This summer was a big one for lovers of love triangles. Amidst the weekly releases of The Summer I Turned Pretty’s final season, the entire second season of My Life with the Walter Boys was dropped onto Netflix, allowing fans who miss the coastal vibes of Cousins Beach to escape to the scenic landscapes of Colorado and indulge in an equally complicated rural love triangle.
Based on the Wattpad series by Ali Novak, the show centers on 15–year–old Jackie Howard (Nikki Rodriguez), who unexpectedly loses her entire family in a horrific car accident. Placed under the guardianship of the selfless Katherine (Sarah Rafferty) and George Walter (Marc Blucas), Jackie’s whole life gets uprooted when she moves from the bustling New York City to a quiet ranch in rural Colorado with the Walter family. While Jackie navigates her grief and her new life in Silver Falls, she also finds herself in a relationship with Alex Walter (Ashby Gentry), the family’s fourth eldest son. However, as the season progresses, it becomes increasingly obvious that Cole Walter (Noah LaLonde), Alex’s older brother, also has feelings for Jackie. Soon, Jackie finds herself caught in a love triangle between the two brothers, leaving audiences with an exciting cliffhanger. The same night that Alex says “I love you” to Jackie and she doesn’t say it back, Jackie and Cole share a passionate kiss—before she leaves the whole mess behind and escapes back to New York.
With a two year gap between the releases of seasons one and two of MLWTWB, I found it difficult to remember specific details about the first season's storyline. As I was refreshing my memory, however, I realized just how similar the endings of each season were.
Season two picks right back up from where audiences last saw the characters in December of 2023. Jackie ultimately decides to return to Colorado after realizing that New York City doesn’t feel like home anymore, and immediately faces the consequences of her actions with the Walter brothers: Alex is angry, Cole is confused. Throughout the season, Jackie is seen grappling with her growing feelings for Cole while also trying to make things right with Alex.
With the announcement that MLWTWB is being renewed for a third season, it could be assumed that the show would want to garner as much attention and hype as possible to maintain their viewership. One of the easiest ways to do that? Another cliffhanger.
Season two’s finale has Jackie and Alex together again, secretly, and viewers witness another “I love you,” this one reciprocated. But in a passionate exchange between Jackie and Cole on the porch of their house, they, too, confess their love for one another and almost kiss. Suddenly, Alex finds the pair outside—but before he is able to confront them, Will (Johnny Link), the oldest Walter brother, rushes to the house to reveal that George has experienced a medical emergency.
Cliffhangers are a fairly common plot device used to keep viewers entertained and incentivize them to continue engaging with the story. In the case of MLWTWB, however, overreliance on cliffhangers is simply not the right move—in fact, it would have been far more satisfying and suspenseful if there had there been some sort of resolution, even if temporary, to the love triangle.
While the subplot of George’s health scare succeeds in leaving audiences anxious for the next season, the progression of the love triangle plot was deeply disappointing—it felt like a repeat of season one Jackie’s failure to make a decision. In fact, in both seasons, the cliffhangers play out in similar ways, with the conflict suddenly interrupted by another falling action. Jackie leaves to go back to New York after creating tension with both Alex and Cole, and George experiences a medical emergency before Alex can confront Jackie and Cole. It feels like the show's producers and showrunners are constantly keeping the resolution to the love triangle ambivalent in an attempt to please all audiences. But their decision makes the ending to the season essentially a repeat of season one's finale, which makes viewers feel as though they were led in a circle. It can be discouraging when fans dedicate their time and energy to a show just for it to end the same way it began.
All television is ultimately subject to economic imperatives; while a good series certainly serves to entertain the masses, it also bears a responsibility to make a profit and enrich its studio backers. This could explain the decision to make Jackie’s choice a mystery at the end of the season, so that members of both Team Cole and Team Alex members would continue watching the show and keep viewership high. That being said, especially in the case of love triangle tropes, it’s impossible to please everybody. Making art is all about taking risks and testing the waters, and controversy around a character's choices can skyrocket an audience's engagement with a series and fuel endless online discourse. While maintaining high viewership stats is certainly vital for a show's bottom line, enlarging your audience through grassroots marketing is arguably even more important when it comes to growing an entertainment property.
Given the time that fans invest into their favorite shows, they carry in their minds an expectation that their investment will be respected by that show's producers. With the cliffhanger in season two of MLWTWB, however, the emotional commitment of the fans was hardly honored. The show's characters have so much chemistry, and viewers are so drawn in as they watch the plot unfold, that seeing every character back in the same position—failing to make the only choice that really matters—is deeply disheartening. The inclusion of a cliffhanger felt more like a marketing ploy to keep viewers engaged than a means for creating any genuine enjoyment and excitement.
Although the last episode of the season was certainly discouraging as an audience member, the chemistry between the actors this season was incredible. Rodriguez, LaLonde, and Gentry make it impossible for viewers to stick to just one team within the love triangle. Each character had great growth this season; Jackie finally found her place at Silver Falls High School, Alex got recruited to compete in Bronco riding, and Cole decided to apply to football coaching programs for college. Audience members can find themselves genuinely rooting for and having sympathy for every character, not just the one they choose to back. If anything, this strong character work is the element of the show that keeps me coming back to it, not the ever–delayed decision that Jackie makes between the brothers.
Of course, Jackie choosing Cole wouldn’t hurt, either.
