{"id":659593,"date":"2026-10-28T13:16:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-28T13:16:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/659593\/"},"modified":"2026-10-28T13:16:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-28T13:16:10","slug":"snowfall-spinoff-the-drop-multi-season-plan-music-biz-gangs-money","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/659593\/","title":{"rendered":"Snowfall Spinoff The Drop Multi-Season Plan: Music Biz, Gangs, Money"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\t[The following story contains spoilers from the first season of Snowfall<\/a> spinoff The Drop, including the season finale \u201cHercules.\u201d]<\/p>\n

\n\tBy the first-season finale of FX<\/a>\u2018s Snowfall<\/a> spinoff The Drop<\/a>, the record label execs that Wanda (Gail Bean<\/a>) and Lamar (Asante Blackk) were eager to do business with earlier in the season have turned sinister. After Artillery (Simmie \u201cBuddy\u201d Sims III) and Dara\u2019s (Aleyse Shannon) close friend Keith (Hanad Abdi) is murdered, the label execs try to use his death to drum up free publicity. Then they rush out Artillery and Lamar\u2019s album, swapping in other artists and making it a compilation. Ultimately Wanda, Lamar and Artillery seem to end the season in control of their own destiny. But, according to The Drop showrunner Malcolm Spellman<\/a>, this is \u201cjust the beginning\u201d of the series\u2019 central family\u2019s dalliance with a music industry that doesn\u2019t have its artists\u2019 best interests at heart.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhat the audience is seeing in that finale, in the last three episodes, will be completely normal all throughout season two,\u201d Spellman tells The Hollywood Reporter.<\/p>\n

\n\tThough The Drop has yet to be renewed and Spellman says he has yet to hear from FX about renewal prospects, he says he\u2019s \u201cnot worried\u201d and remains confident based on community feedback that the show is a hit.<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd he already has a larger vision for the show, including seasons two and three.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cEventually, the reality of what happens in this story is that money and gangs ruin it from the inside and from the outside. Record executives took a culture and decided it was easier for them to make money pushing violence and gangs and all that shit than conscious hip-hop, and these labels literally destroyed an entire dimension of hip-hop and took it into the gutter over the next 30 years. And I want to show that, and I want to show in a way that is realistic and show the audience how cynical that decision making is, and how inescapable it is,\u201d Spellman says. \u201cI think for season two and moving forward, what I want to get into gradually over let\u2019s call it season two and three because it\u2019s moving very gradually, is the labels, manipulation and destruction of our culture and our burden. How we allow gang culture and money and materialism to rot us from the inside as far as conflict.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSpeaking to THR, Spellman talks about how even though Wanda and Lamar end the season on their own, the labels will continue to have \u201call the leverage,\u201d what the future holds for central couple Wanda and Leon (Isaiah John<\/a>) and why the series is ultimately about family.<\/p>\n

\n\tConceptually where did you want to get the narrative to by the end of the first season?<\/p>\n

\n\tNarratively, I wanted to thoroughly introduce each of the characters and bring them all to various forms of a crisis point that either exposes their best and worst inclinations. And by the end of season one, they\u2019re just getting into the music business, and the audience should now be indoctrinated to these characters enough that once season two begins, we will have seen everyone either succumb to their inner monster or overcome it. But we know those traits are there. So I wanted to, in a nutshell, end it narratively with they finally broke through, right? But what is really the issue is what these people are on the inside when tested against this kind of journey into the music business. And just really indoctrinating the audience to the era. There is so much people really don\u2019t understand. Like, people are gonna get mad at the masters storyline, the heist, because they don\u2019t understand that\u2019s how primitive the world was back then. If you take the tapes, there is no recourse. These kids who are in the show were like, \u201cThis doesn\u2019t make sense.\u201d And I\u2019m like, \u201cYou don\u2019t understand.\u201d This is a time where you could have an emergency, and it takes you three days to find the person you love to tell them. Just because they weren\u2019t at home when you called.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhy did you want to have Wanda and Lamar be betrayed by the label and tease out how the label execs weren\u2019t really protecting and interested in helping them so early on?<\/p>\n

\n\tBecause I think this is just the beginning of that. If I had 20 episodes, we\u2019d have even gone deeper, but that\u2019ll be season two. If you think about it like this, up \u2019til episode five, it\u2019s all indoctrination, and then six, seven and eight are very different feeling. They\u2019re a bit more plotty because we\u2019re dealing with a record business story. In real life, these motherfuckers were taking out life insurance policies on the rappers, because you could legally do that back then, and not telling the family or anything. And then when they died, they\u2019d get a million dollars. What you see in those last three episodes is the label is behaving completely normally, and in the \u201990s, artists were far less compliant. Artists really considered themselves artists. One of the things we\u2019re going to explore in season two, and what you\u2019re seeing the setup with the label doing this, is this is just as \u201991 is when gangster rap begins to overcome and destroy conscious rap, and that is by design by the labels. It was easier for them to make money with negativity, and they just leaned all the way in, and a whole genre of rap died.<\/p>\n

\n\tWe definitely see that foreshadowing with the label wanting to get publicity around Keith\u2019s death and rush out the album. For Wanda and Lamar, they seemingly end the season on their own. Do you see them as like being independent going forward, or are they still trying to work with the industry?<\/p>\n

\n\tThat [going independent] wasn\u2019t really a thing then. The label has all the leverage, and they are going to be forced into very uncomfortable situations, and there is no place to go. There is no other option. Like, what I was trying to tell someone in the comments section is there is no rap industry yet. Rap is not on mainstream radio yet. That happened with Dr. Dre and The Chronic. Rap is not on mainstream radio. What are you gonna do? You\u2019re not gonna do anything. This is it.<\/p>\n

