BWW Recap: RED BAND SOCIETY Series Premiere Brings All the Feels

Fasten your seatbelts BroadwayWorld readers, it's time to take a ride with my recaps and reviews of Fox's highly touted new Young Adult, (YA to those demographic groupies) series: THE RED BAND SOCIETY. An up-and-coming, good-looking cast of tweens, and their caretakers in life's travels, is about to take off like a beer run in a stolen plastic surgeons convertible.

One of the first scenes of the series focuses on a mean cheerleader in a high school auditorium... Okay, the uniform colors are green and yellow, not red and white. I thought we were back at McKinley for a second (The comparisons to fellow Fox show GLEE have been swirling around RED BAND all summer, in fact, I compared these characters to a certain group of teen singers in this preview article). Then all of a sudden, the cheerleader is down for the count, and off we go to Ocean Park Hospital!

Does anyone else think Nurse Jackson (Octavia Spencer) may want to switch to Decaf? Is she more Scary B*tch or Grumpy Cat? You decide!

Things move quickly in a hospital, and today's no exception. We meet Jordi, who seems to be going to his doctor's appointment all alone; Kara (the cheerleader) is rolling by awake and with snark intact; and Leo and Dash are smoking in the boy's room.

It's bad enough that all of these good looking kids are sick, but we find out that they still have to go to school too, buzz kill. It's time to meet Emma, book smart and with a quick wit, and a past romance with Leo? Hmmm. The St. Crispin's Day lesson was all the more poignant to me, because the pilot became available rightaround the time of Robin William's passing, and always makes me think of him and DEAD POETS SOCIETY.

So Jordi really did come all alone, but that, "Won't Take No," attitude seems to be working as we introduce Dr. McAndrew. Talk about pro-active health care (btw, we have had McDreamy, and McSteamy, already on television, what's left, McCutiepie?). I am so glad in all this hustle and bustle that new nurse Brittney has brought some muffins......Dang!

It's at this point that I am a little angry that Wilson Cruz is the only one that has not gotten a red band with his character's name, Kenji. I have admired Cruz on television since his MY SO CALLED LIFE debut, in addition to all of his work with GLAAD, but rest assured fellow Rickie Vasquez fans, after expressing my disappointment via Twitter, I got a response from the show's creator and Executive Producer Margaret Nagle reassuring me that Cruz's Kenji will be featured prominently in the second episode.

So here's the guy who is all up in everyone's business, hi Charlie! It's got to be exhausting hearing absolutely everything thats going on in the hospital, but you do so with a great sense of humor. Remembering back to college, I think that's how you really cemented your roommate relationship, when you were able to fart in front of them.

Kara's one liners are slaying me now. As the boys do lunch, we meet our final character of the episode, Ruben. Although a fun character, he is young enough that a rich man being interested in the lives of the pediatric patients could have come across as creepy, so I was very glad that we later saw Ruben yucking it up with Jackson and McAndrew and talking about his late-night plans with a couple of the nurses, and cementing him in more of a mentor position moving forward..

The interactions start flowing wild and fast here my friends, so let's go over some of the highlights:

The boy's beer run was fun, (get my opening remarks now?)
I really want to know what made Nurse Brittney so nervous that she would run away during Dash's sponge bath.
Whose superpower is going to win, Kara's snark or Emma's wit? Or will Kara just eat all of her sandwiches?

Being a television and movie nerd, I love when shows are smart enough to show real nuance and cleverness. The best scene of the night visually was Kara and Charlie in the "In Between," space of life and afterlife. Although the stark white and clouds were a little cliché, having the clothing reversed, really had an impact, and showed an awesome sense of control.

In the hospital, Charlie is in his pajamas and everyone else is wearing street clothes, where they have all the free will. "In Between," Charlie is in street clothes, and Kara is now in pajamas, where Charlie is the one running the show, and has some errands for Kara to do.

More interactions as Jordi meets Emma, Kara finds Charlie's dad, who may or may not have been a surprise to many of you, and she even blackmails him into getting beer for the party.

Emma meets Kara again, as she gets in Leo's good favor with the party favors. Time for the big bonding session on the roof (thanks Ruben). That helipad has better furnishings than my first apartment.

If Leo's stirring speech, assigning meaning to each of his new friends red band, doesn't have you running for your "Live Strong" rubber bands you put in your dresser drawer, then you and I cannot be friends.

Wait a minute, one band left, I guess Kara is not the only one who has been caught, "In Between." Speaking of Kara, a well placed sign on the window and viola! Pizza has arrived and Kara has fulfilled her second promise to Charlie.

So much to learn about these characters tonight, and so little space to write about it. I hoped you enjoyed this new show as much as I did. Until next week, think about what red band you would hand down to a friend.

Be sure to leave comments below on your favorite parts of tonight's episode, and tweet me @leftofstr8, and follow BWW TV @BWWTVWorld for all of the latest TV news, recaps, and reviews. I will also be live tweeting the show every week as it airs on the East Coast.

QUOTES OF THE NIGHT:

Emma and Jordi on his leg amputation surgery for his cancer:
"Are you going to keep it?"
"Yea in the freezer."
"Like Wedding Cake!"

Kara to Leo when asked why she has to make the snarky comments:
"If you think I could stop, do you think I would still be doing it?"

Leo to Jordi, lying in bed before his surgery the next day:
"It's hard to sleep over the sound of your thoughts."

BURNING QUESTIONS:

How did Kara know that Nurse Jackson rode the bus?
What was Charlie's accident, and why does his dad feel guilty?
Did Nurse Jackson order a pizza for herself when she paid for Kara's?

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