All American: Homecoming Stars Talk Simone’s New Enemy, Damon’s Surprising Phone Call in Season 1 Finale
At the end of All American: Homecoming‘s freshman season, Simone Hicks found herself right where she was a year ago: getting verbally eviscerated by one Thea Mays.
During Monday’s season finale, Thea learned that she’d torn her rotator cuff, potentially as a result of borrowing Simone’s much heavier racket during a recent tennis tournament. The injury will sideline Thea for the rest of the season, clearing a spot for Simone on the team’s Top 6. But the devastation of that setback, paired with Thea’s recent discovery that boyfriend Damon initially liked Simone, led Thea to tell Simone — in no uncertain terms — that the two of them are now enemies. The words “conniving little bitch” were even thrown around, yet Simone kept her cool… much to her portrayer’s disappointment.
“One day, [Simone] needs to step it up,” series star Geffri Maya laughs to TVLine in the video above. “I need Simone to fight back, ’cause I fight back!”
But although Maya concedes that a small part of her character “naturally” wants to take Thea down, Simone sees Thea more as “someone that she doesn’t really know how to approach,” especially when Simone “has always been very tough in the All American world.”
Now that Thea and Simone are apparent nemeses, though, Simone’s friendship with Damon could get awfully complicated in Season 2, Maya hints.
“The fact that she’s seeing him happy with someone that is now seemingly her arch-nemesis — not even a frenemy at this point! — you see how your decisions affect you,” she adds. “But no matter what, [Simone and Damon’s] relationship has always been grounded in friendship, and that’s the most important. We’ll see how she handles that.”
Damon, meanwhile, cracked open another painful chapter of his family history, discovering that Jesse Raymond — aka J.R.’s dad — is his biological father, as well. With Jesse now serving as the interim coach of Bringston’s baseball team (Coach Marcus is dealing with his own demons at the moment), Damon decided to explore his options by giving Leonard Shaw, Bringston’s ex-coach, a call.
When asked if Damon might really be considering playing for Shaw again at a different school, co-star Peyton Alex Smith theorizes, “I don’t know if it’s so much playing for Coach Shaw as it is not playing for his dad, who gave him up. The one thing that he was grounded in, that he could always count on, was baseball. He was certain he could do that. And now, he has to do that with the person who didn’t want him. I just don’t think his heart, as a young freshman, can handle it.”
What did you think of All American: Homecoming‘s first season finale? Watch our post mortem Q&A in full above, then grade the episode in our poll and hit the comments! (With reporting by Andy Swift)
1. Thea storyline makes no sense. If she had won the tournament without injury she would have been grateful to Simone. The concept that Simone manipulated her by encouraging her completely scapegoats any responsibility for Thea’s choices. Bad writing and artificial drama.
2. Of course Damon isn’t changing teams. He would be ditching his brother just to spite his bio father (who won’t be around very long anyway.) Put aside the stink on that coach from the recent cheating scandal, jumping ship to another HBCU would look really bad. The kid has a public image and he already made a statement picking Bringston over the MLB. Waffle again before the season starts and people will wonder if he has commitment issues.
3. Cam playing baseball will happen sooner or later, so I wonder why the dragged it out. He proved he can hit, and I imagine he could play outfield with his natural speed and athleticism. The actor is a great singer and the storyline of expanding his horizons is a good one, but the baseball = scholarship = staying in school is just to obvious and should have been in motion before the finale.
All of this!!!
OMG this is THE comment of all comments. They need to have you on the group of writers for Season 2.
I have been waiting to see Cam play baseball again since the alumni game. Hope he’s able to take care of his brain aneurysm.
I hope Amara becomes President and that Zeke teaches. I’m glad that Zeke offered her the presidency based on the conditions of the “anonymous” donation. Glad Tina worked to give Amara the opportunity to advance her career now when she needed it initially during college.
Eh. I don’t entirely see that as bad writing or creating artificial drama, remember, Thea was always this way from the beginning and as they say “when someone shows you who they are, believe them.” Thea forced herself to be friends with Simone and be more open in general because deep down she’s a mean girl and doesn’t like to share the spotlight, whether that be on or off the tennis court. She has some serious growing to do.
Thea is an adult, (older than Simone by a unknown number of years,) who is responsible for her own choices. She didn’t secure her rackets, she didn’t choose to forfeit, and had things worked out she would have enjoyed the benefits. She never mentioned the weight difference being an injury risk, nor did she prioritize that risk over the reward of winning the tournament or beating the mean girl. Thea is the leader of the team and she blew up in front of the team in a way that reflects badly on her.
I think it makes sense that a physical setback that affects the only thing that she has ever cared about about in life, would cause her emotional growth to take a setback as well.
Fair, but the anger being placed on the friend who encouraged her rather than the woman who actually broke her rackets is odd. Also, the argument that Simone manipulated Thea by first earning her trust then sabotaging her is a bit out there. It’s like Damon losing his glove and borrowing one from a teammate. Then a line drive hits Damon and he blames the teammate saying his glove wasn’t good enough to catch the ball. As an experienced athlete one should understand the risks and hazards of their sport and make decisions responsibly. Thea made a choice to compete and then wants to scapegoat Simone for that choice because it turned out badly. Worse still, she did it publicly and likely in earshot of the coach. It just doesn’t feel legit, even for old Thea. She may have been a mean girl, but she was nothing if not professional.
Friend is a relatively new concept to her, and early on she struck me as a spoiled brat in addition to mean girl and professional. It’s her initial reaction to a very emotional issue. I say give her time. If the writers don’t have her back on growth track and at some point apologizing to Simone for scape goating her by mid season at the latest, that when I’d be surprised and start crying fowl. I do agree that doing it in public (not so much the coach-earshot part, teacher’s pet kind of thing) does seem a stretch.
On a side note, I’d just like to say I’ve enjoyed being able to have a nice debate about something so inconsequential for a change :) So thanks!
We got the chance to finally see Coach Lonnie!
I thought she was going to be one of those unseen characters whose voice we occasionally hear or whose message is relayed by another.
um yeah i do NOT like Simone at all. she’s a hypocrite & now that she sees damon with another girl , now she REALLY wanna put her feelings out there but was so in denial about it before lol & their both doing too much like he say he want Thea.. okay then stop being so buddy with Simone . Simone is so problematic & she’s a snake🥴
The stupidest comment. Keep that same energy with Damon. He’s the one initiating those intimate conversations. Simone decided to fall back after realizing that Damon is with Thea. Thea is the real snake, how is it that everyone knew how Damon feel about Simone except her? If she was a real friend she would’ve known, Simone has always supported her and welcomed her into the family as well as introduced her to her friends. Nobody on the team liked her and she never had any friends. That says a lot.
Yes!! Thea is in her own world she doesn’t know that Damon is in love with Simone. Simone and Damon are the cutest things ever!! Such good writing!! Please please get them together!! Make more episodes!!
I really think Thea is not right for Damon, Simon is and need to stop being scared and tell him that