love that stuff because I feel like once you're emotionally invested in these characters, you're emotionally invested in every stage of their life. And there are all these major stages that come along, including the quarter-life crisis that happens in your early to mid-20s. And that then catapults you into another phase of life. And so, listen, if it was up to me, we would be riding with these characters for as long as the fans will let us. And so if it was never in my mind, I sort of never envisioned it sort of just being about their high school or college journeys. I envisioned it about being about these young kids from two very different states whose lives become so emotionally invested in that we take that journey with them, however long it takes us.
You have Spence and Liv and their ongoing relationship. People always wanted to see how far can this go. There’s always obstacles in there.
Nkechi Okoro Carroll: First of all, it's drama. Look, here's the deal. Everyone's always like, oh my God, Spence and Olivia, so much drama, so many obstacles. But when we have them happy, then all we're hearing is, come on, we get it. They're happy, but they're boring. This is why I love YA shows. This is why I love drama. This is why I love network drama in particular. It's the reason why I still watch my soap, or at least I should say DVR my soap, because I usually have to catch up. It's for these obstacles in these relationships and how they navigate these obstacles while they're in the relationship that says so much about if they're endgame or not. And so for me, that we love to throw, not just for Spence or Olivia, but also Jordan and Layla and Patience and Coop and all the other relationships we have on the show. Real life throws dramas in relationships. I've been married for 21 years. You do not make it through 21 years of marriage without obstacles and drama, but how you navigate that together speaks to the love, speaks to the stress of the relationship. And that is no different for our favorite characters on the show.
I think you hit it right away when you said between 90210 and soaps. The reason they keep going on is because they don't make them happy. We just try to keep going on and on and on. Because once they're happy, then it's like, OK, how long can this last?
Nkechi Okoro Carroll: Exactly. Exactly. And, you know, the truth of the matter is, especially with Spencer and Olivia, they went from zero to 60 overnight. They have been such a mature, almost had the purpose, almost like a married couple from the minute they started dating. And even for them as teenagers, they realized that was a lot. We sort of skipped over dating and went straight to marriage. And so as they're navigating that at this young age, on the cusp of turning 21 in adulthood, there's real life, immature things that will get in the way as they're trying to be so grown. And then there are real life adult decisions that are coming with the NFL draft and Olivia going to London and sort of finding this new calling and this new dream. Now we've got the reality of, OK, well, when you're in a committed relationship and your dreams are in opposite directions, how do you navigate that? And how does that feel different from how they would have navigated it in high school and their youth? And those are the things we're excited to explore.
Will Billy’s death still be a factor throughout season six?
Nkechi Okoro Carroll: I lost my dad at my wedding and I've been married 21 years and there's still not a day goes by that I don't feel his presence or miss him or think about how he would have reacted to a situation. And that's the reality for the characters on the show as well. Billy’s legacy is large, and so while they have moved on in terms of being willing to allow themselves to find joy in life again without him, Billy’s never going to be gone as far as they're concerned. He will always have a corner of their heart and that's for all of them. And so we will see for each of them how that manifests differently this season as they are claiming their joy, but still acknowledging that, there's a part of their heart that is still with Billy.
Will Taye Diggs appear in flashbacks?
Nkechi Okoro Carroll: Not flashbacks, no, but I will say there will be, you will feel Billy’s presence on the show and that is all I'm going to say about that.
Now, obviously, we lost Kamar de los Reyes in real life. Would there be any sort of dedication or is this off screen?
Nkechi Okoro Carroll: No, 100%. We love Kamar. He was a part of his family. We were so honored that he did his last episode of TV with us. And in order to honor him, honor his amazing family, honor what he meant to the show, we will be doing a proper tribute to both his character and to Kamal himself in episode 6.
Besides Danielle and Samantha, is there any focus on any of the other characters more so than before?
Nkechi Okoro Carroll: I actually think this show has done a great job of sort of transitioning into an ensemble. Like, it started with Spencer in his dream and that is still what anchors us. This is inspired by real life Spencer Pasinger's story. But what's been amazing about this show and the feedback we've received from our viewers, which we love so much, is everyone has a different character that they have anchored to and identified with. And so, we continue to flesh out all of their stories and will continue to delve into Jordan and Layla's relationship and Cooper and Paience’s relationship. And Asher is in a whole different stage of life now. First, he sort of had to give up the football dream of playing and has found a new calling as a coach. But now he's also a dad. And that's a young dad at that. And that father-son relationship is something he's always wanted to cultivate with his own father and was always rocky. And now he has to do it again, just with the roles reversed. And so we'll take that journey with Asher over the course of this season as well. Even the moms, Laura and Grace, they're entering new chapters of their life. Grace is a happily married woman now and her sons are growing up and need her less. And that's always a tough transition for a mom. So we're exploring all of their storylines as we've been so blessed to do over the last six seasons.
When you have an ensemble show like this, and obviously there's a big fan base, did the strike impact anything at all in terms of how characters are structured or so forth?
Nkechi Okoro Carroll: Not really. We found out that we would be 13 episodes instead of 20 as part of the new sort of CW Nexstar model. And so our shorter season isn’t related to the strike. And I'm a planner, it's how I showrun, and so for all of my shows, all three of them, they're sort of, you know, the one-season journey, the five-season journey, the season seven, eight, nine journey, I plan ahead for these characters, and that's not to say we don't pivot and find a better route for the journeys, but the north star stays pretty true. And so everything we're doing this season for All American and boarding characters, even pre-strike, was in the works, including the time jump. And I think the thing that the strike sort of allowed me was just more time for those stories to marinate in my brain so that we could hit the ground running as fast as possible and get our crews back to work as fast as possible after the strike, which is what we did.
Will anybody else be directing episodes besides Daniel?
Nkechi Okoro Carroll: This season, I mean, we have a number of actors-directors, but this season, especially because of the shorter order and the amazing sort of plethora of directors we have that have been part of the All- American family, out of our cast, it is only Daniel directing this season. And then we have a couple other new directors who have more than earned their stripes and deserved their seats at the monitors. And so we're excited to be launching a couple of other director careers this season as well.
How important is it to write the first episodes? You come in, you write the first episodes, and you let other just take over.
Nkechi Okoro Carroll: Well, I don't know if take over is quite the word, but as showrunner, it's always your final pen. We have an amazing, amazing writing staff on this show, and they write such phenomenal episodes. It is very much a group effort in terms of breaking the stories in the room, coming up with the best versions of the stories in the room, that fit with the trajectory of where we're trying to take the character for this season. And then as showrunner, you know, your pen is always the final pen. So even though I may only write a couple, two to three scripts a season that are officially written by me, every single script that comes out every season passes through me before it hits the screen, whether it's through notes I give the writer or rewrites or anything like that. So there's never a handing off. When you're blessed with such an amazing writing staff like we have on All American, it definitely takes some of the lead off to be able to have so many brilliant minds contribute to the story.