The timeless struggle of surviving high school has served as fodder for countless TV shows and movies. But Netflix’s latest YA series takes the concept more literally than we’re used to. In Boo, Bitch, Lana Condor plays sheltered teenager Erika Vu, who wakes up as a ghost after attending a rowdy rager and getting hit by a truck.
With unfinished business left on earth, Erika continues to attend school and decides to prolong her purgatory by becoming a famous influencer. Basically, after playing it safe for her whole life, Erika has decided to make the most of death. “I can stick around if I’m more famous in death than in life,” she explains to her best friend, Gia (Zoe Coletti). Why? No one knows!
Posting under the handle @erikavubitch, Erika relishes her newfound popularity as an overnight Insta baddie. She swaps her ponytail and jeans for Euphoria-style eye makeup, candy-colored fur coats, and statement earrings. However, with her post-mortem glow-up, she risks losing the friend who was by her side before she died and became cool. (LOL, seriously, what is this show?)
Based on the trailer, which dropped on Monday, Boo, Bitch is like the excellent 2019 film Booksmart, only less funny and with ghosts. “We’re about to leave high school and all we have to show for it is our education,” Gia says, in what could possibly be a word-for-word quote from Olivia Wilde’s directorial debut. We wouldn’t be surprised if Billie Lourd pops up to jump off a boat in a bucket hat at some point throughout the limited series.
Silly premise and easy comparisons aside, Boo, Bitch does at least seem like a fun departure for Condor, the charismatic star of Netflix’s To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before teen rom-com trilogy. Compared to the earnestness of her characters in To All the Boys and her recent HBO space romance, Moonshot, Erika seems sharper and snarkier. It’s an opportunity for Condor to truly flex her comedy chops.
In addition to Condor and Coletti, Boo, Bitch stars Mason Versaw, Aparna Brielle, and Tenzing Norgay Trainor. From showrunners Erin Ehrlich (Crazy Ex-Girlfriend) and Lauren Iungerich, it debuts on Netflix July 8.
