First Kill premieres June 10 on Netflix.
In every generation, there must be a teen-centric, starcrossed, supernatural romance series. When you’ve got such standouts like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Vampire Diaries, and The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, the next heir apparent needs to at least match the benchmarks of what’s come before. First Kill attempts to pick up the stake and run with its vampire vs. monster hunter in love premise, but the show’s lack of humor, propulsive chemistry, or strong writing makes this a forgettable entry in the genre space.
First Kill is based on the short story by bestselling YA novelist V. E. Schwab, who is both an executive producer and co-writer of the eight-episode first season. Framed as a modern day, sapphic Romeo and Juliet, the main story centers on two teens, Juliette Fairmont (Sarah Catherine Hook) and "Cal" Burns (Imani Lewis). Both attend Lancaster Academy in Savannah, Georgia, and are intrigued by one another. In the first half of the pilot, “First Kiss,” Juliette tells her side of the tale, literally and figuratively. Leaning far too much on voiceover, she shows and tells us about how she feels out of place in her opulent family that are all Waspishly gorgeous and well-attired. Juliette is instead sweet and socially awkward, and desperately trying to navigate what seems like onset puberty with family-prescribed pills she has to take several times daily.
Yes, it’s a metaphor as on the nose as you suppose, with Juliette being a vampire who is trying to suppress her inclination to fully evolve into a Daywalker by undertaking her first kill. The problem is Juliette is quite the pacifist, preferring to catch bees and release them in the wind, instead of biting anyone. Her confident and campy big sister, Elinor (Gracie Dzienny), encourages her to just “give into it” and start feeding, but Juliette is more focused on her school crush, Cal. The two “meet awkward” on campus, but it isn’t until a game of spin the bottle at a house party that they make out in a kitchen pantry. The camera lingers on the groping girls, until one accidentally dumps a jar of cherries on the floor, which is when the passion gets so crazy Juliette’s fangs take over. Yes, I kid you not, the visual allusions are not even a little subtle in this series. Outside of that scene, being excessively on the nose about everything isn’t even played for comedy – or camp or fun for that matter – which makes the show more of a slog too.
Post bite, the point of view swaps and we get to see Cal’s side of the story. And surprise, she comes from a long line of monster hunters who despise all supernatural creatures, especially vampires. It takes a whole 34 minutes into the first episode for a traditional monster to even show up, but that’s probably for the best because the directors don't seem concerned one iota with making any supernatural creature in the entirety of this series scary at all. The mix of prosthetics and special effects are not great, and mostly get supported by anemic fog machines.
For a series set and shot in Savannah, one of First Kill’s biggest pitfalls is its utter lack of effective, ambient aesthetics. Despite having one of the most sultry and nocturnally spooky-looking cities in the southern United States as its location, neither the directors nor the cinematographer manage to translate that vibe into a single frame of the series. It’s abundantly apparent that the budget is meager, as evidenced by those janky monsters. But there’s clearly been an executive note to steer clear of anything sumptuous, sensuous, or scary and just go for the flat lighting of a standard CW teen drama series.
The other major problem is the overly complicated mythology and focus on the families of Juliette and Cal. Once the duo get past their own hangups about being attracted to each other by mid season in “First Love,” the two are mostly contending with the biases of their families and their kind. The parents, including Juliette’s mom, Margot – played by Lost’s Elizabeth Mitchell, who is way too good for this material – get burdened with a lot of the grave exposition and mythology dumps where we learn the rules and hierarchy of their opposing sides. Even worse, none of it is inventive, clever, or particularly involving. There’s a lot of posturing and eventual betrayals by family members on both sides, which constantly threatens to ruin the burgeoning love between the two star-crossed lovers.
The show may serve as a welcome space for queer teens with its representational stories, but the chemistry is often so tepid that even the romance aspect is disappointing. Outside of the steamy pilot, the couple is relegated to mostly soapy scenarios that don’t get very explicit. In fact, the pair are often reduced to looking at one another from afar while a relentless playlist of pop songs plays very loudly throughout every episode. As a formula feature, it gets very tiresome because the showrunners over-rely on it as a cheap replacement for meaningful dialogue or abundant chemistry which would actually make us feel something for anyone.
By the season finale, “First Betrayal,” the melodrama is in full pique with a tragedy intertwining both families in a supernatural way. Cal’s monster hunter brothers eat up a lot of the final episode’s real estate, which is underwhelming. While it sets up where the show will go next if it's picked up for another season, that means the audience gets less time with the two leads, and that’s a mistake. Of course, it’s to be expected that the path to lasting love will be a rocky one for Juliette and Cal, as is the way in every supernatural romance. But First Kill fails to establish the kind of central ship that is so captivating that audiences are left pining for the next season to return. In this case, we’re just left with some tepid O negative.
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