Teenage Bounty Hunters starts with a bang. Two, actually.
The show – which is streaming on Netflix – opens with Sterling Wesley (Maddie Phillips) using bible scripture to convince her longtime boyfriend that they should lose their virginity to one another. As she and her twin sister Blair (Anjelica Bette Fellini) drive home, excitedly discussing the night’s events, their car is suddenly hit by what turns out to be a man on the run from the law.
This kicks off what the title of the show promises: the two girls turning to bounty hunting as a way to make money.
I originally thought this would be a background kind of show – the type that you have on while doing chores, where you can wander off and make a cup of tea and still follow what’s going on. But by the end of the pilot it becomes clear that Teenage Bounty Hunters has more going on under the surface than you’d expect.
Sterling and Blair are, aesthetically, everything we’ve come to expect from the lead characters in a show about teenagers: they are young, white, and conventionally attractive. Much like the members of a boyband, the characters are doing their utmost to conform to their chosen types.
Blair wants to be the rebellious one – she has messy hair, alternative clothes, and talks a big game about being “slutty”. Sterling, on the other hand, is keen to embody their Georgian, Bible belt values – she dresses more conventionally, is elected “fellowship leader” (essentially head girl of their religious studies class), and has a picture-perfect relationship with the captain of the school golf team.But as the first 10 minutes of the series shows us, what they want to be and what they actually are isn’t nearly as clearcut.
Blair and Sterling are originally just trying to earn enough money to pay back their dad for the damage done to his truck. But, being underage, they can’t officially get assigned bounty hunting cases, so they turn to seasoned bounty-hunter-slash-yoghurt-shop-owner Bowser (Kadeem Hardison) for assignments, and – unofficially – mentorship.
As the twins get drawn further into the seedy world of bail jumpers and criminals, it becomes more and more difficult to hide their secret life from their friends, their enemies, and their respectable, church-going, traditional parents – all of whom, as it turns out, have some secrets of their own.
The shtick of having two teenage girls starting out in what is the traditionally hyper-masculine field of bounty hunting would have been enough to sustain a show. But here the writers aren’t simply going for “good enough”: instead, the premise provides an entertaining and compelling backdrop to something that is part teen drama, part comedy and part coming-of-age story, which also takes aim at issues of privilege, race and class, as well as exploring gender expectations and sexuality.
The series is meticulously planned: creator Kathleen Jordan remains one step ahead of viewers; she knows our expectations and cleverly twists them, pushing at boundaries and tropes wherever possible. And despite the soap operatic tone, bubble-gum colours and heightened storylines, when it comes to its characters – who become more complex with each episode – Teenage Bounty Hunters somehow remains grounded.
It’s also just a really cracking way to spend a series of evenings – or to devour in a one-day binge. It’s oddly satisfying to watch two high schoolers take down a snobby man hiding out in his holiday mansion. It’s refreshing to see two women talk openly about their feelings and their sex lives with no shame or embarrassment. It’s frustrating in the best of ways, as your theories about the season-long mystery are proven over and over again to be wrong.
Considering how much time we spend together, the fact that Netflix only considered me and Teenage Bounty Hunters a 73% match was, frankly, an outrage. But perhaps that’s because this is a show that is difficult to neatly pin down. It’s silly yet serious. It’s dark and it’s light. And it’s doing its own thing, both visually and story-wise. Please be warned though: despite critical acclaim and popularity, the show (which ends on something of a cliffhanger) has been axed after one season. Of course it has.