Note: This story contains spoilers from Netflix’s “Boots.”
“Boots” put its ensemble cadets through many brutal tests across eight episodes. And just as they started to celebrate the end of their training, a news bite signaled a conflict in the Middle East that will likely take them to war.
Season 1 of Netflix’s military drama, from creator and co-showrunner Andy Parker and showrunner Jennifer Cecil, followed as Cameron (Miles Heizer) and best friend Ray (Liam Oh) enlisted in the Marine Corps in search of a fresh start. For Cameron, it was about escaping his family life and finding a new path forward as closeted gay teen in the 1990s. For Liam, it was about impressing his Marine father by excelling at boot camp.
They were met by an ensemble of characters all searching for the same thing, as Parker put it in a conversation with TheWrap, to transform into new versions of themselves.
“The show is about transformation. A line from the show is ‘boot camps is the machine that makes men,’ this is a place that is designed to test, to train and to transform you,” Parker said. By the end of the season everyone — from cadets to lieutenants and sergeants undergo change.
Some of that change is for the better, including Cameron having the strength to ask his mother to let him stay in the military and figure out a way to make change from the inside in an era before “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.” For his mentor — and at times bully — Sergeant Robert “Bobby” Sullivan, that meant coming to terms with being gay himself, and running away from service after coming close to getting into legal trouble for hiding who he was. His fate is left open-ended by the end of Episode 8.
Below, Parker breaks down premiering the drama series amid 2025’s tense political climate, that mid-season death and what could come next in a potential Season 2.
TheWrap: You’ve been working on this one for five years. What made this show the right project for you to bring to TV?
Parker: I just really connected with it on a personal level. It felt resonant, even though the story that Greg Cope White wrote about his own life took place in the early ‘80s. I grew up and came of age in the late ‘90s, but there was still so much that resonated for me. Once upon a time, as a closeted gay kid in a pretty restrictive, conservative environment, feeling connected to this idea that you wanted to escape or to go prove yourself or prove that you’re a real man, or make sure that nobody knew that you were gay. What better way to do that than having the ultimate stamp of masculinity put on you by the Marine Corps. I just got that. I knew that and felt that myself.
I had flirted with the Marine Corps when I was in high school, I had really thought about joining, I took all the tests. I was ready to go, and at some point I decided not to do that. I went in a different direction, but reading this book was a way for me to think about, “How would I have done? What would it have been like for me?” That was when we started.
This was back in 2020, when I first adapted and sold the show. At that point, this was just going to be a piece of history. This is what happened before “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” When it was just illegal to be gay in the military. We didn’t know that coming out of the show would take so long to make — that there would be strikes involved — and that it would arrive at this particular political moment. So here it is now, and it resonates now in a different way, because what we are seeing now are echoes of these older policies that were imposed on queer people being resurrected. So for all the ups and downs and travails of what it took to make it through COVID and strikes and all that, maybe this was the time that the show needed to arrive.
The show packs a big ensemble showcasing the wide array of people who turn to the Marine Corps for their futures. How did you and the writers go about crafting the characters anchoring the stories this season?
We have seen so many iconic depictions of the Marine Corps. “Full Metal Jacket” comes to mind as a boot camp story. So for me, the only reason to go back into that well-trodden territory was to do it through this different lens, through this queer character who was taking us into this crazy world. Cameron was always going to be the center of the show, but then it was so important to make sure that the world that he comes into had this ensemble of young men who come from all over, because there’s so many reasons to join the Marines. So we start to find out why this place has drawn all these people together.
The show is about transformation. A line from the show is “boot camp is the machine that makes men,” this is a place that is designed to test, to train and to transform you. Cameron’s not the only one who has something to hide. He’s not the only one who has something to fear. What I was interested in is how that universal idea of transformation applies not just to the gay kid.
It was very important for us to have a diverse writers’ room, but also to have a writers’ room that was filled with Marines. We had three Marines in the writers’ room. I wanted to make sure that we were getting this as accurately as possible. Obviously, there were times when we had to take our own creative license, but there was always a very specific reason we chose to depart from what the reality of boot camp would have been like. I really wanted that out of respect for the people who have gone through this experience, who have done these things that are so difficult — go through boot camp and then serve your country. It was really important to me that we honor that service with accuracy as much as possible.
Miles Heizer leads the cast as Cameron, a closeted gay teen who enlists alongside his straight best friend and slowly finds his own way through the training. What made him the right actor to embody this lead role?
I’m so excited for the world to see what Miles can do as the lead of the show. In contrast to some of his previous roles that were more sort of sullen teenager, there’s something inherent about Cameron having this light inside him, this resilience, strength, charm and self-deprecating humor — somebody that we wanted to protect and also see succeed. Miles showed up with all those qualities. As soon as he read for the role we knew that this was our Cameron.
And then it became a journey of building the ensemble around that, and especially making sure that we found the right pairing in his best friend Ray, who is played by Liam Oh. And we’ve rarely really seen a straight-and-gay friendship on television. It’s always a story of the gay guy pining secretly for the straight kid. I was just not interested in that. So to find a natural organic chemistry between them was so important. And Liam was a true discovery. This is his first big credit.
Greg Cope White wrote one of the episodes this season, how was it to collaborate with him in crafting this series based on his memoir?
It’s rare for somebody who writes a piece of IP, whether it’s a novel or a memoir, to continue to stay involved in the process, but I invited Greg to be part of the writers’ room and to stay part of this process because, first of all, Greg is just a great guy. I was very clear with him right at the beginning, we’re not telling your life story, “I have to take this in its own direction.” And Greg was nothing but gracious, gave his blessing to that journey and was on board for it.
