Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Everything Sucks!’ On Netflix, A Dramedy About Being Awkward High Schoolers In The 1990s

Whether you went to high school in the ’90s or not, we all remember what it was like to be a socially-awkward dork/nerd/geek during that time. And TV history is rife with shows that explore what it was like to be less-than-popular during that time. But it’s a formula that never gets old, which is why Netflix is rolling out Everything Sucks! about life in high school in a town named Boring in 1996. Will people want to return to the era of Alanis and Oasis?

EVERYTHING SUCKS!: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: To the opening strains of “The Impression That I Get” by The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, a kid gets on his bike as the sun comes up and pedals to school. Then we see a shot of Boring High School, “Home of the Beavers”. A montage of teens with slap bracelets, trolls, and other ’90s fads, are shown.

The Gist: Boring High School is in Boring, Oregon (a real town, by the way), and the kid on the bike is Luke O’Neil (Jahi Di’Allo Winston) and he and his buddies McQuaid (Rio Mangini) and Tyler (Quinn Liebling) are trying to find “their people” during their first week of high school. They head to the TV studio, where the AV club is putting on a disastrous edition of the morning announcements.

Not expecting to see any girls there, the boys are surprised to see at least a few there, including Kate (Peyton Kennedy) operating the camera. Kate, who’s a sophomore and Luke connect over a dirty camera lens and he invites her to bring the camera to his place to get it fixed. The teacher warns Luke that Kate is the daughter of principal Ken Messner (Patch Darragh), so she’s considered “plutonium” to anyone who wants to date her.

So, as Luke gets excited over the prospects of getting to know Kate, we see two members of the drama club put on an annoying lunchtime display, and find out that Kate is attracted to Emaline (Sydney Sweeney). We also find out that Ken had a summer fling with a staff member, who, now that the school year has started, tells him flat out that she does not find him attractive at all.

When Kate visits Luke at his house we find out that her mom died when she was five, and her dad has raised her ever since. Luke’s dad ran off to Hollywood when he was young and his mom is a flight attendant so he is basically “an adult instead of a kid.” He likes her even more after the visit, but she brings home a girly magazine she finds in the garage, and tries to generate one of the “Little Earthquakes” her favorite singer, Tori Amos, named her first album after.

Our Take: Listen, we were well out of college in 1996 (when this show took place), so the experience of being a high schooler in the ’90s is a bit lost on us. But the experience of being an awkward high school kid is universal, and creators Ben York Jones and Michael Mohan capture that uncomfortable period quite well.

What’s great about Everything Sucks! is its subtlety; Luke, McQuaid and Tyler are nerds, but they’re not cartoony nerds. Tyler thinks girls will flock to them after they make a great student film; McQuaid is more the realistic one who thinks the Star Wars special editions will be junked up with digital effects. And Luke is a regular kid who likes things like pro-level cameras, since his dad was a videographer. But the other thing that’s great is that Kate is just as awkward. Luke likes her but she’s pretty sure she likes girls, and instead of everything coming out in the first episode, the exploration of who she is, and how her mother’s death affected her, was the part of the first episode we connected with the most.

Yes, a viewer can see echoes of Stranger Things, without the Upside Down or demogorgon dogs, in Everything Sucks!, but this is likely more akin to Degrassi than anything else. There were funny moments, especially with how Ken deals with his loneliness and having a 15-year-old that doesn’t want to be seen with him, but the first episode was more gentle drama than anything else.

Sex and Skin: We see nudity while Kate looks through Luke’s girly magazine.

Parting Shot: Luke looks at the video he made of Kate talking about what happened after her mother died, and underlines this phrase in his notebook: “How to ask out Kate Messner.” He then lies down and thinks about Kate as a paused frame from the video shows on the TV. Oasis’ “Don’t Look Back In Anger” plays in the background. That poor kid.

Sleeper Star: Mangini, who plays McQuaid, might give Gaten Matarazzo a run for his money for the award for Netflix’s Greatet Nerd.

Most Pilot-y Line: Listen, we know Ken Messner is an awkward guy who has no idea how to deal with a teenager who is exploring her sexuality. But, jeez, for once can we have a parent on one of these shows that’s even a little tuned in to what their kid is doing? He catches Kate reading the girlie mag, and even if he doesn’t see her hand down her pants, he should realize that Kate’s not looking at how to be more attractive to guys. Or are we expecting too much?

Our Call: Stream It. Everything Sucks! is a sweet show, albeit one that we’ve seen in various iterations since at least the 1960s. But everyone needs their own high school dramedy to identify with, and this might be the one that millennials will latch onto. For the rest of us, it’s sweet and doesn’t beat you over the head with nostalgia. That’s a formula that will keep us watching.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, VanityFair.com, Playboy.com, Fast Company’s Co.Create and elsewhere.

Watch Everything Sucks! on Netflix