Spinners Season 2 Revs Up in a New City with Higher Stakes Action

Ethan and The Underdogz rev up again as Spinners returns for its highly anticipated second season, taking the action from the Cape Flats to Johannesburg, where bigger opportunities come with even greater risks. Premiering on Mzansi Magic on Sunday, 25 October 2026, the eight-part season follows Ethan, played by Cantona James, and Amber, portrayed by Chelsea Thomas, as they navigate a new chapter in their lives and careers. Two years after escaping gang life, the crew is emerging as a group of rising spinning stars, with fame, love and the promise of a more stable future finally within reach.

Concurrently evolving in Johannesburg townships and on Cape Flats pitches in the 1980’s, two somewhat different scenes, but with the same basic idea, spinning started out as a high-octane underground motorsport. Now formalised, spinning features controlled car stunts, smoking tyres, and energetic crowds. Drivers perform daring donuts and burnouts while balancing precision control with spectacular showmanship in modified rear wheel drive classic cars. Nowadays the sport is dominated by the BMW E30, famously dubbed the Gusheshe, but prominent spinners also use Toyota Corollas, Ford Cortinas and Escorts along with other RWD models from the 1970’s and 1980’s.

A New City, A Different Game

Bruinou.com had the privilege of attending the CANAL+ Spinners premiere event in Cape Town where we got to mingle with the cast and watch the first episode along with the cast, producers and other invited guests.

To say that the episode one was exciting and captivating would be an understatement.
With the popularity of Spinners Season 1 we expected nothing less than amazing action scenes and more intense drama with superb acting from the cast; Episode 1 of Spinners Season 2 delivered.

Spinners Season 2 takes the action and the emotional baggage of the stars to streets of Gauteng where Spinning has become more prominent and more formalised with higher stakes than the Cape Town scene.
Gauteng also offers Ethan an opportunity to make a clean break from gangsterism, or at least, so he thought.

For Ethan, however, leaving his past behind proves easier said than done. Just as he appears to be building something worthwhile, a brutal ambush linked to his former gang threatens everything he and his friends have worked towards. His journey into Johannesburg’s spinning scene becomes a battle to protect his future and the people closest to him. James, whose performance in the first season earned him Best Performance at Dakar Series, returns to a role that explores ambition, loyalty, guilt and the difficult choices that come with trying to escape a life shaped by crime.

The Ethan and Amber Dynamic

With his broody nature and his tense emotional state, Cantona James magnificently portrays Ethan’s facial expressions. In a conversation we had after the screening, I asked Cantona about the close-up facial expression scenes. He turned his face away for a split second, and turned back with his facial muscles twitching, as if he was ‘hartseer kwaad’ but refused to cry, and said “You mean this?”.  We all burst out laughing.

Ethan’s volatility leaves the rest of The Underdogz crew and their family mitigating his every move and utterance to avoid a total breakdown. His relationship with Amber is all but on the rocks.
The avoidant, yet longing interaction between Ethan and Amber, has one hoping the couple will make it through, while impatiently thinking they should just completely break up already.
We of course have no idea whether their rocky romance will last or if it would have dissolved by the end of this new season.

Chelsea Thomas returning as Amber, the confident and talented spinner, brings her own competitive edge to the story.
More than simply part of Ethan’s circle, Amber challenges him both personally and behind the wheel, while representing women making their mark in a spinning culture traditionally dominated by men. Thomas, who grew up in Kraaifontein, Cape Town, has spoken about seeing spinning on Sundays as a child, when participation appeared largely male.

Her role offers an opportunity to showcase the growing presence of women in the sport, with accomplished spinner Kayla Oliphant returning as Thomas’s spinning stunt double and making a special appearance as herself.

The Rest of The Underdogz

The familiar crew also includes Trevor (Braeden Buys), Shane (Dillon Windvogel) and Angelo (Nahum Hughes). Shane was instrumental in introducing Ethan to spinning and the possibility of a different future, while Trevor and Angelo remain part of the close-knit group attempting to establish themselves in Johannesburg.
With Trevor’s silly and inappropriate behaviour with an inability to read a room, Braedon Buys with some really good comedic timing takes the edge off the often tension-filled scenes between the other characters.

As their ambitions grow, the question is whether friendship and loyalty can survive the pressures of success, unfamiliar surroundings and the consequences of Ethan’s unresolved past.

Will Cape Town and Jozi Underworlds Collide?

Could Episode 1 of Spinners Season 2 be setting up a collision between Cape Town & Jozi’s underworlds?
Brandon Daniels gave a critically acclaimed performance as Hercules, the ruthless, cold-blooded gangster and the loyal henchman to Lavender Hill gang boss Damien Santi in the first season of Spinners.
The relationship between Hercules and Ethan is far from simple, and when Hercules reappears in Spinners Season 2 to demand “one last job” from Ethan, we know something big will be going down.
Meanwhile another underworld kingpin is also set to enter Ethan’s world.

