Everything Sucks! is a series commissioned by Netflix in 2018. Ben York Jones and Michael Mohan join forces to imagine it. They want to tell the story of teenagers' coming of age in 90s Oregon.
Everything Sucks! tells the story of 3 childhood friends who are entering high school for the first time: Luke, McQuaid and Tyler. In Boring, a small town in Oregon, their passion for pop culture and cinema marginalizes them.
However, they join the school's audiovisual club where Luke falls in love with Kate Messner. Kate is the principal's daughter and a young woman a year older than the boys. She is very lonely and has a lot of questions about herself.
Luke and Kate accidentally destroy the sets of the drama club play. Emaline and Oliver, active members of the drama club, are very angry. The gang of 4 then proposes to create a film together. Luke will direct it with the help of his comrades. This creation mixing aliens and humans is a peace treaty between the two groups.
The making of this film will lead them to California. Specifically, they will shoot in front of the Dominguez Rocks. This place is depicted on a poster that Luke's father had given him before leaving home. It will also create closeness and tension between teenagers.
The season ends with the screening of the film in front of crew members and members of the high school.
And that's it for the summary of the series, if you like John Hughes movies, Freaks and Geeks and 80s music, go for it!
Kate Messner is very touching. The actress Peyton Kennedy manages to make us feel the dismay of her character in front of the discovery of his sexuality. His relationship with Emaline is also very appreciated by fans of the program. Many of them identify with how she feels. Few series of this kind feature homosexual characters and it's quite refreshing.
If you enjoy the music of the 90s and especially the band Oasis, you will love the soundtrack of Everything Sucks! There are a lot of nods to pop culture from this decade. Everything is not very subtle which can disturb. For example, Oliver's character is clearly a mix of all the somewhat rebellious heroes of the teen movies of the 90s. Thus it is easy to realize the role that this or that character will play in the story.
We also notice that Mr. Stargrove who oversees the audovisual club is played by the showrunner of the series. This may seem quite navel-gazing to some.
Adult characters have little relief in general. For example, Kate's father is touching but the subtlety is not necessarily present. We have the feeling of a shift in some scenes, especially in the sequence where he is disguised as a beaver or when he throws paper on the house of his ex. It's once again a lot of clichés that make these characters less endearing.
The nostalgia of the 80s and 90s is very present in the series of the Netflix platform. But where other series take advantage of the comfort of a terrain known to destabilize the viewer, Everything Sucks! brings only a few novelties scripts. The fad doesn't really work on this series. Some characters like Kate or Luke are endearing but do not really change from what we are used to seeing in other programs.
The sitcom format and its 10 episodes are perfectly suited to Everything Sucks! It ends quite quickly when you enjoy this kind of series.
The series has met with some success thanks to loyal fans. Unfortunately, despite petitions and fan mobilization, Netflix will not renew Everything Sucks!
