This Show Has Some Bite: First Kill Season 1 Review

Juliette Fairmont (Sarah Catherine Hook) is a legacy vampire, meaning she was born a vampire, and comes from a long line of vampires. She has yet to begin feeding on humans, something she absolutely does not want to do, despite her family’s insistence that she make her first kill to cement her place in the family. Without feeding, she suffers migraines, dry throat, tears of blood, and an urge to feed that may grow out of control. As a legacy, she is much harder to kill than a regular vampire, though silver still burns her. Calliope Burns (Imani Lewis), on the other hand, comes from a family of monster hunters. As part of the Guardian Guild, she has been training her entire life to kill vampires like Juliette, as well as other, less human-like monsters such as zombies and ghouls. Cal has been looking to prove herself – her older brothers both made their first kill much younger than her, at ages twelve and fourteen, but Cal failed her first attempt and so she is trying to show that is just as good as them.

Any show being hailed as the Buffy of the next generation is one I am going to try. While Buffy the Vampire Slayer wasn’t a perfect show (and its creator has had a major fall from grace since the show aired) it did something unique when it came to the “strong heroine” character at its center. Buffy may have been supernaturally strong and fought the supernatural to save the world, but she was also a teenage girl, worried about dating, popularity, and clothing. She cared about wearing heels, putting on makeup, and not failing history class. At the time, and even today, this was a fairly unusual layering for the strong female lead. Typically they eschew more feminine characteristics in favor of being stoic and practical, as if showing vulnerability or femininity makes them less strong. Buffy showed that there can be a balance – just because the character isn’t a damsel in distress doesn’t mean she can’t like pink and sparkles.

The most obvious reason First Kill (which is based on a short story of the same name by V.E. Schwab) is being hailed as the next Buffy is on the surface – it follows a teenage vampire and monster hunter who fall in love. As natural enemies, their romance is complicated, just like Buffy and Angel’s relationship was complicated. Where the two shows diverge is in its handling of those girls’ lives. Where Buffy was more episodic, dealing with a monster of the week that typically mirrored a typical teenager’s struggle while slowly building a big bad to fight at the end of the season, First Kill is much less interested in the more day-to-day of its characters’ lives. It spends a minimal amount of time with the more mundane aspects of their lives and jumps right into the fighting and blood.

The show has some Twilight vibes in the way Juliette and Calliope’s relationship comes together – not through much conversation but mostly through an intense, instant attraction. This is perhaps the most disappointing aspect of the show because it doesn’t feel like their love (or their personalities) are fully formed. Juliette talks about being drawn to Calliope before ever being able to say a word to her. The shy, slightly awkward girl is endearing and a major crush is very believable for a high school teenager, but their relationship never really goes much deeper. Part of that is because they spend most of their time together arguing about how they are supposed to kill one another and trying to stand up to their parents who forbid them from seeing each other.

There are several larger storylines going on, perhaps too many, as they make it difficult to develop any of them:

• There’s the Fairmont family drama, which has several layers. The first centers largely around Juliette’s older siblings, twins Elinor and Oliver. Elinor is ambitious and wants power. She also has the unique ability to erase people’s memories (an ability common in other vampire stories but not this one). She is somewhat wild and reckless with her feeding. Oliver has been banished from the family, though the reason is somewhat unclear. It seems that Elinor set him up, though why is also unclear. This leads to an elaborate revenge subplot where he claims to be trying to help Juliette but may be just using her. The second is around Juliette’s parents – her mother is a legacy vampire who fell in love with and subsequently turned her father, something that is looked down upon in the world of legacy vampires. The third is the larger legacy vampire community, which worships an emerald snake that her grandmother is the keeper of (a role that Elinor, as well as other legacy vampire families, are desperate to take). Not to mention that Juliette is much gentler than her family and doesn’t want to feed on or kill humans.

• There’s the Burns family drama, which is only slightly less layered. Cal’s older brother Theo was adopted after his own mother was murdered (possibly by legacy vampires). Her other brother Apollo is reckless in a way that could easily get others injured during monster hunts. The Burns family is beholden to the Guardian Guild that does not seem to care that much for them and is overly-controlling. The Guild’s politics are not as clearly portrayed as the legacy vampires’ so it is difficult to follow the motivation behind much of what the Guild does, beyond their general hatred of monsters (and perhaps of anyone stepping out of line).

• Finally, there’s the big big picture – the town has been terrorized by monsters before and appears to be on the verge of another monster-rise again. This leads to the formation of M.A.M.s (Mothers Against Monsters), their intent is to protect their children and town, though predictably they become more of a mob-rule type of vigilante group that endangers everyone, innocent and guilty alike.

A lot is happening on the show. Not to mention a major event at the end of the season that threatens to tear Calliope’s family apart and ruin Juliette and Cal’s relationship for good.

Overall, this felt like a show with potential but a lot of work to do. It may be that the source material, from the fantastic fantasy writer V.E. Schwab, was limited (the story is 33 pages long) and therefore needs more fleshing out than they have done or it may be that the season could have stood to be a little longer (8 episodes was perhaps not enough) but some interesting new dilemmas have been set up for a season 2, which will almost certainly be coming, given that this show has been charting very well for Netflix.