My Life with the Walter Boys

I wasn't expecting much more than light fare at first, but apart from the obvious tropes and cliches, was impressed by how many marks the episodes hit, with various storylines and characters.

Jackie (Nikki Rodriguez) and Cole (Noah LaLonde) especially the latter, gave excellent performances with real emotional nuances that made the unlikely pairing and romantic tension believable.

The show touches on other themes of mental health, loneliness, friendship, navigating queer romance, native American perspectives, persons with not so obvious disabilities (deafness and epilepsy); girl empowerment and teen self-esteem. I think it's all well done and very relevant. I can't wait for Season 2!

This was basically a hate watch for most of the viewing experience, but by the end I was all in for a second season. So despite the people who made this making some the wackiest decisions ever, I applaud them for subverting my expectations for the main characters by the end, and making me feel invested.

Casting - completely nonsensical. Siblings that look wildly different, some look the same age as their mother, totally unexplained how a woman can have 9 kids and also 2 university degrees whilst looking 40, we were laughing about it throughout the whole show because it was so ridiculous! Like fully thought they would all turn out to be adopted as the big twist, it was so bad!

Story - could not care less about most of the secondary characters but quite liked a few of them. Most of the side plots felt like wasted time, and there were too many (and some of the acting was pretty flat). The main romantic story was full of toxic tropes but actually redeemed itself a bit - my initial "nice guy" I genuinely hated by the end, and the "bad guy" who I hated at the start I really came to feel for by the end. Like obviously a classic trope but it got me! Main character was fairly bland but likeable enough.

Elephant in the room - The main thing that bothered me throughout is that a teenage girl who's been though a really traumatic event is put into this chaotic environment and pursued by what are essentially like her brothers in this situation - I wish the family had actually looked after her (instead of just saying they did) because in real life this would be a worrying situation for a young vulnerable girl. But, it's just a story and in the end she does sort of save herself.

So, I would recommend this show only if you have a buddy to watch with, because there will be parts where you will be ripping your hair out and need someone to laugh about it with. It's totally ridiculous, but pretty entertaining.

I agree with the other reviewer, the whole entire time I was watching the show I kept on wondering why Jackie could not help out the Walter family with some money from her inheritance. Her Mom was supposedly successful in the fashion industry. There is no way her parents would not have made some kind of accommodations in case of an emergency. This made no sense and really took away from the believability of the story. I never read the book, so was not familiar with the story line or the characters. Some of the acting seemed rather stiff, I am not really sure if this show is worth a second season.

This show had some potential after the first few episodes. I started watching and was like: "okay, nice story and lots of room to develop characters". I didn't expect most of them would turn out to be so annoying and predictable. Certain level of predictability is tolerable in these kinds of shows, but that level has been crossed IMO. Very disappointing altogether. No chemistry between the characters.

Alex is so annoying I started skipping scenes with him.

Cole is just simply too old to have any chemistry with Jackie, it's weird.

Will - seriously? Are we supposed to believe that Donna (sorry, Katherine) gave birth to him? Come on.

Whoever did casting here, please do better next time.

The only character I actually like at this point (8 ep) is Erin.

I refuse to apologise for the fact that I finished this show within less than a week. Yes, the acting is average but who actually cares? Does no one want to watch mindless teen dramas anymore? Since when did we all start analysing TV shows that were clearly not made to showcase elite acting and plots as if they all have to be emmy nominated performances? Who ACTUALLY cares. If its watchable I'm going to be invested!!!!

I enjoyed it to keep it simple. It was addictive, easy to binge and I was invested. Just a shame that annoying alex kept coming back. I hope they play out the Jackie and Cole plot more in S3 instead of starving me.

One note- please someone stop Alex from smiling. It was incredibly disturbing.