Pick A Side: ‘Bel-Air’ Season 2 Episode 3 Recap

Source: Greg Gayne / Peacock

After the first two episodes of season two of Bel-Air painted Will (Jabari Banks) as a cocky and self-centered kid who didn’t care about anything but himself, we got to see another side of him in Episode 3, which was titled ‘Compromise.’ The episode begins with us finding out that Bel-Air Academy is one win away from going to the state tournament. Their coach empshasizes that they need to be win as a team and be united. This leads to a conversation between Will and Tyler (Charlie Hall), in which Will vows to be a team player. Ms. Bassin (Shelley Robertson) pulls Carlton (Olly Sholotan) to the side to alert him that his name has been brought up as a candidate for the Founders Award. She shares this information with him in hopes that he will shut down the protest. The reason the protest was even started was because Ms. Hughes was seemingly unjustly fired. Ashley (Akira Akbar) starts to feel like it’s her fault, but Aunt Vivian (Cassandra Freeman) reassures her it isn’t and tells her that the protest should help her feel better.

Will, Carlton and Ashley host an organizing event at their house. Will looks at it as a great way for Carlton to get closer to Yazmin (Riele Downs). As he’s doing so, Uncle Phil (Adrian Holmes) pulls Will aside and asks that he looks out for Carlton now that he has had his medication reduced. Will obliges and then asks his Uncle about Doc and if he’s found out anything about him. Phil responds by warning Will that he doesn’t feel right about him and that he should be cautious with who he is listening to. Carlton’s alone time with Yazmin was interrupted by Hilary (Coco Jones) accidentally interrupting. Before the almost kiss, Carlton and Yazmin wrote and practiced a speech that Carlton would give at the protest. Before they head to school the next day, Ashley tells Will and Carlton that an email has been stating that anyone who participates in the protest will be suspended and won’t be able to partake in any extracurricular activities. On top of this, Ms. Bassin again tries to deter Carlton from making it happen by subtly threatening his future. All of the students remain on board though. Carlton and Yazmin meet with the Dean and come to an agreement. Although the agreement met some of their demands, it still silenced them at the same time. After seeing how much it infuriated Will, Carlton and Yazmin agreed to act as if they were sticking with the agreement but instead still protest the way they wanted to. This causes Carlton to start to get anxious.

Carlton didn’t let his anxiousness stop him from leading the walkout though. He was the first one that got up and stormed and his classmates including Will and Lisa (Simone Joy Jones) quickly followed. Once the students got outside, it was obvious that they didn’t plan as well as they thought they did. Things started to get rowdy as teachers and faculty members began taking the banners and trying to rally students back inside. The pressure starts to mount as Carlton’s fellow classmates are badgering him about doing his speech. It starts to become too much for him and he starts having an anxiety attack. Will comes to his aid and helps him calm down. Will then takes further takes things into his own hands. He snatches the banners from one of the teachers and dashes upstairs to the roof. In the midst of him being chased, Yazmin shares a stare with Carlton and the disappointment is written all over her face. Thinking the protest has ended, the students start to go back inside until they see Will. He unravels a huge banner that says ‘Black Teachers Matter.’ A A chant saying the same thing starts and the whole school starts to go wild, including Ashley who’s in her classroom watching everything take place on her phone. The only person who didn’t seem pleased with Will’s action was his cousin Carlton. Is this incident going to cause Carlton to spiral downwards again? Is Will going to be able to play in the team’s next basketball game? Will the protest help at all with getting Ms. Hughes’ job back?

Elsewhere in the episode, we seen the relationship between Hilary and Ivy (Karreuche Tran) get rockier. After Hilary has a successful meeting with the Simply Spiked team, she wants Ivy to agree to the partnership deal also. Unfortunately, Hilary can’t even reach Ivy. When she does reach her at a photo shoot, Ivy pushes their meeting back to later in the day.  When they finally do meet, Ivy is late and has unfortunate news. She declines Hilary’s offer because she’s more concerned with her promoting and marketing her own drink instead of anyone else’s. Despite Ivy saying no, Hilary decides to accept the offer anyways. When Ivy finds out, it will surely be an issue. Is Hilary wrong for going behind her back? Or is she thinking more so about the greater good of the house? It seems like she’s in the same situation she was trying to escape from last season. Hopefully she can change her circumstances this time around.

Hilary’s father is also in a weird space. Although we seen Geoffrey (Jimmy Akingbola) return to the Banks residence at the end of the last episode, there still seems to be a bit of distrust between the two ‘brothers.’ The suspicion is beginning to rise, especially after Geoffrey was snooping around Phil’s office. He first looks for something in his desk drawers and then proceeds to try and open a password-encrypted file on his computer. As Phil enters the room, Geoffrey abruptly stops. Once Geoffrey leaves, we see how deep this possibly might be. Nervously, Phil checks his drawers and computer to see if anything had been touched or altered. Phil is obviously hiding something from Jeffrey and Jeffrey is doing the same thing. Even with their relationship creepily being in a state of uncertainty, Phil still tasked Geoffrey with finding out all he could about James Lewis and what he has going on at the firm. What is James actually up to? Is he working with Geoffrey himself? What was Geoffrey looking for? How long will it be before Phil and Geoffrey find out that both of them still have secret they’re hiding? Let us know what you thought about the third episode of season two and what your predictions for next week’s episode are in the comments!