Note: This story contains spoilers from “Crew Girl” Season 1.
Netflix’s newest YA series “Crew Girl” introduced a situation prime for a love triangle, as rower Teagan Tao (Miku Martineau) joined the men’s rowing team of an elite private school. Her father’s white collar crimes had displaced Teagan and her mom, Ella (Jessica Paré), back to her mother’s hometown in Massachusetts, and that was the only option for her to pursue her rowing aspirations.
After establishing herself as coxswain thanks to the good will of the school’s crew coach (Thomas Cadrot), Teagan found herself pulled between elitist and often arrogant Josh (Samuel Braun) — who let down his facade after he and Teagan start connecting — and down-to-earth scholarship student Cam (Kyle Clark), but by the finale, Josh took himself out of the game … at least, for now.
With his heart condition coming to a head, Josh told his family he will stop rowing to take care of his health and while his grandfather disapproved, in a surprise his father stood up for him, even if it meant losing favor with the Regis patriarch. He told Teagan he had a lot to work to do on himself, but when he’s done, he hopes she gives him a second chance.
“Josh … and his dad are now on the outs, they’re in a whole new territory, a whole new world, but they do have each other,” showrunner Vivian Lin told TheWrap. “We love Josh … he’s got a lot to work on. He’s got to build a better Josh. If he’s ever going to be a worthy love triangle piece for Teagan … some self-discovery needs to happen.”
Teagan doesn’t waste too much time before making her feelings for Cam clear, sealing their romance with a kiss not too much later. Whether that means they’re both ready to start a relationship, Lin will keep us guessing.
“It seems so perfect, and yet nothing ever really is,” Lin said. “They’re about to discover what brings them together, and perhaps what challenges they might end up seeing.”
That will likely include Teagan navigating the next steps for her father, who turned himself in for his financial crimes and will undoubtably switch things up in the Tao household. “Teagan and her mom have had this bonding experience over Season 1 — Dad is back in the picture, and I think that all of that gives us another … a little turn on the wheel,” Lin said. “I’ll just say that Teagan’s family is incredibly important to her, and so all of this is a whole new dynamic to get used to.”
Dynamics will also shake up with a girls’ rowing team now on the table, though it’s unclear if Teagan will be able to keep her role as coxswain. “I do want to see her back rowing,” Lin said. “The girls’ team gives a really great competition.”
Joining the women’s team also won’t be without complication given that it’s funded by the Garner family. That operation is headed up by Josh’s ex-girlfriend, Britney Garner (Sage Linder), who still has it out for Teagan, setting the table for what Lin said could be “one of the most interesting relationships that she can have in her life.”
It all sets up a potential Season 2, which has not yet been greenlit by Netflix. But in the vein of the “classic CW show” Lin compared “Crew Girl” to, she’s in for the long haul. “We want to get to ‘Crew Mom,’” she joked.
TheWrap: we’ve been seeing a huge fascination with hockey. What made crew stand out as a sport primed for drama?
Lin: Rowing is an incredible sport. It’s the ultimate team sport — you can’t have one person on a bad day — you can’t have any of them. It’s so precise. There’s so much pressure. You have to go through a pain cave every time you row. But also, every team person, team member has to work together to be perfectly in sync. So, if even one person is not jiving with the boat, whether emotionally or in the relationship or in the sport, the whole thing tanks. It was kind of a perfect setting to talk about this teenage girl’s journey from being a solo athlete superstar on her own into a leader of a team, and to be become part of a team.
“Crew Girl” is a part of Netflix’s YA slate being unveiled this fall. What conversations with Netflix did you have about the tone of the show and how it would fit into their programming?
I wanted the show to be very frothy, very escapist, gorgeous to look at, to be a place where people could hang out and go … It’s like a classic CW show a bit, and I wanted something for both the YA audience … the youngins coming up, but also for you know the those of us who love the CW and love YA and love everything, who want to watch TV with a glass of wine.
How did you want to lean into those typical YA tropes?
There’s always tropes, right? Everyone assumes they know how love triangles go. Everyone assumes what they’ve seen before, and so for us, we pick and choose our moments because we wanted to make sure that we surprised ourselves as well as the audience. We definitely tried to keep ourselves guessing, in the writing room. We tried to make sure that we surprised ourselves at every point to give it to give it a new life, something fresh.
With tackling crew, there’s an underlying racial and class bias within the sport. How did you want to tackle that this season?
It’s always there, and we always acknowledge it. I always like when the vegetables are hidden, if you will. We just really try to get the rowing as as correct as possible, as authentic as possible, so we talked to a lot of rowing Olympians, people who had rowed for the Olympics. We talked to coaches, we talked to teenage rowing champions, just to get their point of view, get what their feelings are, how they look at their sport, and how they look at their own relationships and and made sure that we infuse that into the characters.
Teagan now sits on both sides of the privilege within the sport, which makes the love triangle especially interesting. How do you see her fitting with both Josh and Cam?
With Cam, they’re both rowers. They’re both sort of underdogs in this world. They both connect in a very supportive manner and in a very shared place, a shared precarious position in the social hierarchy, and it is really there. They have a real love, almost a spiritual love for rowing that they both see within each other, that no one else on that boat or in their lives can possibly understand … it’s a compulsion when you find that person who gets you.
And then on the other side with Josh, everything she does with him is so instinctual and reflexive. It really hits her right in her lizard brain, so she is unabashedly unfiltered, uncensored … whenever she’s around him, and because of that … there’s no questioning with him, and so I think she’s allowed to be and explore all of the impulses that she wants to as a person, and there’s something actually a little bit more honest about the relationship than perhaps with Cam, who, because they’re both precarious, there are things they can’t say to each other. So I think with those two dynamics, you’re kind of curious which one matters more.
Do you know who is endgame for Teagan?
Teagan’s not done being Teagan. She has so much more to see. She has so much more to know about herself that she doesn’t know. I know who Teagan is going to be, and I know the guy she’s supposed to end up with — the kind of guy she’s supposed to end up with. But everyone evolves, and so I don’t actually know who evolves to be that guy. I just don’t know which guy ends up being that guy, or maybe it’s someone else.
We also see Coach Hayden get the axe in the finale. Is there any way he can come back from that?
I love Hayden. All through Season 1, he’s the moral center of the show. He’s always put in a hard position, and we’re never going to give him any grace or mercy. I’m curious to see where he goes.
I’m curious about the romance between Perry and Juliet, especially since Perry is somewhat queer-coded.
I love that you picked up on his queer-coding … so is she. The fashion will be off the charts. Will it be very tumultuous? Will there be burning? I don’t know. It is definitely one of the couplings … that’s going to be fun to delve into.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
“Crew Girl” Season 1 is now streaming on Netflix.
