Warning: This story contains spoilers for Prime Video’s “Swarm.” There will be another warning before the key plot points are divulged.
Prime Video’s “Swarm” from Donald Glover and “Atlanta” writer Janine Nabers focuses on the dangers of stan culture, obsessive fandoms and being chronically online.
The limited series, now streaming, stars Dominique Fishback as Dre, a member of the “Killer Bees,” a fandom that may be reminiscent of another Beyhive.
After a tragic accident leaves her alone in the world, Dre develops a taste for murder and drives across the country to get closer to the object of his affections, pop star Ni’Jah (an obvious stand-in for Beyoncé). . Many of the events depicted, from pop culture scandals involving star-studded elevator fights to ostentatious, headline-grabbing murders, are based on true events that took place in the 2010s.
“We researched for months to basically find events within a two-and-a-half-year period that we could put our main character in,” Nabers said. “So it’s not really a work of fiction. We’ve taken real rumors from the internet, real murders, and we’ve combined them into the narrative of our main character, Dre. Not much of it is manufactured.”
The Times caught up with Nabers and Fishback to discuss that unlikely ending.
Dominque Fishback as Dre in a scene from Janine Nabers’ “Swarm.”
(Quantrell D. Colbert/Prime Video)