Note: Some spoilers ahead.

The second season of Last Chance U, the Netflix documentary chronicling East Mississippi Community College’s powerhouse junior college football team, does not begin with foreshadowing. There is no equivalent of an on-field brawl to fill the first frames, no flashing ahead to when the season all falls apart before building back to that point. This time around the story remains linear and ends in the most unsettling way: with Brittany Wagner, the conscience and heart of the show and football program, driving away for the last time.

Devotees of the series, which will return on July 21, should not be surprised. The academic advisor’s split with the school in tiny Scooba, Miss. was quite public. Season 1 made Wagner popular on Twitter, and her job moves — she took a marketing gig at first but has since announced plans to start her own company — have been covered by the media.

Season 2 makes it clear that Wagner’s decision, which she discusses openly with players on the show, was influenced by her frustration with mercurial coach Buddy Stephens. They are the returning protagonists of the series and although they never interact their narratives could not be more intertwined: Stephens attempts to change, and Wagner struggles to figure out whether she can stay when he doesn’t.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3aIdhWe8NE&feature=youtu.be

Five of the six main characters on the football team are new, but the holdover becomes the most engaging and ultimately heartbreaking. Having gone a year with those cameras constantly hovering nearby, running back Isaiah Wright is comfortable enough to lay himself bare, repeatedly, when they turn his way. He describes growing up in foster homes after his mother left, fighting to stay close with his two brothers while his father was in jail, stealing chicken from Walmart just so they could eat. He deals with both a concussion and a high ankle sprain, injuries that linger and force him to decide whether to appease his coaches by returning or protect his future by sitting out. He embraces a chance at changing the course of his life when his fiancee gets pregnant and is devastated when she loses the baby.

Last Chance U covers many of the broad themes we see running through football and the country at large. Quarterback De’Andre Johnson is trying to re-launch his career after getting kicked out of Florida State for punching a woman at a bar. As with Joe Mixon (now in the NFL) and Ray Rice (who never returned to the NFL), video of the incident became public. Tim Bonner, a rush end who says he was kicked out of Louisville after police searched for but did not find a gun in his dormitory, opens up about family members and others in his small, working-class Alabama town looking to him as a beacon of hope. Religion is ever-present. The players even briefly discuss how Donald Trump winning the presidency seems to have enflamed racist attitudes on campus.

Director Greg Whiteley is careful not to offer any trite conclusions about these matters through his film-making, which is unsparing but also largely free of judgement. His inability to better follow Johnson’s reclamation — while defending his decision to sign the controversial QB, Stephens says that the school will provide counseling but we don’t see it, nor does anyone delve deeply into how Johnson has tried to change — feels like a missed opportunity but also the result of those being filmed better understanding how that footage will be used. Coaches are more apt to dodge cameras or ask them to stop filming heated moments, and the production has a slightly more arms-length feel to it. The strife between Stephens and Wagner is the show’s undercurrent but it remains an undercurrent; we never see whether or how either party attempts to confront the other and it’s hard to know if they simply opt not to or are able to elide that part of their lives from the show.

Last Chance U still manages to capture many intimate and raw moments but more importantly never veers toward reality television territory. If any of the players contrived to become stars after noticing Season 1’s popularity the editing did a good job of keeping it off-screen.

But the documentary crew — and the way its presence in 2015 changed the program — is a factor in the storyline, out of necessity. It is dealt with early, as Wagner asks players whether they’ll act out for the cameras and Stephens admits that he didn’t like what he saw of himself. His efforts at reform become a belabored plot point as he acts mostly identical to the way he did in 2015. He enlists the services of a spiritual advisor (seriously) and briefly sentences himself to pushups for every curse word he uses and reflects frequently upon the Bible but remains irascible verging on volcanic. It is frustrating to watch. And real. Stephens acknowledges there is something wrong with himself without confronting what it is because he senses that it is essential to his approach as an old-school football coach. “You have to make a choice,” he finally admits in the eighth and final episode. “The coach you think you need to be or the person you wanted to be.” What would he be without alpha male bravado? Or if he didn’t intimidate his players and belittle his assistants? Would his teams still win? Because he hates losing more than he hates seeing himself through the lens of the camera — or hearing from others than he uses too many naughty words.

Buddy’s struggles feel mostly flat because it’s so apparent that he will not change. The players left in his wake become the emotional core of the story and Wagner, as per usual, pulls and prods them along. She questions herself and the system she’s a part of but remains relentless both in her love of the players and willingness to harangue them into passing marks. Last Chance U is compelling drama, well-told with an unmatched musical score and achingly beautiful cinematography. But it is also a testament to how difficult it is for young black men from working (or even middle-class) backgrounds to persist in a system that treats them as cogs instead of people.

It was probably unfair to expect Season 2 to cut more deeply or offer clearer conclusions, but the first season — one of the best sports documentaries since Hoop Dreams in 1994 — set a high bar. These characters reach it and if there’s any monotony or lack of epiphany — beyond Wagner’s crushing decision that she can’t and won’t continue fighting the system at EMCC — it serves as a reminder of how slowly change happens, especially in college football.

And often it does not come at all.

In the final game of an 11-1 season, Stephens becomes irate with offensive coordinator Marcus Wood, the longest-tenured member of his staff and one of the only people we ever see Stephens having an adult conversation with. Wood asks for a timeout because he believes there are 12 men on the field; Stephens calls it, but then determines Wood was wrong. He flies into a rage and calls an assistant down from the press box to take over play-calling duties. Wood, who is shown earlier in the show leading a Bible study from the camouflage easy chair at the home where he raises three boys as a single father, tries to assure his players that he’ll be OK. Stephens chastises him for his “smirk,” then brings up Woods’ ex-wife.

All this happens in what is essentially a meaningless bowl game; the Lions don’t end up playing for the national title because they lost the first game of their season while playing severely short-handed due to suspensions from the fight shown in Season 1. The bowl is a consolation and should be a chance to get older players in front of scouts one more time, or needed reps for younger players who will have to step in next year. Plus, the Lions win anyway.

Yet Stephens lashes out at the closest thing his program has to a rudder.

In the closing moments of the show we learn that Woods — once tabbed “coach in waiting” — has stepped down to take an administrative role at the school.

And that Stephens, of course, will return for his 10th year.