How’s that saying go? Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good. Well, in the case of My Life with the Walter Boys (2023- ), it should go something like: don’t let your preconceived ideas of what makes a show good get in the way of watching something potentially satisfying, which is, admittedly, a bit of a mouthful. Look, did I text my friend during the first episode to say that the show’s whole premise of a recently orphaned teenage girl living on New York City’s upper west side, being sent to live on a ranch in Colorado with her mom’s well-meaning but now-distant college friend, her husband, and their umpteen million teenage boys reads not unlike like some fevered fantasy? I did! And I wasn’t that far off, since Ali Novak started writing the story on Wattpad, the popular publishing site, when she was only fifteen. Is the acting at times uneven and the writing less than polished? You betcha. Do I have a pile of notes and thoughts as high and wide as the Colorado sky for each and every episode? No comment. But here’s the thing, at its core this show, which has a welcome lack of toxic masculinity, understands the human yearning to be seen, loved, and understood. Plus, it also understands the vital importance of a very strong love triangle. Also, also it has a diverse cast, which it has already acknowledged with small story lines about disability and culture.
Jackie Howard (Nikki Rodriguez), a freshman in high school, is in the midst of organizing a kick-ass charity event for her fancy-pants private school, which she’s hoping just might be enough to earn her the coveted spot as Events Chair next semester, something usually reserved for juniors and seniors. More immediately, Jackie is waiting for her older sister Lucy and her parents to arrive, but instead it’s her Genetically Blessed Uncle Richard (Alex Quijano) who comes through the doors bearing the terrible news that her family has been killed in an accident.
Fast forward several months later and Jackie is arriving in Colorado where Katherine (Sarah Rafferty) and George (Marc Blucas) are meeting her at the airport before driving her all the way back to their ranch. Jackie’s mother was a fashion designer, and we only get a small indicator of how different her life was in the before-time, but it must have been a whole other planet. Still, if characters are anything on this show, it is resilient and often tight-lipped. We know that Jackie was a straight-A, high-achieving, rule-following, student, who only dreamed of attending her dad’s alma mater Princeton, but beyond that we have little sense of what made her tick or in what kind of social circles she swam. Who needs backstory?
Arriving at the house, Jackie finds barely controlled chaos. Katherine is immediately pulled away on an emergency call for her veterinary services. George disappears out to the orchard to tend to his poorly faring trees. And everywhere she looks there seem to be boys or the detritus of boys. Will (Johnny Link), the oldest of the Walter boys, who just happens to be home, takes her on a tour of the house, introducing her to Alex (Ashby Gentry), who, with gentle foreshadowing, stares at her slightly slack-jawed. (Will is a Hard of Hearing—as is the actor who plays him—and its a small but vital detail that’s woven into the plot and his character.) It’s not until later that she’ll meet Danny (Connor Stanhope), who is obsessed with movies and theater. Lee Garcia (Myles Perez)—who, along with his brother Isaac (Isaac Arellanes ), lives with the family while their father is deployed—nearly takes Jackie out as he zips by on a skateboard. Will takes her upstairs to meet the mild-mannered Nathan (Corey Fogelmanis), who is sitting alone in his room practicing his guitar. Outside, they find there are more siblings. Jordan (Dean Petriw), who films everything, Paige (Madison Brydges), the only sister in the group, and Benny (Lennix James), the youngest of the clan. And then, just when it seems that there couldn’t possibly be another Walter sibling on the premises, from under the water in the above ground pool, accompanied by the distant neighing of a horse, rises the lithe body of Cole Walter (Noah LaLonde). He wordlessly pulls himself up the ladder, flips his blonde floppy locks off his face, and flops onto a pool chair so that the sun catches off the beads of water on his wet skin. I absolutely hooted and snorted in delight at this scene and then, having forgotten all about it, got to relive the experience with equal joy when I started writing this review. Please watch the series just for that moment. It’s humor. It’s drama. It’s poetry. You won’t be disappointed.
I admit, at first I felt like I couldn’t tell most of these boys apart as they zoomed on and off the screen, but it all starts to shake out soon enough with Cole and Alex emerging as the obvious love interests—one earnest, well-meaning, and eager to please and the other darkly brooding, troubled, but ultimately honest and thoughtful. Danny, who loves movies and theater, develops into a sturdy shoulder to cry on and a sounding board for ideas. Nathan develops his own romance as well as his own health problems that emerge gradually over the course of the season only to turn out to be Not That Big a Deal. Lee and Isaac are mostly in the background, but they do sometimes provide a cultural touchstone for Jackie, whose latinidad is never fully discussed, but clearly exists and matters to her. Jordan, Parker, and Benny all play much smaller roles, but they are there to remind us about important things like the siblings’ pact to never snitch on each other, which they seem to routinely break.
