All American: Homecoming’s season 3 premiere saw Simone finally make a choice between Damon and Lando. While fans might have differing opinions on how the love triangle played out, star Geffri Maya and showrunner Nkechi Okoro Carroll are in agreement: things happened exactly how they needed to.
Warning: Spoilers ahead of Season 3, episode 1 of All American: Homecoming.
“We [felt like] we were doing [Simone and Damon’s] relationship a disservice if she did not give it a shot,” Carroll exclusively told Us Weekly ahead of the Monday, July 8, episode. “And quite frankly, had things not played out the way it played out, and if baseball hadn’t been taken away and Damon been given this shot abroad, it would’ve likely played out for longer. Not necessarily meaning that he’s her end game and her soulmate, but more meaning that it was something that she needed to experience in order to figure that out.”
For Carroll — who is the showrunner of both Homecoming and the flagship All American — there was “never any other choice” than for Simone (Geffri Maya) to explore a romance with Damon (Peyton Alex Smith) and “determine for herself is this end game [or] just an important chapter of [her] life that [she] had to go through?”
“And there’s no way to answer that question until you go through it,” Carroll added.
After the season 2 finale left fans with a major cliffhanger, the Monday, July 8, premiere revealed that Simone’s long standing love triangle came to an end when she chose to be with Damon over newcomer Lando (Martin Bobb-Semple). Simone and Damon’s story had been building since the show’s backdoor pilot in 2021 when they met and had immediate sparks, but bad timing continued to come between them.
Although season 3 finally saw them get together, their happiness is short-lived. A time jump at the end of the episode reveals Bringston University has done away with the program, leaving Damon with no choice but to move to the Dominican Republic to play ball. The couple decide that long distance won’t work for them, and they call it quits.
Despite their short love affair, Carroll stands by giving “Dimone” a try. She did, however, add that the writer’s room is still “split into camps in terms of Team Damon [or] Team Lando” — and that the question of “why” Simone ultimately chose the way she did will be answered in “future episodes.”
As for Maya, who’s portrayed Simone since season 2 of All American, the actress agreed that Dimone’s history was too great to ignore.
“There was so much left unsaid [between them],” she told Us. “I believe that Simone just followed her heart and trusted her gut with the decision. She just wants to honor the fact that they have always had something. And I think that she felt she deserves to experience that.”
Maya added that Simone is “very intelligent” and “smart” — albeit “hardheaded” at times — and knows she had nothing but “good intentions” regardless of what happens in the down the line.
While Simone and Damon had their moment in the premiere, how Lando feels about not being chosen is an entirely different complication that Carroll said will play out throughout the rest of the season.
“Lando has very strong feelings about [Simone’s] pick,” Carroll told Us, laughing. “[We will] quickly understand where he stands on the choice she made and her needing to live with the choice she made. And Martin [Bobb-Semple] has just been phenomenal this season in all the levels he has brought to Lando’s character and navigating friendships and relationships and where is that boundary and where is that line.”
Carroll explained that Lando will have to figure out his new dynamic with Simone for his “own mental health and peace” in order to “protect himself” from being hurt further. Simone, meanwhile, will also be figuring out the twsome’s new boundaries, “because she misses someone who had legitimately become one of her best friends.”
What happens with Simone, Lando and Damon in the new chapter of their lives remains to be seen — Smith will only be appearing as a recurring guest star this season, while Bobb-Semple has been upgraded to series regular — but Maya ensured Us that fans shouldn’t be so sure they know how the story is going to unfold.
“It will definitely take a turn of events,” she teased. “One thing that I will say about this season is that a lot of people think that they know how this is gonna go. And I love the amount of involvement that our fans have in regards to their connection to the story and these characters and these people. But I think they should just expect the unexpected in terms of what the journey actually will be for [Simone] and for these characters in general. And that’s what makes it so special and so worth worth watching.”
New episodes of All American: Homecoming air on The CW Mondays at 9 p.m. ET.
