Crew Girl Review: A Fresh Take On The Teen Sports Romance
Teen dramas are back, baby! If you loved The Summer I Turned Pretty, Sterling Point, or Finding Her Edge, I found your next favorite watch with Crew Girl. It follows teen rower Teagan Tao, played by Miku Martineau, who moves to her mom’s small town after a family scandal. An elite rower, she finds herself joining her prep school’s all-boys crew team when there’s no girls’ team. There’s rivalries, romances, and a ton of rowing, but what I liked most was watching this unlikely team become a family.
It was a refreshing change of pace to see crew at the center of a sports romance. It’s an uncommon choice for a team sport, but it worked well with the show’s focus on these characters learning to trust each other and become a family. I was familiar with the sport because my college roommate was on the crew team and it definitely gave me a nostalgic feeling to see it portrayed on screen. Getting to learn more about the competitive world of rowing definitely gave Crew Girl its own identity.
I thought Martineau did a great job anchoring the show. At the beginning, the boys’ team is divided and they don’t want Teagan around, but she really earns their respect and brings them together. She was strong and able to keep up with and even surpass the boys, which I thought was really empowering. I loved that the show gave us plenty of fun episodes and moments outside of the rowing and romance too. We got to see them compete in an epic obstacle course and even have a murder mystery party while they solved a rowing mystery. Those moments gave the cast a chance to really show their personalities.
When it comes to the love triangle, I was torn at first between whether Teagan should go with Cam Dillinger (Kyle Clark) or Josh Regis (Samuel Braun). She and Cam had really cute banter from the beginning with their accidental bike crash meet-cute. But he was so insecure about his status at the school that it became unappealing. Teagan barely knows this guy and he’s constantly telling her that he’s not good enough. After a while, you start to believe it. It was hard to root for that. Meanwhile, the elitist Josh definitely won me over after he saved Teagan. He also had the more compelling storyline between his struggles within his family and his heart issue.
All in all, Crew Girl is a charming and original teen drama that proves the right team chemistry can be just as addicting as a good love triangle. I really hope we get a second season because the show has set up some really entertaining possibilities to explore next. Now that a girls’ crew team could be entering the school, there’s an entirely new dynamic waiting to shake things up.
Are you team Cam or team Josh? Catch the first season of Crew Girl streaming now on Netflix.
