The romance in Romeo And Juliet does not do it for Jackie Howard, the 15-year-old Manhattanite and heroine of Ali Novak’s 2014 YA novel My Life With The Walter Boys (the basis for the Netflix show that drops December 7). In the book’s opening chapter, she makes it abundantly clear that fully getting to know someone is her ideal approach to love. Well, guess what, Jackie? You’re gonna get your wish! You get to live with 10 entire boys on a farm in Colorado and get to know them extra, super well. But also, that means they’re kind of your brothers now. And both of your parents and your older sister have to die for that to happen, so … yeah. Congratulations on entering “boy heaven”? At least your family won’t be there to disapprove?
It’s not good, folks, to create some shaky love triangle situation in a home with a grieving teen girl in it, but that’s what happens here. The parents could and should have been more careful, but they weren’t. (And if they were, there would be no story.) It’s not good to have what’s intended to be a stable environment take on the trappings of something so fleeting and ephemeral as teenage lust. Jackie sets out to find a new sense of family, following the stipulations of a dusty old will written well before her mom’s best friend Katherine had added seven more kids to the three she had at the time it was drafted, and this poor teen gets a whole hornet’s nest of awkwardness and uncertainty instead. You know how a traditional family is expected to get along to a degree and love and support each other unconditionally? And you know how a moody teen boyfriend can dump you or turn vindictive if you so much as smile in the direction of another hot person, making you freak out and wonder whether they actually love you at all? Yeah, it’s chillingly unhealthy to think of would-be brother types becoming … that. When you think about it, it’s a deeply yucky premise. But good television doesn’t always depict characters at their healthiest, right? Look at the Real Housewives. People love that. So is this show good television then?
Well, no, not from a dialogue or story or representation-of-appropriate boundaries-and social-behavior standpoint. The actors do their best (Zoë Soul as the eldest Walter Boy’s fiancée and Connor Stanhope as Danny Walter stand out), but there are honestly a lot of characters to follow, and some can get lost in the shuffle. Most of the Walter Boys are reduced to a single trait like, “Danny, with the actor-y, brooding thing going on,” or “Isaac, the cool dude,” as Jackie’s one girl Greek chorus of a friend Grace describes them. And there are lots of side characters, too. The first few minutes of exposition where everyone is introduced will make your head spin.
The central three persons of interest, though, are Jackie, Cole, and Alex: the love triangle participants. Cole is so hot people keep calling his very existence “the Cole Effect.” He’s a former football star who hurt his leg and has become fixated on quitting school to work at the local auto shop forever. His signature trait, though, is probably that he has abs and his shirt is off a fair bit of the time. When we first see him, he’s exiting the family’s above-ground pool like Bo Derek in Tommy Boy—Jackie bites her lip and everything when she sees his nice tummy. (The way the characters in this show leer when they see someone hot is frankly a little disturbing.) Alex is often said to be sweet and reliable—bookish as well, because he reads a little book called The Fellowship Of The Ring (“Do you know it?” he asks)—but is he? The thing he does most reliably is act supremely entitled to Jackie’s time and attention. Any time she talks to anyone—especially Cole, who literally lives in their house with them—he’s gonna mope about it. He’s intensely possessive, but we’re clearly supposed to like him.
But do we like Cole? No, he’s weird, too! He likes to steal Jackie’s hat, when she’s wearing one, and play keep-away. He calls her “New York” and goes full Gaston when she reads books. He’s also part of multiple pranks against her, and he leaves her at the school on her very first day, because she wasn’t in the parking lot by 3:30 sharp. He also equates his leg injury with her dead family, and those things are not the same, bro.
It’s tiring, you guys. Why can’t we have a “swoonworthy” teen show that has boys being kind and valuing a girl’s consent, not saying “trust me, you’ll like [riding horsies],” when she has already insisted “I said I don’t like it”? One that shows them not doing the aggro wrist-grab thing when they want the girl to look at them or come back for another kissy? It’s not actually difficult, and there have been shows succeeding at this recently. It is mind-boggling that we’re still doing this, having our precious tweens and teens grow up thinking they have to prove themselves to stonewalling, petty boys a million times over just because they showed them a sunset once or told the truth about who pulled a malicious snake prank on them a time or two.
Again, this show does try. The boys suck, they truly do, but the show does attempt to teach us a few things. There’s a Thanksgiving episode in which the local café owner (and former hometown football star, because of course) hosts an event teaching everyone the real history of Thanksgiving. A Walter Boy even comes away changed by it. There’s a pretty informative little scene about epilepsy. There has clearly been an effort to make diverse casting choices, and the widespread, open acceptance of a gay character in the show is one of several things that make it feel a little bit reminiscent of Schitt’s Creek. It’s also giving the horned up teen and tween viewers what they want: abs to ogle, boys gently touching Jackie’s hair and face, longing looks, more abs. It’s nice for them.
But it’s also kind of bad for them. The girls—even Jackie—are mean to each other for far too long until it turns around a little. The best friend characters actively encourage their pals with relationship troubles to accept behavior ranging from drunkenly belittling them to violence against others, and they push them to accept things they find creepy or just plain don’t like. Also, no one seems to be able to express happiness for anyone else if they’re sad about something to any degree—the adults or the kids—and the women in this show have a habit of endlessly performing emotional labor, constantly helping, and working for free (or for persimmons in one case). We don’t often see the women in this show being cared for in ways that don’t consist of some grand gesture or being congratulated on an actual award they’ve won. (The mom doesn’t even paint anymore! She made her art studio into Jackie’s room.) For that matter, Cole isn’t cared for either. His leg still makes him sad, and everyone just wants him to get over it and tells him what a screwup he is.
This is a cautionary tale and not a good romance, but who knows whether its audience has the awareness to see it that way. There are harmful behaviors in this that are never questioned at all, and it’s also not sweet, fun, or funny enough to hold its own against better shows. Frankly, we think we might prefer our life without the Walter Boys.
My Life With The Walter Boys premieres December 7 on Netflix
