One of the pitfalls of the streaming era is that so many shows seem to go unheralded. Last week, Netflix’s Boots looked likely to be one of them, slipping into the submenus without making a noise. However, thanks to unbelievably positive reviews (“The best new TV show of the fall” said USA Today) and frothing word of mouth, the military drama is now the third most-watched show on the platform. With every passing hour, it seems as though Boots is destined to become the next Squid Game-style breakout. So, with all that said, is it actually any good?
The answer: kind of. Boots is an adaptation of Greg Cope White’s 2015 memoir The Pink Marine, detailing his time in the US military in 1990, a few years before Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell became the service’s official position on homosexuality. It’s a subject that’s ripe with potential – 2018’s The Assassination of Gianni Versace featured a thread about a gay serviceman that was more powerful than the rest of the show combined – so hopes were undoubtedly high.
And, indeed, when this element of the show snaps into focus, it becomes truly excellent. The main character is Cameron Cope, a young man with an overbearing mother who enlists in the marines almost out of spite. However, the heart of the show is Max Parker’s Sergeant Robert Sullivan, a high-flying NCO whose promising career is threatened by an investigation over his sexuality. Parker’s performance is extraordinary: clenched and furious and repressed, until the moments when circumstances expose his vulnerabilities.
This part of the show deserves all the praise it can get. Its ability to drive home a message through character beats is incredibly powerful, and it is difficult to watch without feeling a burning sense of shame and scorn for the discrimination pushed on to those willing to serve their country. It is a thunderous indictment of the military.
The problem is this only forms part of Boots. The rest, confusingly, is all about how goddamn awesome it is to be a soldier. Although there are moments where the series threatens to lapse into Full Metal Jacket territory, with its deliberately aggressive erasure of humanity in pursuit of the perfect fighting machine, these are almost always undone by a slightly soggy platitude, as if someone accidentally photocopied an inspirational self-help book into the pages of the script without anybody noticing.
Apart from a handful of superficial conflicts, everybody has got everyone else’s backs throughout. Kubrick showed military training to be a torrent of unblinking hell. Here, everyone bonds over a competition to see who can do the biggest poo. There is a scene, and I promise that I’m not making this up, where a dispute is resolved during a Bugsy Malone-style food fight. It is honestly a little like watching a long recruitment ad.
This seems to be the biggest problem with Boots. The thoughtful, angry moments are washed away by a slightly craven desire to become the next Orange is the New Black. The more of Boots you watch, the more convinced you become that OITNB was its key touchstone. The speed at which the premise is shaken off, so that it can transform into an ensemble piece about a fish out of water who finds himself part of a deliberately dehumanising community, is staggering.
Like OITNB, we’re given glimpses that humanise the ruling class. Like OITNB, we’re shown life on the outside in flashes that become less necessary with every passing second (Vera Farmiga, playing Cope’s mother, is almost hilariously underserved in this regard). And, like OITNB, the show keeps flirting with flashbacks that show why various characters decided to join the military. Should it return for a second season – a renewal would surely be a formality at this point – then it seems certain that this will be the new format. Quite frankly, that could end up being a pretty decent show.
There are many worse things to be than a heightened comedy drama about a bunch of guys trying to rub along together in impossible circumstances. But this season came out of the gates with something to say. The fact that it was reduced to such an afterthought feels like a wasted opportunity. Boots is two wildly different shows fighting for space at the same time. It’s a shame they couldn’t be reconciled into a satisfactory whole.
