Spike Lee Has Some Great Ideas For Expanding The World of 'She's Gotta Have It' In Season 2

Considering that the Netflix reboot of Spike Lee's She's Gotta Have It is based closely on the 1986 film of the same name, She's Gotta Have It Season 2 might seem unlikely. The original film, which is a hybrid romantic comedy and artistic drama, follows a woman, Nola Darling, in her relationships with three different men, and the series does have a similar framework. But Netflix's She's Gotta Have It goes beyond the three-pronged love story, and if Spike Lee gets his way, the series will keep expanding until it manages to encompass a surprisingly large amount of Brooklyn into this character's story and her social circle.

Though the series has yet to be renewed beyond its original set of episodes, which dropped on Thanksgiving day, creator Spike Lee — who also wrote and directed the film that the series is based on — sees this story as bigger than just his original tale of Nola Darling's three lovers. Lee and his fellow executive producer and wife Tonya Lewis Lee see this as the opening to start a series that dives into their chosen setting, Brooklyn. "The major change is there wasn't this animal called gentrification back in 1985, when we shot the movie," Lee told The Hollywood Reporter. "Gentrification is a big theme in the series." The series is set in Fort Greene, a Brooklyn neighborhood that was once majority black, but now is changing into a wealthier, whiter area. "No one ever talks about the displacement of the people, brown people, who lived in South Bronx, who lived in Bed Stuy Do-or-Die, who lived in Fort Greene, who lived in Crown Heights," Lee said in an interview with Club Social. "They aren’t there anymore."

Lewis Lee has also been clear that the series will get the chance to tell the story from the perspective of black women — something that the original film lacked. Spike Lee recently reiterated his regret about including a rape scene in the original She's Gotta Have It: "People always ask me if there's one thing I could take back, a do-over. The first thing I say is the rape scene in the original film from 1986. So I'll apologize again right here. That should've never been in there," he told The Hollywood Reporter. Now, working with a writers room filled with black women, the series is more firmly told from Nola's point of view. To Club Social, Lee and Lewis Lee describe how they recruited playwrights like Lynn Nottage, Eisa Davis, and Radha Blank to work on the series. While Lee wrote and directed the original film, "this is totally different so we wanted those type of writers, black women, in the room," he said.

Together, the two collaborators see a clear image for the future of the series. "I see two or three seasons more," Lee told Club Social. "I never had the mindset this was going to be a one-and-done thing." But he also said he approached the first season more like a film than a TV show. "I approached it like making a long movie. I told everybody the way it was shot, it was a cinematic approach, not television." But for now, the future of She's Gotta Have It is unclear. Netflix is in the habit of renewing shows quickly, and surely if Lee is talking publicly about his myriad plans for the series, than he's made his intentions clear to the streaming service. Lee told The Hollywood Reporter that he'll have to wait for a verdict until after the series premiere. "Netflix has their own metrics and whatnot so we'll see," he said. "They'll make the determination after they [debut] the series."

The show has an Oscar-nominated film director's passion behind it, and one of his most iconic works to kick off its story, so the chances seem good that Netflix would want to renew She's Gotta Have It, especially a version that's diving into some seriously contemporary themes.