The real villain of Netflix's Cheer Season 2 isn't the coronavirus that shut down the 2020 NCA Daytona championships and split up the squad. No, it's the fact that coach Monica Aldama chose to join the cast of Dancing With The Stars Season 29 in September 2020. It's clear that the Navarro College cheerleading team was not onboard with her decision, even though they try their hardest to be happy for their coach in front of the Netflix cameras.
Cheer Season 2 started filming in January 2020, just after the series captivated literally everyone's attention. You can see that it's polarizing from the get go, with some of the cheerleaders moaning about not being featured in the first season, yet still having to support their teammates and schedule their practices around Monica's interviews with everyone from local press to Ellen Degeneres. Still, up until everything shut down in 2020, it seemed like they were one united front, ready to take the bandshell come spring. Until Monica lies to them about doing press in Los Angeles but is actually about to join DWTS, leaving them in the lurch and with a mediocre replacement, former Navarro squad member Kailee Peppers, who just sounds like a cartoon villain.
When she was eliminated in October 2020, Monica told People, "It'll definitely feel a little weird tomorrow when I get up and I won't be going to meet Val for rehearsals." Really, Mon? Did it feel weird abandoning your squad for the first half of the school year? According to some of the responses from the team, it sure as hell should have.
Coach Peppers Ain't It
Peppers used to cheer with Navarro and returns as an assistant coach in 2020. She says that she found out that Monica was going to go on DWTS just three days before she left and was tasked with taking on the team full-time. Whether it was resentment or an actual lack of ability, no one seems to be happy with her coaching technique.
Sweet Gillian Rupert for example, even goes as far to say that Peppers was not ready for the job.
Ouch. Gillian also swears that she and the rest of the team are happy for Monica doing her own thing and riding the fame wave, but there's an ominous twinkle in her eye as she expresses her "joy," much like the one Dexter gets when he spots the next person he plans on laying out in his kill room.
Everyone Resented Monica
Clearly, everyone was mad. Most notable La'Darius Marshall, who is around the same age and experience level as his new "coach." He is distraught that he has to take orders from her and it's only the beginning of a major fallout between him and Coach Monica.
La'Darius has professional and personal issues with the new coach and Monica's own behavior. Throughout Episode 5 and 6, all he does is complain about Kailee's coaching skills and the fact that he tried to reach out to Monica while she was on DWTS, but his former coach never even picked up his calls.
When Monica came back, he said, she just wasn't the same person he had grown to love and admire.
They don't go into too much of the drama, but between Monica seemingly abandoning him and something about a dog and Peppers, La'Darius left Navarro and went on a full on mission to tear Monica down on social media for months before their tearful reunion in the Cheer Season 2 finale. It was nothing but bad vibes and as anyone who knows cheerleading knows (and I do now, as a Cheer fan), good vibes are very important.
Maybe it was COVID that had them off their game, or the lack of superstar La'Darius on that bandshell in 2021, but if you read between the lines, DWTS ruined the Navarro College cheer squad in 2021, plain and simple.
Images: Netflix