I’ve basically never watched a teen drama I didn’t fall in love with, but I feel like my favorite one ever hasn’t even come out yet. On the 20th of May, the world’s most popular streaming service is about to release a show that’s being hailed as the new Gossip Girl and I don’t think I’ve ever been more excited. I’m talking about Netflix’s Blood & Water, of course!
- Netflix is doing teen drama with a twist here. While Gossip Girl focused on mostly white students from the Upper East Side of New York City, Blood & Water takes us to Cape Town, South Africa and follows a cast of upper-class black students at a prestigious prep school called Parkhurst College. In other words, it’s a GG upgrade.
- It’s refreshing to see some diversity in the genre. So many teen dramas focus on white characters/experiences, and that’s fine but it’s also really reductive and exclusionary. Seeing a predominantly black cast in these settings is long overdue. Netflix’s Blood & Water is basically a big “eff you” to all the pop culture that still largely portrays black characters as drug dealers, criminals, etc. and I’m so into it.
- So what’s it all about? This is a Netflix series we’re talking about here so you know it’s going to be good. Blood & Water is full of mystery, action, and a whole lot of secrets. “After crossing paths at a party, a Cape Town teen sets out to prove whether a private-school swimming star is her sister who was abducted at birth,” reads the synopsis. Ugh, this sounds amazing!
- There’s plenty of teen trouble here. As you can imagine, we’re dealing with rich prep school kids, so you know they’ll be getting up to plenty of mischief in between the main plot. The show also promises to give us a bit of romance too as well as some really sharp and intelligent dialogue. After all, there’s nothing worse than when adults write teens as idiots incapable of wit and insight.
- There’s less than a week to wait until the show is out! Netflix will release Blood & Water on May 20 and I’m counting down the days. It’s going to be binge-worthy for sure.
