Streaming Wars is a weekly opinion column by IGN’s Streaming Editor, Amelia Emberwing. Check out the previous entry, We Did Lisa Frankenstein Dirty During Its Theatrical Run.
This column contains spoilers for the first three episodes of The Girls on the Bus.
Part of me feels insane for digging a series about political journalism on the campaign trail while we’re in the midst of election year hell. While that’s probably a discussion I need to have with my therapist, my enjoyment of Max’s The Girls on the Bus remains. A big part of that enjoyment is probably rooted in seeing something told from the contemporary journalist’s perspective instead of from the negative light that we frequently see in film and television. But it’s also largely thanks to the dynamics between the series’ four leading ladies.
The series focuses on three political journalists and an influencer, each filling the role of a pretty standard archetype (presumably so they may develop layers as the series progresses). The first few episodes showcase Melissa Benoist’s Sadie McCarthy, the hopeful idealist who truly believes in the candidates she writes about — sometimes to her detriment — more than the other three women, but the series makes it clear that each character has an important role to play in the coming scandal(s). Carla Gugino is Grace Gordon Greene, the seasoned, cutthroat journalist who will do whatever it takes for a scoop; Christina Elmore is Kimberlyn Kendrick, a Black Republican writing for a Fox News-esque rag and trying to plan her wedding alongside a demanding future mother-in-law while also fighting for her rightful place at the top of her organization; and Natasha Behnam is Lola Rahaii, an influencer who doesn’t believe journalism matters anymore and “branded content” is our future.
Despite fitting pretty cleanly into their individual character models, The Girls on the Bus weaves the protagonists together in a way that forces them to be interesting — even before they grow into the well-rounded characters they’ll presumably be by the end of the series. Each of them challenges the others in their own respective ways, making their unexpected friendships curious but engaging at every step.
I checked out the show because I’m an avid fan of both Benoist and Gugino, but early on it’s Elmore and Rahaii who shine the brightest. The Girls on the Bus makes the active decision to make its Republican reporter a Black woman, and in doing so it immediately creates a very important subtext to the series: politics are about how much you believe you should pay in taxes, what those taxes should go toward, etc. and never about whether or not certain groups of people should have the right to live freely because of the color of their skin, the people they love, or their gender identity. Elmore’s Kimberlyn has a line that drives this home in the first episode, which she delivers smoothly after Sadie asks how a Black woman could vote Republican: “Everyone in this country is racist. At least they’re honest about it.” She knows who her colleagues are and what they stand for, but she’s interested in bringing actual news to the forefront of the channel otherwise known for its propaganda and sensationalism.
Meanwhile, Behnam’s story as Lola is more about growth. She’s humbled a few times early on as she learns that “breaking the rules” and being a “disruptor” have no value if you don’t know what said rules are or understand why you’re breaking them in the first place. Lola’s development starts with a cheeky bet with Grace, where the seasoned reporter teaches her how little our political landscape changes and, due to her loss, the influencer is forced to read The Journalist and the Murderer by Janet Malcolm (a book about the psychology of the profession, frequently taught in Journalism school). Things don’t stop there, though. Lola continues to learn about her surroundings when Sadie tries to save her from a misunderstanding over the press pool, during which Lola shows up in a bikini and pool gear instead of being adorned in business casual attire and the emotional preparation to be bored out of her mind for several consecutive hours.
Ultimately, the budding mystery around Sadie’s burner phone is of little importance to my enjoyment of the show. I suppose that this is beneficial, given that reviews have highlighted how weak that plotline ends up being by the end, but I do wish we were in a time when the series could solely rely on whatever the heck is going on with these four wildly different women and the annoying, difficult, realistic picture it paints of our current political landscape, and still get greenlit.
That said, maybe this mystery has a few tricks up its sleeve. Right now it feels more distracting than valuable. But, if it ends up resulting in more ways for these women to connect, I can’t be too mad about it.
