Best Worst Weekend Ever: Best Teencom Ever

Teen movies have two pitfalls that generally make them unwatchable:

1. Incessant bullying.  The protagonist lives in a world where all boys are sneering, chest-pounding Neanderthals.

2. Incessant heterosexism.  The plot involves getting The Girl to dump her Neanderthal boyfriend and go out with him.

Best, Worst Weekend Ever, a 2018 Netflix limited series, avoids those pitfalls altogether, creating a pleasant if rather simplistic 8-episode outing.

The protagonists are three unlikely best friends, Zed the Operator (Sam Ashe Arnold, top photo), Argo the Nerd (Cole Sand, left), and Treece the "Oh no you didn't!" Aggressive Black Girl (Brianna Reed).

 Think Zack, Screech, and Lisa from Saved by the Bell.

The trio. who call themselves the Crash Crew, share an unlikely passion in this era of online LARPS: comic books.  But this interest does not result n any bullying or exclusion; Argo easily fits in with the smart kids, and Treece is recruited by a group of what, in other movies, would be Mean Girls to play on the soccer team.  Zed is left in the dust.

So he plans the Best Weekend Ever before they go to high school and drift apart.  hey will go to the town Comic Convention, meet the creator of their favorite book, and show him their conclusion to his unfinished cliffhanger issue.  

Of course, there are complications.  Lots of complications involving Treece's tagalong older stepsister, Argo's authoritarian father, Zed's juvenile delinquent older brother (Felix Mallard, left), a bear, a kidnapping, an Evel Knievel-type daredevil, a lost dog, the FBI, several car crashes, and a LARP-war.

Of course there has to be hetero-romance.  Argo confesses that he "like-likes" Treece. But it's not the focus of the story, and Argo and Zed have an ample gay subtext of their own.

The conclusion of Dad's acceptance of Argo, for instance, has him telling Zed, "Have [my son] home by curfew."  Obviously he intends for the two to go out on a date.

Argo's Dad, by the way, is played by the uber-hunky Matt Battaglia.

Plus Treece has two Dads.  An actual gay couple is mentioned in a teencom, and even shows up at the end.

That alone is worth the admission price.