Swarm

Swarm stars Dominique Fishback as Andrea Green (who goes by Dre), a young woman obsessed with superstar Ni'Jah (Nirine S. Brown). Her fandom is known as The ...

Who does Billie Eilish play in Swarm? Nabers added: “She got here in and their chemistry was actually great. She got here in with concepts, wanting to speak about it, being recreation to rehearse,” Fishback told Both Fishback and Nabers commended Eilish for her performance and work ethic. Eva is directly inspired by Keith Raniere, the imprisoned co-founder of NXIVM, a notorious cult-like self-help corporation. Her fandom is known as The Swarm, but Dre isn’t just any fan – think of her as a Gen Z Annie Wilkes.

Her Houstonian character Dre is willing to max out credit cards for concert tickets, just as much as she's ready to murder online trolls to defend the ...

[The King of Comedy](/reviews/the-king-of-comedy-1983)"), Patrick Bateman (" [American Psycho](/reviews/american-psycho-2000)"), and Arthur Fleck (" [Joker](/reviews/joker-movie-review-2019)"). [Night Comes On](/reviews/night-comes-on-2018)" to " [Judas and the Black Messiah](/reviews/judas-and-the-black-messiah-film-review)." [Dominique Fishback ](/cast-and-crew/dominique-fishback)as Dre [Chloe Bailey ](/cast-and-crew/chloe-bailey)as Marissa [Nirine S. ), [Ibra Ake](/cast-and-crew/ibra-ake), and [Stephen Glover](/cast-and-crew/stephen-glover), establish a sound idea of this grounded but bizarre tone, complemented by a rich soundscape. Much of the show will become about Dre navigating different living spaces, passing through the country like Henry in " [Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer](/reviews/henry-portrait-of-a-serial-killer-1990)." And the show's irascible course of events becomes all the wilder when "Swarm" riffs on the

Andrea "Dre" Green (Dominique Fishback) examining a Ni'Jah poster in Photo: Warrick Page | Prime Video. Swarm, the latest TV project from Atlanta creator ...

“Subverting a narrative, subverting a character, thinking outside the box, adding a surrealistic element to a story is always more powerful and elevated in my opinion. “We start with the saying ‘this is not a work of fiction,’ which is true,” Nabers says. “As a Black woman approaching any story, I think America has projected an idea of Blackness onto storytelling so there’s a formula people are used to watching,” she says. And it’s a label that Nabers embraces with this show. In terms of episode one “Stung,” Though set in a heightened fictional world that only occasionally resembles our own, each episode of Swarm begins with a curious statement that promises veracity.

'Happier Than Ever' singer appears in fourth episode of Glover's thriller about an obsessed fan.

The titular “swarm” of the show’s title is said to take inspiration from the “Beyhive”, the name of Beyoncé’s fans. “What colour was the milk?” the singer asks back, to which Dre replies: “It was red.” In the clip, Dre tells the character played by Eilish: “I see milk spilled on the carpet.”

The horror-thriller series, which Glover created with Janine Nabers, about a mega-fan's violent devotion to a Beyoncé-like pop star, succeeds neither as ...

That’s a meaningful difference between her and the archetypal white male serial killer, but “Swarm” seems unwilling to grapple with the dubious milestone of Black female sociopathy it presents, tiptoeing instead around the social conditions that contributed to Dre’s unstable childhood, as well as the expectations that help her elude capture. Dre’s gradual descent into tragic villainy is lurching and yet not without poignancy; few scenes this year gutted me like the sequence in which she has to look away from one of her final victims, sacrificing her own potential happiness in obeisant service to a higher power. And in these initial chapters the supporting characters are more sharply drawn: a group of Tennessee strippers whose sororal overtures to Dre, the new girl at the club, backfire; a formerly obese man (Byron Bowers) who invites Dre into his home and is quickly undone by the combination of sex and junk food that she offers. But even her marvellously versatile performance can’t make up for the wan character development and the tonal wobbliness that sink the series. As a drifter, Dre tries on a range of gender expressions, from sparkly stripper gear to a rather butch (or transmasculine) guise. The season builds toward a morbid, tongue-in-cheek provocation: What if the female empowerment and self-actualization that Ni’Jah’s anthems champion were channelled into a calling in mass murder? But Marissa is ready to grow up; she’d rather spend her birthday with her boyfriend, Khalid (Damson Idris), than with Dre at a Ni’Jah concert, even if Dre opened up a new credit card to get them premium tickets. A more absurdist version of the character would’ve been right at home in Glover’s “Atlanta,” for which Nabers also wrote; that show’s final season featured a serial killer who targets the participants of a social-media dance challenge set to Soulja Boy’s 2007 hit “Crank That.” But this darker, meaner series, on Prime Video, succeeds neither as satire nor as psychological study. The series opens in the dingy Houston apartment that the fantasy-prone Dre shares with her former foster sister and sole friend, Marissa (Chloe Bailey), a mall clerk and aspiring makeup artist who supports her financially. Every last inch of her gleams: her hair, her eyes, her teeth, the beads and paillettes that shimmer with each hip thrust or arm swing, but, most of all, her skin. Yet the object of fascination in “Swarm,” Donald Glover and Janine Nabers’s new horror-thriller series, isn’t this unmistakable Beyoncé stand-in. And, as with any queen, her domestic orbit is common knowledge: the rapper husband with the capitalist hustle and the wandering eye, their twins, the gifted but hopelessly overshadowed younger sister.

