S03.E01: Bestie

[AnimeMania]

After the loss of her mother, a young woman seeks connection in a mysterious online friend.

Premiere Date: October 26, 2023     Hulu 

[Snazzy Daisy]

My least favorite story among all four. The ending is so cliche and predictable.

With heavy eyeliner, Shelby looks a bit like young Blake Lively.

Anna Rexhia character is way more interesting than the not-so-creepy Bestie.

[bilgistic]

This was...not good. I thought Shelley looked like Chloe Sevigny. I kept seeing and hearing Drew Barrymore in "Bestie".😂

That sure was a lonnnnng game that Riv and Bestie were playing.

[mirandroid]

This one was dumb. Like what was the point?

I read something that said Shelley dressed up like the teacher's dead baby, which is why he had such a visceral reaction. That went over my head, but I was also doing several other things while "watching" since it wasn't holding my attention.

[bilgistic]

Yeah, Shelley had a pacifier in her mouth and a rubber tube around her neck. The teacher said his and his wife's baby was strangled by its umbilical cord. Shelley's sweatshirt said, "Life's a drag [front]...when your daddy's a f**" [back]. Which, he was married to a woman, so...?

But who tells their student about how their stillborn baby died?

I hate that *I* paid that much attention to this episode.

Edited October 27, 2023 by bilgistic

[tennisgurl]

Bestie really must roll straight twenties on charisma to get two people who she met online to do so much crazy stuff, up to and including murder. I knew as soon as Riv started talking about how he liked that spooky drag queen where this was going. This episode had some decent tension here and there, it took me a minute to realize that she had dressed up as her choir teachers dead baby but when I did realize it really was shocking, but this was a pretty lackluster way to start the season. 

Hopefully RM casts Seth Gabel in a more interesting part soon. He did a lot with what he had but he was wasted here.

[JAYJAY1979]

This was less creepy/scary and more tragic then anything else.

Shelby was the new kid that was being picked on that felt adrift after the death of her mother.. and became drawn to a celebrity and later an online friend in order to cope with her feelings of emptiness.  And because she was fragile, she listened to whatever this person said no matter what.

 On the surface, it appeared as though Shelby had put herself back together  but instead of her being dependent on Bestie, she became dependent on River (i.e. only going to a school because River was going, listening to whatever he wanted, etc).

  River was totally going to be her downfall starting with the text message he sent where he signed it best friend and Shelby ignoring the red flag.  The only thing I was uncertain about was if Bestie manipulated him into luring Shelby to her out of revenge for Shelby blocking her messages.. or if that was the plan all along.

Edited October 28, 2023 by JAYJAY1979

[AnimeMania]

[gesundheit]

On 10/27/2023 at 12:04 PM, mirandroid said:

This one was dumb. Like what was the point?

I read something that said Shelley dressed up like the teacher's dead baby, which is why he had such a visceral reaction. That went over my head, but I was also doing several other things while "watching" since it wasn't holding my attention.

Oh wow, I missed that completely. I kept waiting for some reveal on why there was such a big reaction to that.

[Mattipoo]

This is my least favorite episode of the season as I thought the story was too grim, and the Bestie character was so creepy the way she manipulated Shelby. The arm hammering scene was gruesome!

[sugarbaker design]

Apologies, late to the party.  I had a real problem maintaining any kind of sympathy or empathy for the lead character after that particularly cruel joke she perpetrated against one of the few people in the school who had shown the lead character any kind of kindness.  I had no qualms about her dying a gruesome death after that.

Edited October 7 by sugarbaker design