Boo, Bitch: In My Day, We Called Them Nerds

 

Boo, Bitch!, on Netflix,  In my day, that was a bad word.  Erika is a high school wallflower whose mantra is "Be invisible," sort of like the nerds of my day.  Erika constantly moons over the Boy of Her Dreams, Jake C. (Mason Versaw). 

The only beefcake photo of Mason Versaw I could find was extremely unattractive, so here's Reid Miller, who plays Brad (below).

Jake C. literally does not know that Erika exists; he's attached to a girlfriend so self-centered and caustic that one can't imagine how he can stand to be with her more than 20 seconds.  BFF Gia makes it her life's mission to help Erika win the Boy.  

Sounds like the distaff side of a 1980s teen nerd movie, and indeed this tv series does feel like it was written by oldsters trying to guess how kids today act.  "Look, they're texting on cell phones, har har!  In my day we passed notes!  They use weird acronyms like LMAO, even when talking.  Hi-larious!"

Erika decides to turn over a new leaf, go to a big senior year party, and start living before she dies.  Unfortunately, just after the party, she is squashed by a moose. Now a ghost ("Boo, Bitch!"), she must finish her unfinished business by the full moon or something. 

I watched the first two episodes, but the first was all set-up, so I'll do a scene-by-scene of Episode 2.

Scene 1: Erika awakens after the moose-stomp.  Gia points out her bloodied body protruding from the moose: she's a ghost!  But she's able to be seen and touched.  She has to eat and use the bathroom.  She can't make herself invisible.  She seems perfectly alive, except for lowering the temperature of the space around her.  How is that possible?  My guess: in Japanese folklore, ghosts are corporeal.  The only difference from humans is a spot of blood visible on their body.

Scene 2: They go to their coffee shop hangout, where the barista is complaining that it's so cold, his nipples are showing (men's nipples, har-har).  Erika discovers a new power: she wants a mocaccino, but has no money. A zap of electricity fries the computer, so for the time being all drinks are free!  

They test Erika's ability to manipulate other electronic objects, like a laptop and the sound system.  She tends to over-zap.  

Scene 3: At home, they conduct some research, but every book and movie about ghosts seems to make up its own rules.  

Erika's Mom and Dad (John Brantley Cole, left) come in to announce that they're taking Erika's brother Oliver to his game and they left the liquor cabinet unlocked (very progressive parents!).   Traditionally one hides one's teenage anomaly from the parents, but I'm guessing that Mom and Dad find out by Episode 3.

Scene 4: In the bathroom (she has to pee again), Erika mourns her "meaningless, uneventful" life.  Then the phone rings: it's Mason, the Boy of Her Dreams, inviting her to a post-party hang!  

Scene 5: They drop by the woods to put hot sauce on Erika's corpse so animals don't eat it.  Then, still doing research, they check out a spirit sighting posted on their social media page by a fundamentalist Christian club: it turns out to be Jesus in a pizza, but Gia and Erika interview them anyway.  "What happens after you die?" "You go to heaven or hell. Those are the only options." "What about purgatory?"  "Only Catholics believe in that, and of course it's crazy."  Finally, a tv show where Christians are not all Catholic.

Meanwhile, Jake C and his three friends, two named Jake (Conor Husting, Michael Solomon), the other a jock (Austin Fryberger, left), are in the hot tub (shoulder and head shots only). They criticize his interest in Erika, and urge him to go back to the Mean Girl Riley.  She's best friends with one of their girlfriends, so if she's angry with Jake C for dumping her, none of them can be friends with him anymore.  

Scene 6: Brad (Reid Miller, top photo), who is at the fundamentalist Christian meeting even though he has long hair and wears a cape, invites the girls to visit his Afterlifers club: "Bring a packet of hemlock, or Capri Sun."  He's quite feminine; maybe he's gay.

Meanwhile, Jake C's ex-girlfriend arrives at the hot tube in a boobalicious outfit.  He asks her to leave, but she notices that he is distressed and insists on staying; they're still friends, after all.  "What's bothering you?"  "I invited Erika to this party, but she didn't show up!"  Wow, that's quite a turnaround.  I wonder if Erika is usng her ghost powers to mind-control him.  

Scene 7: The bickering, argumentative Afterlifers meet in a cemetery at midnight: magician Brad, medium Gavin (Tenzing Norgay Trainor), and astrologist Raven. 

Brad is familiar with the phenomenon of "embodied ghosts": he totally boned a hot chick, but then she vanished.  Ok, he's straight.  She died a virgin, so she had to bone a guy to go on to the other side.

To summarize: ghosts have unfinished business.  They become embodied when they need bodies to complete that business.  Like Erike needs to kiss the Boy of Her Dreams.  I would have thought sex, but ok.

Scene 8: Jake C. and his ex-girlfriend Riley leaving the house, discussing reasons that Erika might have stood him up.  Uh-oh, seeing Riley act nice has gotten Jake interested again; they kiss.  Now Erika won't be able to horn in!  The end.

Beefcake: The four guys in the hot tub, but we don't actually see much of them.

Gay Characters: Gia and Gavin don't display any heterosexual interest in this episode, but guess what?  In later episodes they start dating each other.

Heterosexism:  The fade-out boy-girl kiss is the whole, entire point of the whole, entire series.

The Corpse: Erika's body is right next to the road.  Won't someone find it?

My Grade: D.