A genuinely nice guy in real life, Christian Bennett is well-known for playing the villain in most of his roles. He joins the cast to portray a character named Clinton. While production has kept specific plot details about Clinton closely under wraps, Bennett enters the storyline that shifts focus from the Cape Flats to the fierce and dangerous spinning circuits of Johannesburg and Soweto.
Will Christian Bennet’s Clinton be the bad guy we all absolutely despise, or will he have a saving grace that has us rooting for him?

What we can confirm is that Ethan will be caught between the Maseko family and whatever unfolds between them, Hercules, and Clinton.

Meet the Masekos

Spinners Season 2 introduces a powerful new force in the form of Johannesburg’s Maseko crime family. Veteran actress Clementine Mosimane joins the cast as the formidable matriarchMa Sithole.  Her influence draws Ethan into a dangerous new world when he seeks protection. Her family includes grandson Sayi, played by Aphiwe Mkefe, who emerges as Ethan’s new rival, and granddaughter Amahle, portrayed by Luyanda Zwane. Mondli Makhoba plays Ma Sithole’s bodyguard, while Siyamthanda Bangani appears as Gatsha, Sayi’s trusted wingman.

There’s a cockiness about Sayi that hovers between arrogant confidence rooted in skill and just being a spoiled brat. Aphiwe Mkefe does it so well that one would be forgiven for hating his guts.
What looked like Luyanda Zwane’s character being flirty with Ethan, it won’t surprise us if a love triangle develops between Amahle, Amber and Ethan.

The new arrivals bring fresh alliances, rivalries and relationship complications, adding another layer to a story already fuelled by ambition and the threat of violence. With the action moving through Johannesburg and the streets of Soweto, the season promises more high-pressure spinning alongside the personal conflicts that unfold away from the track.

Special appearances include Siv Ngesi as himself and Anton Taylor as the event MC, helping bring the Johannesburg spinning scene to life.

Taking South African Stories Worldwide

Beyond the spinning action, Spinners continues to carry a distinctly South African story to international audiences. The first season earned recognition at Canneseries, the Shanghai International Television Festival’s Magnolia Awards and Dakar Series. Season 2 expands that reach, rolling out across more than 45 countries, with language editions including the original English, Kaaps and Afrikaans, French, Swahili and Amharic, as well as Portuguese subtitles.

Besides that we have to acknowledge that the Jozi Spinning scene is indeed bigger and more prominent than the Cape Town scene, there is a lot of significance in the fact that Spinners Season 2 moved to Johannesburg.
There is more intersection between our lived realities as Cape Town and Jozi Black & Coloured communities than what we care to acknowledge.

Cantona James says one of the most rewarding parts of his role as Ethan has been filming in communities that reflect the show’s own realities. Ethan’s move from Cape Town to Johannesburg mirrors Cantona’s  own jurney. “As a Jozi boy playing a character who moves from Cape Town to Johannesburg, there’s something deeply meaningful about telling this story. We live in a rainbow nation, but we rarely see that represented authentically on our screens, and I believe Spinners is one of those shows that brings people together in a way that feels honest and real.”

The Soundtrack to the Spinners Action

While the music in the first season heavily leaned towards Hip Hop and other urban sounds typically heard on the Cape Flats, the Spinners Season 2 soundtrack has a more Jozi and broader South African sound to it.

Produced by Lance Stehr of Tsotsi, Yizo Yizo and Shaka iIlembe fame, the music is new, raw, with a bit of old skool, featuring tracks from Zola 7, JOZI and new producers Ben Major & DjSneja.
With Lance Stehr, the man who took Prophets of da City international in the 1990’s and who we last year interacted with when he was a keynote speaker at Music Exchange MEX25 at the helm, the music encapsulates the full spectrum of Mzansi’s sound.
In Spinners Season 2, tracks like “Born in iGusheshe” delivers that!

WATCH: Spinners Season 2 Official Trailer

The new season is co-created by Joachim Landau and showrunner Benjamin Hoffman, with Jaco Bouwer returning as director. Produced by Federation Middle East, Africa and Caribbean and co-produced by Natives at Large, the series is a co-production of MultiChoice and CANAL+, with StudioCanal handling international distribution.  Sponsored by Telkom, in partnership with the City of Cape Town, and filmed in both Cape Town and Johannesburg, Spinners proves South Africa’s capacity to create world class television series and films.

We can’t wait to continue watching as Spinners Season 2 unfolds with bigger dreams, more dangerous rivalries in a new city where Ethan and Amber must discover what their futures are really worth.

Spinners Season 2 premieres on Mzansi Magic (DStv channel 161) on Sunday, 25 October 2026.