\n\tWith Lamar, we see him return home and apologize for how he reacted when he found out about his mother. He was beaten up, but what do you think it is that makes him come home and apologize and want to seek forgiveness from Mama G (Nicki Micheaux) and be connected to that family again?<\/p>\n

\n\tSo that\u2019s sort of the soul of the show, right? The story of the mother is going to be the story of Lamar, and he\u2019s clinging to that safe place, but he\u2019s going to get pulled away from it in the next season. In a nutshell, for a soundbite: This is a show about a family, a makeshift family, including Artillery and all of them. The music business destroys families, and this family will spend its entire existence in this show trying to survive. What we just saw was a dash of what\u2019s coming.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhat\u2019s Lamar\u2019s headspace at the end of the first season, after he spent so much of it trying to break away from the family?<\/p>\n

\n\tI just felt like Lamar had a coming of age. Lamar is a genuinely Christian boy who believes in those values and this family. We\u2019ll see it in season two. They\u2019re not just church kids; they believe in those values. Remember when Pastor Rodney (Wren T. Brown) says the line about the prodigal son? We dropped where they had a scene together where they talked about that: the prodigal son has returned from his journey. He is more mature. He will be less selfish, though that will always dwell inside of him. And he now knows after tasting the fires of what the music business is going to be, he needs his family, particularly Wanda and James (Peyton Alex Smith), for him to survive this. So he\u2019s retreating to what he understands and the culture that saved him.<\/p>\n

\n\tWe see Leon getting much more involved in the music industry throughout the season. And at the end, he gets involved in the scheme against DG (Brandon Mychal Smith) and shoots and kills Deon (Quincy Chad). He\u2019s packing up the legal clinic. Does that mean that Leon\u2019s back in the game and more involved professionally with Wanda and her ambitions going forward?<\/p>\n

\n\tLeon had a very mythical journey in season one, and for Isaiah, it was super important for us to get that character to a place that if we want Leon to function as Leon has in Snowfall, he had to go through a redemption thing and deal with his mourning, because of all the shit he went through in the original series. Once that happens, Big Daddy (Mykelti Williamson) sort of sets him free with that story he tells them. That\u2019s Big Daddy\u2019s way of saying men of our age understand that violence is part of the world, as is murder and death. That story he told is the true story of how my wife\u2019s family came to California. People have to understand, the North Hollywood shootout, that\u2019ll never happen again. But we grew up in an era where men put on full body armor and took on the cops. It was a different fucking time in America. And so, for Big Daddy, the lesson he helped Leon learn is that violence will be necessary. And if you\u2019re protecting my family, even stuff like killing that kid in Snowfall has to be excused because you are in these circumstances. So when he picks up that gun, we know Leon is finally ready to get into the music business and protect his family.<\/p>\n

\n\tYou can tell he feels reluctant to take a more violent route.<\/p>\n

\n\tYeah, it\u2019s killing him. Like that scene in episode five, that\u2019s real, man. He\u2019s looking at all the ghosts. And he\u2019s killed a lot of people.<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd he was trying to pave a path that was more about helping people and being on the up-and-up.<\/p>\n

\n\tTo be a righteous Black man from this environment in \u201991, that was a task. Kids complain about shitty jobs today and say we had it easier. And I explain what unemployment means, which is unemployment meant literally for me to get jobs, I had to put in applications at every fast food restaurant throughout the city, and most times they would just say there is no work. That\u2019s what like seven and eight percent unemployment gets you, and it was higher than that sometimes in the \u201990s for Black people. So this is it. This is their journey. They do not have other options. And for Leon to go on this journey, it\u2019s going to be very similar to the one he went on in the original Snowfall.<\/p>\n

\n\tI\u2019m sure you can\u2019t give too much away, but what would you say about what the future holds for Leon and Wanda as a couple? There\u2019s clearly a deep connection and past there.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn my opinion, they are the heart of the show, and will they or won\u2019t they should be a major question every fucking season. And sometimes they will find a way to make it work with each other, and sometimes it\u2019ll fall apart. And what season one does is, I think, introduces real stakes, meaning that you really feel like Leon is kind of done with her after that. And we need that for the audience to believe when season two begins that they have to fight for their love. Their story is based on me and my wife\u2019s story. Here\u2019s what the show is: Leon and Wanda is will they, won\u2019t they every season, close calls, falling outs, and everything. And by the end of the [series], they have a wedding. I think they will ultimately be an uplifting story because it\u2019s based on me and my wife, who went through all this shit.<\/p>\n

\n\tAs the show has rolled out, you\u2019ve also released the songs from the series. How has that helped having that original music out there?<\/p>\n

\n\tThis to me feels like a private party for Black folk right now, and it\u2019s the most fun until the mainstream audience comes. I\u2019m not even saying that\u2019ll ruin it, but right now, with the way the songs are being received and the way the communities [are responding], it\u2019s just been fucking amazing. I just went to San Quentin. Every single prison in this country is locked in on our show, and those are our fans, people who came from this era and who saw it. Those are the people that if we can convince them, then we did the shit right.<\/p>\n

\n\tAll episodes of the first season of The Drop: A Snowfall Saga<\/a> are now streaming on Hulu.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"[The following story contains spoilers from the first season of Snowfall spinoff The Drop, including the season finale…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":659594,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[146,20102,272375,85,296851,46,296852,101996,296853,411],"class_list":["post-659593","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-fx","tag-gail-bean","tag-il","tag-isaiah-john","tag-israel","tag-malcolm-spellman","tag-snowfall","tag-the-drop-a-snowfall-saga","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659593","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=659593"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659593\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/659594"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=659593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=659593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=659593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}