It seems like every day there's more and more content in the superhero genre. There's a new movie announced or a new TV show, maybe a hero created just for TV. It never seems to end and that's okay because people eat it up, myself included. There is however a wide variety of quality. Things like Wonder Woman are universally praised, while Iron Fist will leave people split but everyone will agree that there should never be another Hulk movie. The latest series to give it a shot is Keloid. A series brought to us by the Black TV and Film Collective.
The Black TV and Film Collective is a group of writers, actors, directors and others who focus on bringing more diverse story telling to the screen. One of those members is Huriyyah Muhammad, the brains behind Keloid. She's the writer, and director so she's left her unique fingerprints on all over it.
The series follows Keloid (David Nixon) and his mother Marielle (Aba Woodruff) as his powers grow and she attempts to mold him into a great person. The problem is Keloid just wants to be a normal kid. In the first episode we see his mother trying to get Keloid to use his powers to teleport, which he lies about being able to do. She's worried he'll skip that phase and go straight to electrokinesis which comes with sickness and discharge. When she leaves for work Keloid loses his virginity, or attempts to and things get out of control causing them to flee their home for St. Louis but Keloid has other plans.
Season one spends a lot of time giving us information on the characters, their motivations and laying the ground work for a much larger universe. They do a really good job of filling it in. There's not just one family with powers in the world. Instead there's almost a secret society below the surface.
Nixon does a great job as Keloid and just being a general teenager placed in a weird situation. There's a scene where he points out that he's the guy who killed a woman with his penis so he's not normal. Despite that he just wants to do normal things, go to store alone, make friends, play basketball and so on. There's a moment when he's talking about how he hates his name. To be fair I hated the name Keloid too jus The problem is his powers make that difficult so he has to live a very restricted lifestyle because when he doesn't it draws attention to him. Keloid is excited to play basketball at one moment but doesn't realize he scored every single point in the game until it's pointed out by Omar.
Aba Woodruff also kills her role and brings a different motivation to every scene. She still reacts to things when they catch her off guard, but things rarely do. When Keloid accidentally kills Aisha after sex his mother isn't even shocked. She's already on autopilot ready to run again. There's one scene that made me go back and watch her performance for the minute details. Keloid is arrested and she not only figures it out but follows to the police station. When Keloid is being investigated she stands outside calmly leaned on a light post eating sunflower seeds and feeding him lines telepathically. Lines like "I'm not crazy, I just need to grow up." The concept alone is great but small details she's added like the lean, sunflowers and a few eye rolls just made the scene great.
Keloid is like a roller coaster ride. Every time you believe things have calmed down something happens that throws you right back into the action. There was a lot of planning for a greater universe in this first season and I'm interested to see where it all goes in the future. It's a show that skews for a younger fanbase but not to young. You're not going to have to deal with serial rapists like Jessica Jones but you're also not going to get constant jokes like Spider-Man: Homecoming. It's good to have something that fills that middle ground where you can have a series story but not too serious.
You can watch the first episode of Keloid now on the Black TV and Film Creative youtube Channel
You can hear Darrell on the CP Time and Powerbomb Jutsu podcasts. He also plays classic arcade games on The Cabinet. You can also check out his playthrough of Sleeping Dogs or Skyrim
