Teenage Bounty Hunters – Season 1 Episode 1 Recap & Review

Daddy’s Truck

Questionable Ethics

Episode 1 of Teenage Bounty Hunters begins with Sterling and her boyfriend Luke sitting together in his truck. Heavily religious and struggling with temptation, he decides to pray instead. Sterling however is not happy, and sits on top of him after removing her underwear, despite his visible shock and awkwardness.

As she recites bible verses, he eventually gives in while she rides him. As he steps outside the truck, he’s not sure whether they’ve done the right thing given he’s sinned upon God. However, Sterling tells him they love each other so they’re okay.

In the opposite truck across the parking lot, Blair gets busy with her boyfriend Jennings. As the dates draw to an end, Blair and Sterling talk about the latter’s loss of virginity. However, Blair becomes distracted on the road and ploughs into another truck.

Despite Blair’s insistence to drive away, Sterling convinces her to confront the man, whose name happens to be Cayden. As fate would have it, it turns out he’s actually a wanted target by a group of bounty hunters. In particular, a veteran known as Bowser.

The two girls convince him they’re hunters too and a chase ensues. Eventually this culminates in Sterling using her shotgun to blow the tyres off the car and stop the threat. As Cayden is arrested, Bowser agrees to split the cut with them.

School

The next day, April delivers a big presentation for the group at school. This is a heavily religious academy and the teacher Ellen presents Sterling as the Fellowship student leader. As she steps up and gives a big speech, things between Luke and Sterling are awkward after their sexual encounter.

Only, Sterling is obviously guilty about being given the prestigious title of Fellowship leader. Blair brushes it off though and encourages her to lie. That’s easier said than done though as Sterling drops her bag infront of April, who spies the ripped condom wrapper in her bag.

Sensing the jig is up, Sterling heads home and speaks to her parents, admitting that she’s Fellowship leader.

Blair and Sterling head out after messaging Bowser and meet him at work. He happens to be running a yoghurt shop called Yogurtopia. As they head into his office, they’re handed over the $2500. Only, Bowser sees the damage to their car and admits it’ll cost $5000.

However, there’s another target they could go after. Unfortunately it’s at an all-white club led by John Stevens…April’s Father. They head up to the Country Club and the girls head in while Bowser parks the car.

Inside, they seduce Miles, a boy working as a valet, and manage to get crucial information regarding where John is. Following the instructions, they listen in the wine parlor and find out he’s hiding.

Scrambling outside, they feed back to Bowser that they’ve been given misinformation and for now, the hunt is called off.

The First Target

Blair and Sterling receive a text from their Mother Debbie who finds out about the truck. She and their Father, Anderson, tell the pair they need to get jobs to pay for the damages. Thankfully they already have jobs and use the yoghurt shop as a cover.

Bowser finally does his homework and learns that the girls aren’t really bounty hunters. Instead, he throws them out after showing a video of John Stevens caught in the act. Realizing that John really is guilty, the girls decide to use Miles again to find out if John is at the club – it turns out he’s not.

Instead they turn to April…but things wind up going completely awry when April calls Sterling out for her sexual encounter with Luke. With Plan A a bust, they turn to Plan B and post a fake profile, where they add John as a friend. It works too and they manage to find his location.

As they drive up, they make it to the address and confront John. Together, the two girls beat him down and manage to tie him up, driving back to Bowser with the good news.

With Bowser agreeing to work with them for now, he gives the girls an additional $2000 and the name of a contact who will fix their car up on the cheap.

As they get back to work, on the wall behind them is a picture of Blair and Sterling’s mother, hidden under other Wanted posters.

The Episode Review

This show is almost certainly going to be a love/hate affair. The humour is completely hit or miss, with some jokes landing perfectly and others not working well at all.

The inner monologuing between the twins isn’t really explained and these are easily some of the weakest moments of the episode. The ideas are certainly intriguing though and the twins going after different bounty targets with Bowser opens up some great comedic opportunities to come.

Speaking of which, Bowser is easily the stand-out character and with him playing everything straight, it helps to level out the humour a lot.

However, let’s talk about that opening 10 minutes. This is probably going to be the most controversial point of the whole review but it needs to be said. Pressuring a heavily religious boy into having sex is not funny.

Seeing how uncomfortable Luke was inside the car as Sterling pressured him is definitely one of the more awkward and shocking moments of TV this year.

While I understand Luke eventually had sex with her, the way he shows uncomfortable guilt afterward – which Sterling completely brushes aside – really doesn’t help matters. She was the one who undid his flies, she undid the condom wrapper (and why has she held onto that?) and she was the one who got on top of him while Luke seemed visibly uncomfortable at the whole affair.

Some may see this as me over-reacting but lets reverse the genders for a second. Imagine if Luke was the one who did all this, undoing Sterling’s flies and reciting bible verses while she decides to pray instead. If that sounds awkward and borderline non-consensual, that’s because it is.

Of course, many people will likely disagree with me and to be fair the rest of the episode never stoops that low. For a show that was originally going to be called Slutty Teenage Bounty Hunters, this isn’t exactly a good way to start the show off.