This Teaser For USA's New Show 'Dare Me' Makes Cheerleading Look Ominous AF

Your next favorite teen drama is going to have more than just pep in its step. The upcoming USA series Dare Me follows a small-town high school cheerleading team as a new coach comes to town and gets them ready for a high-stakes cheer competition. Oh, and there's also a dark, shocking crime that threatens to change everything in their insular, suburban world — so yeah, it contains multitudes. If the description alone already has you impatient for the new show to premiere, you're in luck: A newly released Dare Me teaser video gives a sneak peek at what's to come.

In the clip, the team's new coach Colette French (Gotham's Willa Fitzgerald) is giving her cheerleaders a pep talk before a football game performance when captain Beth Cassidy (Patricia Moore's Marlo Kelly) shows up late. After an icy stare-down, Colette then tells freshman Tacy Cassidy (Alison Thornton of Girlfriends' Guide to Divorce) to take the top spot on the pyramid, which makes Beth pretty upset. "You put her up there, she's gonna break her neck," Beth shouts. "I'm top girl." But Colette won't hear any of it. She tells Beth she's, in fact, not top girl and, even worse, she's also no longer the squad's captain.

On paper, this all may seem like it's part of yet another peppy Bring It On sequel, but when you watch it play out in the scene, viewers will see it's anything but; you can practically feel the air sizzling between the new coach and (former) top girl, and you just know this is only the beginning of a very twisted rivalry.

Check out the clip for yourself:

Dare Me also stars The Get Down's Herizen Guardiola as fellow cheerleader and Beth's best friend Addy Hanlon; the rest of the cast includes Paul Fitzgerald, Zach Roerig, Rob Heaps, Adrian Walters, and Amanda Brugel (who you may recognize from The Handmaid's Tale).

The new drama series is based on Megan Abbott's acclaimed novel of the same name. According to USA's website, Dare Me is a "part coming-of-age story, part small-town drama, part murder mystery" that" exposes the physical and psychological extremes that some young women are willing to endure in order to get ahead."

With a little bit of Riverdale, a little bit of Pretty Little Liars, and, yes, a touch of Bring It On, Dare Me seems like it could be one of 2020's must-see series — if only so viewers can find out what lengths Beth might go to get back on top.

Dare Me premieres on Sunday, Dec. 29, at 10 p.m. ET on USA.