When you start a show that takes a couple of episodes to figure out, its usually either a work of genius or a catastrophe. In the case of Swarm, the new Prime Video show created by Donald Glover and Janine Nabers, the distinction remains up in the air. I still havent fully determined how I feel about the show succeeding in its mandate after finishing all seven episodes.

Warning: Spoilers for Swarm below!

I do know that the shows conceit a young woman with a slavish devotion to a pop star modeled after Beyonc turns to murder as an extreme member of the Beyhive-esque Swarm is amazing. Success or not, its the most talkable show Ive seen this year.

Unless you wish to read the manifold online analyses, Swarm certainly requires multiple viewings to catch all the nuances. I think the food-bingeing scenes, which we see when the main character, Dre (Dominique Fishback), kills someone, might alone prevent me from rewatching Swarm, but theres always the fast-forward button.

Heres what Im thinking about after my first watch:

Some of this shit actually happened.

The shows opening card suggests that the shows events are inspired by real life and real people. Many of the Beyonc parallels are obvious the NiJah visual album, the Jay-Z/Solange-esque attack in the elevator; the suggestion that NiJahs sister is more spiritual.

But several of the plotlines were drawn from actual headlines: Dre biting NiJah in Episode 3 is based on a story Tiffany Haddish conveyed about Beyonc being bitten at a party in Los Angeles she attended with her husband, Jay-Z (NiJah is at a party with her husband Cache when shes bitten). Allegedly, the biter was Sanaa Lathan, which sounds questionable at best, but the episode even throws in a cheeky Love & Basketball reference following the bite.

The sequence in Episode 2 involving the strippers who murdered the good Samaritan who helped them change a tire was culled from the story of strippers who did the same to a Missouri man in 2017. Unlike in the show, that killing wasnt in self-defense.

The cult in Episode 4 is modeled after NXIVM, all the way down to the women being branded . The only thing missing in Swarm is the male leader.

What does Beyonc think?

One might assume that Queen Bey would take umbrage with a show lampooning the most negative parts of her career. However, Nabers said that Glover and Bey are real-life homies and that many of the shows writers have worked with her.

The show doesnt really make Bey look bad it sends up the irrational devotion of some of her fans, whom shes never mobilized to do wild shit like Nicki Minaj has with her Barbz . That said, I also wonder what Nicki thinks of the show

If nothing else, the inclusion of Beyonces protg Chloe Bailey as Dres foster sister Marissa and the catalyst for Dres bloodshed would suggest that shes cool with it. I doubt Bailey would do the show without Beys imprimatur.

Speaking of Chloe, theres that sex scene.

I learned that Swarm was on the air through the online chatter about the sex scene between Marissa and her boyfriend, Khalid (Damson Idris), in the first minutes of the first episode.

Never mind that that scene ranks somewhere between Red Shoe Diaries and an episode of Family Matters on the scale of graphic content theres no nudity outside of an arched booty. Folks primary gripe seems to focus on the fact that Bailey, who came to prominence as half of Chloe x Halle, a teenybopper R&B group that Bailey formed with her sister, has dared to venture into grown-up content.

For detractors, its an over-sexualization of a Black woman and yet another bad decision for someone who decided to cut a single with Chris Brown . However, many child stars transition away from their teenybopper images by way of edgy content: Drew Barrymore and Alyssa Milano are just two examples of actors who went from adorable kids to dabbling in softcore porn.

I think that castigating a woman who owns her womanhood and sexuality and is getting a check cut in the process is the domain of folks desperately in need of business of their own.

I love seeing Black horror.

Swarm reminded me, above all else, that Black folks have a spotty reputation with horror in general: We exist as tokens to die in white horror films, and horror material for us, by us has been infrequent and often suspect (remember Def By Temptation?). Jordan Peele upended all of that with 2017s instant classic Get Out, making way for more horror written, directed by and starring Black people, including 2021s horror anthology Them and the 2021 Candyman sequel.

Swarm has the DNA of critically lauded horror fare like Midsommar and Hereditary. It also has the distinction of having a Black woman as a serial killer in a genre that typically writes them as the sympathetic (and doomed) figure. (2019s Ma flirted with this but didnt stick the landing).

The meta episode was genius.

Episode 6 takes a true-crime documentary approach that plays out like one of the standalone episodes of Glovers Atlanta. I was put off until what I was watching clicked about 10 minutes in. Detective Loretta Greene (an excellent Heather Simms) has a film crew following her as she investigates the murders.

They even used a real-life Glover interview on the red carpet in which hes talking about working on a show with Dom Fishback, and Ive never seen meta done so well.

Donald Glover vs. Black women. Again.

Glover has been dogged for years by the perception that he hates Black women. Hes catching it now for an interview in which told Fishback that he wanted her to consider Dre more of an animal.

Though Glovers complicated relationship with women in general is fodder for his material, going back to his 2011 debut Childish Gambino album Camp, I wont speculate about his perceived hatred of Black women. And Im not sure its fair to base any conclusions on the motivation he gave Fishback for a fictional character.

But consider that Nabers, a Black woman, co-created Swarm. Consider that Fishbacks career, after smaller roles in The Hate U Give and Judas and the Black Messiah, will likely change for the better after the show. If thats hatred, I want some as well.

Its not as if Glover and Nabers depicted white people any better. If anything, Im not sure if theres a single redeeming white woman in the entire series. An impressive Billie Eilish as a cult leader, Paris Jackson as a white woman-adjacent stripper, a MAGA-esque woman who insults NiJah on Twitter the viewer wants them all to meet their end via Dres affinity for blunt-force trauma.

Dominique Fishback is a revelation.

It matters not how you feel about the show Fishbacks depiction of Dre is acting par excellence. Rare and special is the actor who can tell whole stories through their visage alone; even more so the actor who can tell widely disparate ones.

Just when you thought youd seen everything from Dre, the Episode 7 finale has her transform into a stud lesbian, falling deeper into her alternate reality as her crimes catch up with her while she maintains her obsession with NiJah.

Fishback was excellent at making everyone feel uncomfortable yet sympathetic; frustrated yet hopeful. Itll be a travesty if she doesnt get some awards season love next year.