Last Chance You

I binge-watched "Last Chance U" this weekend on Netflix, and it's great. NB: I'm not even really a football fan. Of course, the series isn't really about football at all. It's about how hard it is to get ahead when you've grown up hard, and it's about how to deal with life when it starts to rain shit. It's beautifulLY shot and artfully edited. Really, it's a gorgeous, complicated exploration about what it means to be a young black man in the South. The characters it follows most closely are examined with compassionate intimacy; you get to dwell in the complications of a coach who doesn't always do what he says and players who are deeply conflicted about making it big. The timing is also perfect. This isn't a Cinderella story. Its ending is as complex as its start.

Buy THE TUMOR, a digital short by Susannah Breslin that's been called "A masterpiece of short fiction."