As you might expect, there is some hazing of Jackie as they accept her into their fold. From day one, Cole insists on calling her “New York,” which I guess is much simpler than getting a neon sign above his head spelling out that he has loved her from the moment he first saw her, but cannot possibly make a move because he is Emotionally Unavailable and because he also sees that his brother Alex has feelings for her. They put hair bleach in her shampoo and lay down bets as to whether she will go to school or not with the messed up hair. She does, because Jackie doesn’t have time for their shit and also because Jackie is going to get into Princeton no matter what. It’s an annoying prank, but, overall, it’s pretty well handled. The show often doesn’t seem to know where it stands on things like “boys will be boys” or “boys will be mean to get your attention.” They clearly want to come down on the side of not supporting either of those, but sometimes their actions don’t exactly bear that out. That said, though, this could easily be a show filled with male posturing and toxic masculinity and it’s just not. Men and boys have emotions. They express them. They are often honest, and they want honesty from their friends and partners. They do not expect women to fix everything. In one scene a man makes cupcakes. It’s a small thing, but boy howdy, it’s also a huge thing.
Pretty quickly, Jackie makes friends with Skylar (Jaylan Evans) and Grace (Ellie O’Brien), who operate on the periphery of the popular circles, but are perfect for the super smart Jackie, who needs people to help her understand the cultural landscape of rural Colorado. They also, of course, help her understand the knotty, thorny, and every changing thicket of the lovelorn lives of teens in town. They explain to her that Cole used to be THE big football star until his leg was ruined in an accident. Now, with his dreams of football, and likely any college scholarship, dashed, he’s become dark and brooding, going through girls like they’re Kleenex and he’s in the height of allergy season. He used to be with Erin (Alisha Newton), star of the track team and head of student government, but now he keeps her at arms length, only letting her in long enough to confuse the pants off her. Literally, of course. Skylar and Grace also fill Jackie in on how Alex used to be with Paige (Madison Brydges), until he found her making out with Cole, ending the relationship and deepening the already existing rift between the brothers. But is the situation as cut and dried as it seems? Oh, unlikely, my friends. Unlikely, indeed. What they can’t tell her right away is how Nathan has a huge crush on Skylar and desperately wants to be with, him so much so that he may come on far too strong and almost scare him away. The show passes this off as it being Skylar’s problem for not being open enough to Nathan’s overtures, but, um, it’s also okay to be skeeved out by someone coming on too strong and want them to back up and back off. Alex also has a best friend named Kiley (Mya Lowe) who is clearly in love with him while he is entirely oblivious.
Phew. I mean, this is a lot right? And yes, the vast bulk of the series is taken up with love stories, and I haven’t even addressed those of the adult couples. There is nary a conversation that doesn’t revolve around discussing someone liking someone else. But woven into the small spaces is room for other bits of character and story development. Jackie and Erin, who, because of Jackie’s proximity to Cole, begin the series as adversaries, find common ground in their shared losses, high expectations, and loneliness. And look, I’m always glad for a show that allows space for girls to find friendship, or at least understanding, instead of rivalry over boys, though I do wish this show had slashed the number of times it used the phrase “girl code” by, like, a LOT. Will and his fiancée Halley (Zoë Soul) must navigate the challenges of how to be a couple while wanting very different things professionally. Danny and Erin both explore their love of theater and what that might mean for them in the longer term. Jackie delves into areas of herself that she has never before dared: she wears cowboy hats, skips school, gets drunk, kisses boys, gets lost, goes horseback riding, and lets go of perfection (sometimes). And what show about a sprawling ranch would be complete without the gathering storm clouds of financial ruin? Katherine and George find their way through with a level of respect and dignity that may not actually be entirely possible in real life, but that is certainly endearing to watch in this series.
One of my most favorite parts to roll my eyes at in the series is when Katherine and George discover that Cole has been sneaking girls into the house at night for months. Their solution is to set up a camera on the side door and tell him that there shall be no more sex inside the house. I mean, I don’t want to question anyone’s entirely fictional parenting here, but I think these teenagers have proven that they are going to have sex, so why take away the one place that is safe and secure and mostly under your control? They have literally acres of farmland, outbuildings, vehicles, and unsupervised parties with gallons of alcohol at which they could also experiment, but also possibly get frostbite, get caught by someone else, or just not be as well-protected. Shouldn’t there just be a nice bowl of condoms abutting the fruit bowl?
A lot of the situations, parenting and otherwise, are wrapped up incredibly easily in this show, which both makes it very easy to watch and makes it very easy to roll your eyes at. How to save a failing cafe in one easy step! How to save ranch hemorrhaging money with one willing investor! But that’s also the joy of this kind of show, you know? It’s easy. You can save the vast majority of your energy for the inevitable will-they-won’t-they dynamic that will and should take up most of the air and space. That said, it also really gives its teenage characters the benefit of doubt about having depth of character, feelings, and nuanced thoughts, which is always refreshing and a joy to watch. The show has been greenlit for a second season and I, for one, will be back to see what happens for the Walter Boys in their life with Jackie and her friends.
Overall Rating on the Chronically Streaming Pain Scale:
but overall the good outweighs the bad.
Chronically Streaming 