First Kill

The elevator pitch for First Kill must have been quite a doozy. I imagine it went something like “Buffy x lesbian Romeo and Juliet x iZombie”.

The Romeo and Juliet part is easy; our leads are a vampire and a hunter from wealthy families so we have two powerful families, divided. Admittedly not in fair Verona, but it’s pretty easy to see those lines of similar power and structure as we have between the Montagues and Capulets. They each have a scion, Calliope and Juliet, and these two have a complex home life, where they’re expected to uphold the family traditions, which includes hunting and killing the other while being the precious baby of the family. They also happen to meet and fall in love… Of course this doubles down on R&J, but the hunter and vampire as star-crossed lovers obviously brings in Buffy vibes. The iZombie vibes come from the sarcastic internal dialogue we're treated to. It’s not as sarcastic as Liv's inner voice but it is appropriate for the the characters and funny.

It’s easy to just point and say vampire and vampire slayer fall in love; look, Buffy. But, of course, Buffy worked because it was far more than that. It’s not an original thought to say that it worked because it took the horrors of school (and later growing up at university and in first jobs) and metaphorically compared that to fighting monsters. First Kill doesn’t retread that path but looks at the difficulties of growing up in other institutions, one within a matriarchal vampire clan and the other within a guild dedicated to hunting them. Those bits are in the trailer, the plot adds others later. Both of them live within families torn by tensions - while that makes for extra drama of course, both sides of the drama are well written and feel sensible and organic to the families which is the mark of good writing. These growing up dramas, and the others I’m not going to talk about, help make it feel like part of its genetics come from Buffy.

It’s tempting to say this show doesn’t do much in terms of the story. That’s not entirely true. For one thing, it’s a fluffy, generally happy teen lesbian show where the textual drama is nothing to do with the fact they’re queer. There is tension in their relationship, sure, but it arises from tension between their families, not them. Likewise, this is a vampire and hunters series but there’s a huge amount of vampire lore, and some hunter lore that’s certainly new to me, and all fun and interesting. There’s enough darkness in the story to keep it interesting but it doesn’t arise from them and their relationship.

You can try to read the anti-monster parents as a kind of anti-queer kids movement. Maybe that reads more easily that way in America but it struggles against the fact that it’s targeting one queer, white girl and ignoring the queer black girl (farcical moments aside). It feels like a vampire lore world building moment to me.

Because Romeo and Juliet is so strongly in genes of this show, the nature of the ending should come as no surprise. The exact way that tragedy plays out did surprise me. Judging from some of the reactions I’ve seen and heard the kiddies aren’t listening to the bit of the play that Calliope and Juliet Voice Over at the end though… The ending of a different bit of Shakespeare seems closer to the mark to me, but I’m not going to say which one.

As someone who is a fan of all those shows I listed above, I was predisposed to like First Kill and like it I did. It helped that I believed the situations that they set up in the scripts, both for the interactions between Juliet and Calliope, and for each of them at home. I’m not saying they were absolutely unique but the combination is unusual and nicely written. It also helps that the actors playing Juliet and Calliope have off the charts chemistry. They might even have more chemistry than WayHaught, a sentence I never thought I’d write, but when it’s your relationship that’s essentially carrying the show, as it is here, that’s essential. Again it’s easy to say that’s nothing new, nothing challenging, and to some extent that’s true, how often have you seen a show that puts a young lesbian couple in that position? I can probably list 100 shows that do it with a straight couple, I can list shows like Wynonna Earp that have an important wlw couple in the mix but they’re a supporting arc in another genre.I haven’t watched every shop with a wlw couple but I don’t remember one like this.

A final thing, I started watching this, interspersing episodes with episodes of Stranger Things. I appreciate that this is a show about relationships and Stranger Things isn’t primarily, but pretty much every complaint I have about how they write Robin could be fixed if they watch this for writing tips before they dive into season five.

If you don’t like the couple we’re given as canon, their mums are hot and shippable as well… just saying.

I can see how this mix isn’t going to be everyone’s cup of tea but if are even vaguely interested in that mashup it’s well worth your time.

Bechdel Test: Pass. Not only do Calliope and Juliet talk to each and basically never about boys, they talk to their mums and in Juliet's case her sister in every episode. Easy, easy pass.

Ko Test: Pass. Calliope and her mum do the heavy lifting here, each passing in every episode. There are other characters that pass in some individual episodes as well. I don’t think there’s a WOC that appears that doesn’t pass, but for story reasons a lot of them are only in an episode or two.

Russo Test: Pass. Juliet and Calliope are canonically queer. We don’t have labels, but we don’t see any indication either of them is interested is boys. Juliet's GBF Ben is also canonically gay.