Billie Eilish has made a surprise acting debut in an episode of Donald Glover's new thriller series, "Swarm," which landed on Prime Video on Friday.

We gravitate toward people who are juggling multiple hats.” The show, which explores the dark side of stan culture, features a star-studded cast including singer Chloe Bailey, “Snowfall” star Damson Idris and actor Rickey Thompson. Their exchange gets disturbing when Eilish asks “What color was the milk?” and Dre replies: “It was red.”

In the new psycho-thriller from Donald Glover, an obsessive fan goes berserk. Is the era of social media to blame?

The most convincing aspect of the series is Fishback. The jewel of the series is its commitment to sharp turns—just when you think it will veer right, it puts the car in reverse and runs over a pile of bodies. Death is “beautiful,” Dre reasons, because “it’s equal, it happens to everybody.” According to Nabers, a former writer on Atlanta, the cerebral architecture of the show originates from niche thrillers like The Piano Teacher (2001) and Elephant (2003), where the wedding of loss, rage, love, and obsession are framed with razor intimacy. So she uses that hurt to hurt others, embarking on a cross-crounty trip where she kills anyone who speaks negatively of Ni’jah. It is a portrait of superfandom in kamikaze form. (A disclaimer before each episode cautions: “This is not a work of fiction. With the exception of season 3—the most ambitious season or the worst, depending on who you ask—it never left the boundaries of the city, its hidden treasures and trapdoors. It’s got keys in the ignition and a tank full of gas, slinking from Texas to California to Tennessee and back. As we find out, she is a honeycomb of sticky traumas. That it happens to be inspired by the BeyHive—perhaps the internet’s most notorious legion of superfan—do with that what you will. Everything is in service of Ni’jah, the Beyoncé-level pop star she can’t live without. For Dre (Dominique Fishback), the answer is a no-brainer.

The Atlanta creator is clearly targeting Knowles obsessives in this menacing series about the dark side of music fandom. But its point is obvious and its ...

Dre is a slightly patronising cartoon of a lonely outcast, her naivety and awkwardness constantly pushed to the max as she glowers stroppily at everyone. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events, is intentional.” In an episode falteringly styled as a true-crime documentary, following the only cop in the US who has identified Dre as the likely culprit for a string of murders, Swarm goes archly meta, with Ni’Jah defictionalised and replaced by the real Beyoncé, her name bleeped out when characters say it but easily lip-readable. She works in a strip club, bonding uneasily with her fellow dancers and initially frightening off punters with her clunking gait and insistence on dancing to sad Ni’Jah ballads. She gets a new credit card to buy front-row Ni’Jah tickets she is nowhere near being able to afford, and is devastated when Marissa – who used to be as keen a member of the Swarm, the Ni’jah fan collective, as Dre still is – does not want to accompany her to the gig because she is well into her 20s now and has moved on. [Watchmen](https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2019/oct/21/watchmen-review-the-perfect-superhero-story-for-our-tattered-times-hbo-alan-moore) and [Atlanta](https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2022/jun/29/donald-glover-atlanta-season-three-review-this-peerless-shows-impact-will-live-forever) – sets up a mood of flickering menace. If that doesn’t make it a must-watch, or at least a must-try, Glover’s parallel career as the rapper Childish Gambino increases the intrigue: Swarm is about the dark side of music fandom, and if anyone can turn that into art, you would think Glover can.

The multi-award-winning singer appears as a creepy cult leader in Donald Glover's latest series, streaming now on Prime. Here's everything you need to know:

[Billie Eilish](https://www.elle.com/uk/fashion/celebrity-style/g38581112/billie-eilish-style-file/) already has an impressive seven Grammys, three Brits, one [Academy Award](https://www.elle.com/uk/fashion/g30831492/oscars-best-dressed/) and countless hit songs under her belt – but never one to rest on her laurels, the singer-songwriter is now also adding 'actor' to her ever-expanding list of talents. Eilish was also spotted earlier this week attending the Swarm premiere in Los Angeles, wearing an oversized black-and-white suit ensemble. [Beyoncé](https://www.elle.com/uk/fashion/a42614686/beyonce-ukrainan-designer-atlantis-the-royal-hotel/).

'Swarm' showrunner Janine Nabers and star Dominique Fishback break down Prime Video's horror/comedy about a murderous fan, premiering Friday.

