Dear White People's fourth and final season is capping off with a musical

Dear White People’s fourth and final season is coming on September 22 and to cap things off, the show will end with a musical. In the trailer for the series finale, it’s finally Sam (Logan Browning) and her friends’ senior year at Winchester. And after 3 challenging years, they’re ready to end college with some fun. There’s a Varsity Show, with Troy (Brandon P. Bell) and Lionel (DeRon Horton) holding auditions, that’s a Black ‘90s musical. Most people seem thrilled about the show—and Sam particularly becomes very invested in it. But a group on campus called Black AF is against it, protesting the show and anyone involved, claiming it’s “minstrelsy.”

We also get a first glimpse of Queer Eye’s Karamo Brown on the show. While details of his character are still under wraps, he seems to play Joelle’s (Ashley Blaine) advisor, who reminds her to add a class “that’s fun” after she says she wishes there was something on her schedule worth waking up for.

Dear White People has never shied away from handling important racial topics, and it looks like the show will also reflect the racial reckoning the country experienced after the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and others at the hands of police. We see a glimpse of protests and Joelle sports a shirt that reads “Breonna Taylor #SayHerName.” It looks like the pandemic will also come into play in the finale, as we see Sam sporting a mask while chatting with Lionel, who’s sitting far from her. It makes sense to include this, since the show began filming its fourth season in late 2020, after experiencing delays due to the pandemic.

The announcement of the show ending with its fourth season came in October 2019, with the showrunner Justin Simien (who also wrote, directed, and produced the movie  that based on) saying, “I’m so grateful my little indie-that-could has made it to four seasons at Netflix. This show, along with the many talented storytellers it has brought into my orbit, has changed my life, and I can’t wait to create a celebratory final volume befitting such a transformative experience.”