When Daniel Lawrence Taylor began crafting Season 2 of "Boarders" in 2023, he couldn’t have known he was writing what now feels eerily prophetic. The creator, writer, and executive producer of the Tubi comedy is back with a sharper, bolder season of the British series, which follows five Black teens from inner-city London who land scholarships at an elite boarding school. Season 2 kicks off with a gut punch: the school’s new headmistress, the painfully Karen-esque Carol (played by Niky Wardley), announces she’s cutting funding for three of the five “diverse” scholarship students.

Translation? Most of the Black kids we’ve grown to root for are at risk of being sent home—a move that feels as cruel as it is racially coded. Sound familiar? It should, especially to anyone paying attention to what's happening in American schools right now.

“I feel like you guys’ racism in America is much more like, on a billboard,” Taylor tells BET.com. “Ours is more insidious. I don't think we’d ever have a leader come out and say, ‘We’re cutting this.’ It would just slowly disappear. There were all these big initiatives to push things forward, and now people are already saying, ‘Well, we’ve done that now.’”

The show doesn’t shy away from exploring the different—but deeply connected—realities Black people face in the UK and the US. "Boarders" is part "Dear White People," part "Skins," and 100% its own thing. Season 1 introduced us to the tightly-knit crew: anxious academic Jaheim Jodie (Josh Tedeku), unapologetically Afrocentric Leah (Jodie Campbell), street-smart Toby (Sekou Diaby), shy and brilliant Omar (Myles Kamwendo), and life-of-the-party Femi (Aruna Jalloh). While the setting is posh, the challenges are all too familiar—microaggressions, outright racism, performative allyship, and class tensions wrapped in designer uniforms.

Each character adjusts in their own way—some assimilate, some rebel, some exploit the system to their advantage—but all end up reshaping parts of themselves just to survive.

“It’s a classic fish-out-of-water story,” Taylor says. “But at the same time, it becomes their home. So it’s also about: how do you adapt to these spaces and still get along with people?” It’s a question that hits home for any Black person who’s ever attended a predominantly white institution or worked in a white-dominated space. And there’s rarely a perfect answer. “Boarders doesn’t claim to have solutions,” he adds. “It’s just watching these kids figure out how to survive. There is no right or wrong—it’s just about doing the best you can in spaces that were never built for you.”

This season, the stakes are higher—not just institutionally, but personally. Leah is excited to see another Black girl enroll, only to learn that not all skinfolk are kinfolk. Omar explores his first same-sex relationship. Toby, long the group’s ladies’ man, starts thinking seriously about commitment. Femi discovers a talent that may clash with his parents’ expectations. And Jaheim, the most seemingly adjusted, is forced to confront old wounds when his estranged mother reappears, all while trying to keep his grades intact.

Through it all, "Boarders" shows that these teens—thousands of miles from the U.S.—are still navigating the same cultural landmines we are. But Taylor insists it’s not all bleak. His own time at a boarding school shaped much of the show’s tone, and he believes there’s power in adaptation.

“They’ve learned this is a completely different world—and it’s hard,” he says. “You start asking yourself, ‘Am I losing a piece of me if I leave parts of myself at home?’ But sometimes, that’s necessary. You change and adapt. I don’t speak the way I did growing up. It wasn’t a conscious shift, but it’s allowed me to navigate new spaces more easily.”

That’s the real growth Season 2 captures: the characters are no longer just reacting—they’re thriving. “They’re figuring it out,” Taylor says. “They understand this world better now. And that’s what I wanted to show.”

"Boarders" is now streaming on Tubi.