I think I got what I came for and we can lay that to rest. Nabers: You look at all of the things she’s done to get to where she is, and it’s a devastating moment because you don’t know the reality of it. Fishback: I feel really proud of Dre, of the humor that I got to exhibit with this role. It begins with Chloe and it ends with Ni’Jah. Can you talk about the decision to do it that way? Dominique Fishback: Ni’Jah represents somebody who happens to have the language and ability to express it in a way that Dre felt heard. So I think that “bloodlust” was just the desire to feel something. They leave together in her waiting limo and Ni’Jah envelops Dre in a warm embrace. Like this series is [billed as being] “not a work of fiction”: You’re watching actors re-create events that happened [within] a 2 1/2 year period. And then meeting Marissa, to find somebody that equally loves this person as much as she did, it just solidified that relationship. ‘We never set out to tell the history of the Cheeto,’ Longoria said. Janine Nabers: Ni’Jah represents a sense of purpose, a sense of acceptance.

The new Prime Video horror comedy co-created by Donald Glover makes no secret of its allusions to the megastar. Here's an episode by episode guide.

- Dre gets close with one of the staff members on Caché’s tour so she can get access to a party. Beyoncé’s name is never mentioned; the text at the beginning reads, “Some names have been redacted for legal purposes.” The detective, Loretta Greene, starts to notice a pattern with victims making disparaging comments about what we can assume is Beyoncé because, again, her name is bleeped or blurred out. Tiffany Haddish told GQ in March 2018 that someone did the same thing to Beyoncé at a party celebrating 4:44. He throws a party to celebrate the end of his tour. - Dre is also wearing an athleisure set with the words “Honey” on the bands. - Caché goes on tour for a new album, and the tour is called the First Last Tour, following Ni’Jah’s Festival album. Some of the aesthetic elements of Ni’Jah’s video are akin to videos Beyoncé released for the Disney remake, while the horse Ni’Jah rides seems like a reference to the horse on the Renaissance album cover, which the BeyHive on Twitter has aptly nicknamed It’s a shot-for-shot recreation of the In Beyoncé’s 2013 documentary, she revealed that she had a miscarriage and wrote “the saddest song [she’s] ever written in [her] life.” The The show follows Dre, a young woman who bonds with her sister and roommate, Marissa, over their mutual love of a fictional pop superstar named Ni’Jah as members of the Swarm—a nod to Beyoncé’s BeyHive. Every episode of the show, Donald Glover’s first since Atlanta, opens with text that reads: “This is not a work of fiction. We combed through every episode of the new series, which is now streaming, to find every time Ni’Jah’s life or career mirrored Beyoncé’s, compiling a thorough guide to reference as you watch.

“Who's your favorite artist?” is the question Swarm poses in its first moment. If you're Dre (Dominique Fishback) and Marissa (Chloe Bailey), ...

Dre makes a run for it in the post-murder confusion, leaving the strippers to answer for the death. In the beginning, like Khalid says, she covers herself up with only a hint of something sexy hiding away, like the body suit puffer jacket combo she wore at the mall, versus what she wears when at the club dancing to the Festival drop or when she’s performing to Ni’Jah at the strip club when she’s totally bare, wearing her emotions on the outside. Dre is now officially a murderer on the run, but she’s also on a mission, which finds her working at a strip club in Fayetteville, Tennessee, in 2017. [told](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/tv/story/2023-03-10/donald-glover-janine-nabers-swarm-beyhive) the Los Angeles Times that Dre is completely fictional, but they’ve “taken real internet rumors, real murders and combined them in the narrative of our main character, Dre. Their codependency comes to a head when Dre nearly misses covering Marissa’s shift at the T-shirt kiosk in the mall and then leaves the kiosk unattended (to talk with Khalid, of all people), resulting in it getting robbed and vandalized. She visits him at his dad’s house, and they talk about his absence from Marissa’s funeral before Dre attacks him from behind, bashing his head in with a vase before impulsively eating a pie with her bare, bloody hands. At the funeral, Dre is asked to leave at the family’s request, even though she also claims to be family. When Marissa has to bail Dre out, she confronts Dre about the codependent nature of their relationship and announces she’s moving in with Khalid. From her throaty voice to the visuals she releases, it’s not a secret who Ni’Jah is based on — and Dre and Marissa are two sisters who share a love for her. It’s evident that Dre is socially awkward (and a bit creepy), while Marissa is well-adjusted (at least comparatively). If you’re Dre (Dominique Fishback) and Marissa (Chloe Bailey), it’s the Ni’Jah, Swarm’s version of Beyoncé. When Lemonade dropped in 2016, a now-debunked news article [circulated](https://www.dailydot.com/unclick/swarm-tv-show-review-sxsw/?amp) about a woman named Marissa Jackson, who supposedly committed suicide after listening to the project.