I count him as one of the Marines in the writers’ room. We had three different Marines who had all been in the Marines at different time periods and had various different experiences. That was very helpful to continue to round out the impression of what boot camp is like. It’s not the same for everybody. So it was really nice to have his input into not just what was on the page in his memoirs, but other stories that would come up with and the other stories in the room. Many of those things made it into the show.
This was also one of the last projects Norman Lear worked on as an executive producer before his death. How was it to collaborate with him on this show?
I mean, what an honor. That is one of the unexpected highlights of my career. I didn’t anticipate being able to do that. To know coming on board that Norman was sort of the godfather of this project. What a gift and you’re tempted to be intimidated by such a tower in the industry and the legacy of his work. But he was so wonderful with me.
The moment that he and I really connected was when I was first pitching this show, and what I thought it was really speaking to. I said one of the things that the show is about is who gets to be counted as an American. That instantly sparked for him, because that is the legacy of his shows, the canon of his work, which has been so groundbreaking. It was always about expanding the American story, expanding who gets to be counted in this story. I feel so honored that our show fits in that line.
I’m devastated that he didn’t get to see the final product, but I know that along the way, he was so supportive and such a champion for us.
It’s interesting that the projects that he was doing later in his life were about highlighting queer voices and stories. There’s “Clean Slate” on Prime Video starring Laverne Cox and “One Day At a Time” on Netflix.
Norman was a champion of these underrepresented voices and I’m so grateful for that. This was also a way to honor his own military service — he was a veteran and served bravely in World War II.
We meet Cameron as he goes into boot camp. And the start is about him going through the growing pains in discovering the roughness of the military. Then we start to see the layers and the humanity within this world. How did you balance the roughness of training with getting deeper with the characters?
That came through, making sure that we were being true to the experience of boot camp. But it was very important for me that the show was going to be not just depicting the brutality and the harshness and the sometimes cruelty of boot camp, but it would be balanced with humor and moments of grace. That’s what the show is about.
It was about people ending up finding these connections, seeing themselves in another person, an unexpected other person. Sometimes you find a sense of empathy with somebody else who’s going through a similar experience. Boot camp allows you to have those moments because it’s so hard. You’re breaking open, and that’s where the good stuff is dramatically. That’s where the truth of who you are starts to spill out.
The show takes a dark turn when Ochoa (Johnathan Nieves) dies in an emergency situation. Why bring this twist into the story?
The show needed to progress tonally as the recruits went through boot camp, so the audience needed to go through a transformation ourselves. We needed to start to feel the seriousness of what they’re into, because what they’re being trained to do is ultimately like to fight and die, perhaps kill, for their country. That’s serious stuff, and the emotional stakes just needed to get higher.
Near the end of the season we learn that Sergeant Sullivan is also closeted and his former lover being outed puts his standing in the military at risk. He then is able to pull a big rescue with Cameron before he runs away. How was it crafting his arc this season, and where does his story go from here?
First of all, I just have to give so much credit to Max Parker for that performance. I think Max is a star. I’m so excited for the world to see just what a versatile, incredible actor he is. He just absolutely nails it. It was important to me to watch a transformation of somebody that we think is a monster, but then to peel back and to understand where that intensity comes from.
It’s such a shocking moment, I think in Episode 4, when they’re standing in the dumpster and you realize Sullivan is not just talking to Cameron, he’s talking to himself. He is reinvigorated and given a new sense of needing to stay in this organization that has given him so much meaning and so much purpose and identity, and then to watch Sullivan have to reckon with the split in himself, which, of course, is echoing this question for Cameron.
Sullivan is further along on that journey, and Cameron is just starting, so Sullivan provides this cautionary tale for Cameron. I think we should ask ourselves, will Cameron follow that path? Is that where he’s doomed and destined to end up?
Hopefully we’ll get the chance to continue to explore that journey and find out what Cameron has really learned from watching Sullivan’s demise. It’s a hard thing to watch your hero fall. And that’s a very destabilizing moment for Cameron. And yet, by the end of this season, because of the investment that Sullivan has made in Cameron’s life, which has been brutal, he’s also turned him into a Marine, the thing that Cameron actually wanted.
Cameron definitely transforms by the end of the season and seems to head toward a bright future in the military. Then the season ends with the announcement of war signaling big trouble for everyone. Where would the story go next in a potential Season 2?
That’s why I wanted to set the story in 1990. That gave us two things. One, it kept it still pre-“Don’t Ask Don’t Tell,” so it’s just illegal to be gay in the military. It also allowed us to move up their graduation to right at this precipitous moment when Saddam Hussein invades Iraq, setting us up for them having to go to this conflict, so that’s really why we’ve located the show where we have, and we’re hopeful that we get to tell more of that story in Season 2.
This show is coming as the government is trying to stifle speech and attack inclusion efforts in Hollywood and beyond, and you mentioned, regressing a lot of the progress made within military ranks. What do you hope this show can provide in such a tense political moment?
What I hope the show does is shine a light on the personal cost of these kinds of policies. I don’t think the show is inherently a political show, but I do think it, by its nature, really gets into the guts of what it feels like for people to have to face that kind of discrimination and that kind of fear, and to watch what that does to people, emotionally and psychologically.
And then also how it’s destructive to the organization itself. It’s not good for the military. It’s not good for this institution to eat its own in this way, people who have chosen to serve and to do it honorably. I hope the show shines a human light on that. I hope people come away with a greater sense of empathy about that.
“Boots” is now streaming on Netflix.
