‘Teenage Bounty Hunters’ shows adolescent love, sex and betrayal in most realistic ways since ‘Sex Education’
Despite all its quippy dialogue and the bizarre premise of sheltered teenage girls of a private Catholic school apprehending dangerous criminals, the show is quite real when it comes to depicting romantic entanglements.
YA shows featuring teens usually have a very unrealistic soap opera-ish approach to teen love and sex. But not 'Teenage Bounty Hunters'. Both Blair and Sterling's arcs in Season 1 see frank explorations of feelings, sensations, hormones, horniness and yes, love, heartbreak and betrayal that feels 100% authentic.
At the start, Blair talks about nothing but "boning" and when she will lose her virginity. Attracted to "bad boys", she "doesn't do sweet". She does everything "but penetration" with Jennings, her sort-of-boyfriend. He is the latest in Blair's long string of boyfriends and he is someone that Blair is okay with losing her virginity to -- as soon as they fall in love because then sex would not be "sinful". But as she goes through the intimacy questions, both Jennings and Blair realize that they are totally incompatible and break up.
Sterling, on the other hand, is shown as Luke's steady girlfriend since the fifth grade. Luke is completely in love with her and Sterling believes she is too. So much, that she quotes Bible verses to him to get him to take her virginity. Much to Blair's disgust who wanted to be the first to bone, Sterling's plan succeeds. But Luke always finishes too soon and Sterling never orgasms.
When Blair starts dating Miles she finds a 'soulmate' connection. Miles is usually quick to call her on her BS and is patient and kind. When Blair, after a substitute teacher's death affects her sense of safety, wants to take it slow, Miles takes the foot off the gas. He is content to spend time with her watching movies, talking and having fun sliding down stairs on mattresses. Finally relaxing, Blair ends up having sex with Miles four times in one night and orgasming with "him inside", as she tells Sterling breathlessly. She then gives a graphic description of the orgasm she experienced -- which is probably the first female orgasm described in such detail on a TV show without it being meant for titillation. Blair telling Sterling is like the left brain communicating to the right brain, they are so interconnected as people.
Sterling is happy for her but having never orgasmed herself, feels left behind. Blair is aghast that Sterling has never used the vibrator she gifted her or read the books on self-pleasuring. "How else could you tell Luke what to do?", she exclaims. Blair explains candidly that she told Miles exactly how to touch her so she would come and it is the only reason she did come.
Sterling, who like many teens, believed love would be enough for an orgasm is enlightened. By this time, she has had to take a break from Luke after the moms get to know they have been sleeping together. Since she is on a break, Blair encourages her "to experiment" when she is on the debate tour. As she makes out with multiple boys between debates, her confidence soars as she loves finding out what she likes.
But the surprise revelation is that she is most turned on when friend-turned-foe, April, clutches her arm in anger after she loses the final debate. As she masturbates thinking of April touching her, she orgasms for the first time. She later kisses April who reciprocates and tells her she has always been gay but is closeted because of her family. Sterling believes her sexuality is less easily defined because she likes men and women. She is "blue-pink-purplish" as she tells Blair later (after keeping it a secret for a long time). Blair barks at her, saying that she can bang a ficus for all she cares, as long as she tells her and not keep secrets.
Blair matures too as she realizes that Miles is not as perfect as she thought he was when she realizes that Miles, whose mother is a Democratic senator, had never told his family about her and was ashamed of her because she was from a "White Republican family". It's her first taste of true heartbreak because she had believed that she had messed up the perfect relationship when in truth Miles was not that invested in her in the first place.
While teenage love gets the maximum play on the show, we also see "old love" between Blair and Sterling's parents who are being torn apart because they are lying to their children. We also see Bowser torn between the carefree, breezy but untrustworthy Michele, his ex-wife, and Michele's sister, Yolanda, his boss and best friend, who helped him pick up the pieces after Michele broke his heart.
Yolanda has always loved Bowser but Bowser has eyes only for Michele. Yolanda and the twins are both exasperated by his behavior and wonder why men always pick the wrong girl. Bowser finally does pick Yolanda but by the time he does, Yolanda has already moved on and is dating Terrance Coin, a rival bounty hunter.
Depicting relationships as messy and complicated with all its ups and downs and the doubts around having sex is one of the key USP's of this show, picking up where 'Sex Education' left off.