1 of 5 | Olly sholotan (L) and Jabari Banks return in the final season of “Bel-Air,” premiering Monday on Peacock. Photo courtesy of Peacock
The final season of Bel-Air, premiering Monday on Peacock, references many fan favorite moments from the original NBC sitcom, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.
Jabari Banks plays Will Smith in the modern retelling of the character’s journey from Philadelphia to Los Angeles. Season 4 finds Will and his cousin Carlton (Olly Sholotan) in their senior year of high school and applying to colleges.
Banks, Sholotan, Jordan L. Jones and other cast members discussed the final season in a recent Zoom interview with UPI. Sholotan said he finally found his moment to do the Carlton dance, made famous by Alfonso Ribeiro in the original show, during a homecoming dance scene in Season 4.
“There is no way this show is going to end without me doing the Carlton dance,” Sholotan said. “It’s always this exercise of how do you show that thing that everyone’s expecting but do it in a kind of unexpected and subversive way? I’m glad we were able to sneak it in there.”
Executive producer and showrunner Carla Banks-Waddles said Sholotan had been enthusiastic to do the Carlton throughout the series. She held off until the right moment.
“Finding that moment at the homecoming where it’s just a quick glimpse, we were like, ‘Do it now, do it now,'” she said.
More ‘Fresh’ dance homages
Season 4 also includes another famous dance from the original sitcom: Will and Carlton recreate Smith and Riberio’s dance to Apache’s “Jump On It” at a house party.
“That was a little more extreme,” Banks said. “Olly was doing splits. I hurt my knee. It was a lot going on. I’m excited for people to see the spin we put on that dance.”
The original dance appeared in a Season 6 episode of Fresh Prince. It was important to Sholotan that they take the choreography in a new direction.
“We’re not even recreating it, but to get the chance to be inspired by it and add more to it for this new generation. I’m just so excited for audiences who have seen the original,” Sholotan said. “And audiences who haven’t necessarily seen the original or younger audiences, I’m excited for them to go down the rabbit hole and learn more about the history that is The Fresh Prince of Bel Air.”
Love in ‘Bel-Air’
Carlton finds new romantic prospects upon returning to high school from his time in rehab. These are complicated when his summer girlfriend, Amira (Alycia Pascual-Pena), begins attending the same school.
“We really do find a Carlton that is experiencing a bit of an embarrassment of riches,” Sholotan said. “What is really, really beautiful about him and Amira’s story ultimately is that they have a habit of choosing each other. Even in the midst of looking for other people and seeing other people, I think they find a really beautiful way back to each other.”
Will remains a one-woman man with Lisa (Simone Joy Jones). She appreciated a love scene they shared in the homecoming episode, too.
“They’re locked in,” she said. “It’s fiery, it’s fun, it’s sexy, it’s cool even in the midst of so much going on.”
Meanwhile, another love story appears to remain unrequited. Jordan L. Jones plays Jazz, Will’s friend from Philly, who confessed his love for Carlton’s sister, Hilary (Coco Jones), before her wedding.
Hilary went through with the wedding to Lamarcus (Justin Cornwell), but in the Season 3 cliffhanger, she found Lamarcus unconscious in their bed. Without spoiling Season 4, Jones said Jazz will never be over Hilary no matter how the Lamarcus situation resolves.
“Jazz’s feelings have never changed about Hilary,” Jones said. “No matter what situation Jazz is in, he’s always loved Hilary through it. I’ll say that I don’t think that changes for sure.”
If Jazz must love Hilary from afar, he still clings to the knowledge that she reciprocated his kiss.
“It could be acceptance, accepting the fact that she’s with somebody else, accept the fact that we’re just friends, accept the fact that it’s okay to love two people at once, accept the fact that man, she loves me and that’s just the truth,” Jones said. “Even though the other situation may seem easier, she actually has this love for me.”
Jones sees Jazz as a loving character. That also applies to his business, running the struggling Charlie’s Vinyl record shop, which leads to new opportunities in Season 4.
“One of the themes of Jazz has basically just been to love unconditionally,” Jones said. “That can be in relationships or the businesses he runs. When he’s very adamant about something, he’s very locked in no matter what other people’s opinion and things of that nature are towards it.”
Geoffrey and Phil
Another cliffhanger from Season 3 was the apparent departure of the Banks family butler, Geoffrey. After his criminal past in London followed him to Bel-Air, Geoffrey thought it safest to leave.
Jimmy Akingbola plays Geoffrey, and he still appears in Season 4 and participated in the interview. While his return remains a mystery, the new episodes include flashbacks to young Geoffrey meeting a young Phil Banks, which informed the present characters.
“It was an exchange back and forth because we’ve done this for four seasons,” Akingbola said. “They were getting our nuances of who we are and we were looking back going, ‘Okay, let’s not forget some of that stuff and how can we add it into the present day?'”
Seeing Phil struggle in both the past and present represented the themes of Bel-Air to Holmes.
“All the ups and downs, all the strength, all the weakness, it just shows the fullness of who we are and how we overcome them, how we rise above and how we fall a little bit but we always pick ourselves back up,” Holmes said. “Fall down once, get up twice. No matter what happens, we’re going to prevail.”
Geoffrey’s criminal past has been a mystery for the prior three seasons. Banks-Waddles saw the flashbacks as a way to answer questions and make audiences invest in seeing him reunite with Phil.
“If this is it, let’s find out how they met,” Banks-Waddles said. “He needed this family because of what he was going through in his own life at the time with his own family. Just how the Banks family filled that void for him felt important and then juxtaposing that with the present day story, of course, and seeing how fractured they were.”
Bel-Air marked the acting debut for Banks, who was mentored by original Fresh Prince star Will Smith throughout each season. With Bel-Air ending, Banks feels prepared for future projects.
“Hopefully I can make every set feel like this set,” Banks said. “There was so much love on this set always so hopefully I can take this love and spread it throughout the world.”
New episodes of Bel-Air air Mondays through Dec. 8.
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