Blood & Water has been a visual feast, and for the first three seasons offered a buffet of gripping narrative. Ultimately, the weakly executed season four feels like a standalone story not well put together.
By Tonny Ogwa
The first season of Blood & Water premiered on Netflix in 2020 to almost critical acclaim. Here was a refreshing African teen drama — South Africa’s second Netflix Original — which painted the continent in completely different colours never before seen, especially on Western TV. Sumptuous shots of South Africa’s Cape Town neighbourhoods, the posh fictional Parkhurst High School, high-end cars gliding pristine streets, and parties. My God, the parties! It was almost perfect, with aesthetics, obscene wealth, and breathtakingly picturesque rising and falling tides of the Indian Ocean.
The series also used as its soundtrack, music from Africa’s top voices; from Sho Madjozi to Sauti Saul to Nasty C, who even made a guest appearance on season 1. The cast was a perfect representation of Africa, untainted by ignorant Western stereotypes. A brilliant ensemble of young talents in various skin shades, accents, and languages — it can be argued that no South African language is unrepresented in the show. Helmed by writer-director Nosipho Dumisa and her Gambit Productions company, the series was right on track to score the goal for the greatest series out of Africa.
And it was. For a time.
With Blood & Water season one, we entrance into the life of Cape Town teen, Puleng Khumalo (Ama Qamata), who has a strong hunch that a senior in her new school, Queen Bee Fikile Bhele (Khosi Ngema) is her long-lost sister. By the end of the season, it is revealed that Puleng and Fikile are indeed sisters. How did Fikile come to be raised by a different family? The two sisters, after growing past a series of feuds, join hands to uncover a massive child trafficking ring running in South Africa — the very same ring responsible for the abduction of Fikile at birth.
Now while there are a few scandalous scuffles and upheavals here and there, the first two seasons stay pretty light, with more concerns on the standard eye-rolling themes typical of any teen drama: high school shenanigans, teen romance, hedonistic parties, and just about privileged teens revelry. However, there’s every indication that the writers will explore darker narratives around crime, particularly human trafficking.
For trafficking Fikile, her assumed mother Nwabisa Bhele (Xolile Tshabalala) is arrested. Soon, we discover that Lisbeth and Matla Molapo, parents to Puleng’s on-and-off boyfriend KB (Thabang Molaba) and close friends of the Bheles, are the key culprits in the trafficking business. Season three ends as a great setup for season four. We get a sneak peek that the trafficking tentacles are far spread than we had imagined, and they are not done with the teens of Parkhurst, most especially Sam Nkosana – Fikile’s boyfriend – whose mother may have betrayed the all-powerful traffickers.
For the first three seasons of Blood & Water, the writing had been flawless, with brilliant acting, garnished with great directorial choices and masterful aesthetics. Well, until season four.
The fourth season picks right from where we left off in season three. The human trafficking ring has been brought down, and key culprits, Lisbeth and Matla, are sentenced to prison. Puleng and her entourage are reeling from trauma, even suffering from PTSD.
Shortly into the first episode, we begin to notice the writing mishaps. And the misdirection to cover up this mishap is just irritating. The grander, extended conspiracy that season three promised is scrapped in favour of an alternative storyline that’s farfetched and just outright lazy. We are saddled with a narrative that feels too prolonged and meanders without any clear sense of direction. It’s almost like the writers did not expect the series to be renewed for a fourth season and when it did, they got nervous and lost confidence in their ability to rekindle the suspense from season three’s lead-up.
Instead, some of the audience’s questions, such as what happened to Sam are answered through a lazy montage of PTSD flashbacks, while other aspects of the storyline — like the existence of more human trafficking cells — are just scrapped off. No payoff. Nothing.
What becomes of Blood & Water season four is a poorly written trope about a bullied kid coming back to exert revenge on his abusers four years after the bullying happened. This storyline is encumbered by so many plot holes it needs an essay of its own to make sense of what the writers’ end goal was supposed to be. In fact, for the first four episodes, the writers even try to mislead the audience into believing that this tired revenge plot is related to the human trafficking mega-story we have spent a whole year waiting for.
While most of the actors — except the character from Elite whose performance was wooden at best – deliver a commendable performance, the lackluster writing and disjointed narrative render their efforts futile. The narrative falls so short that this bullying victim — the villain of the season — who is supposed to be a super hacker, is capable of hacking into any student’s cell phone but cannot find one of his targets, a task that some random tiny student (Pauline) accomplishes with apparently very minimal efforts.
Then comes the twists. Anybody who knows anything about how a compelling narrative works is aware that shock value is not good storytelling. But in this series, the writers seem to believe that a good twist’s only job is to be shocking, even if unjustified. Puleng’s sex tape being leaked presents a good conflict setup. But who has leaked it? The writers decide to pull out the oldest and most overdone twist — her sister Fikile. Why is Fikile being complicit in the blackmail against her newfound sister? Because a child she bullied three years ago, whose story hasn’t been relevant until now is, uhm, sending her texts? It is unclear and makes little sense, but it is shocking nonetheless. So, according to the Nosipho Dumisa–led writing team, it must be a good story.
Most of the characters whose story arcs had been key in the previous seasons are just there, doing nothing. The supposed attack on Sam, as teased at the end of season three, does not take place, and no one bothers to explain why, not even through an exposition dialogue. Instead, we see a character who does nothing, but with occasional bouts of PTSD that merely stops his tryst with Fikile. There’s no reason why Puleng’s cousin — whose name I do not even remember — should have been in this season, because he adds little to nothing to the plot.
There’s also another unusual and random subplot around KB and Chris that begins with something about music beats and ends with the duo running naked on the streets holding a chicken. While being quite funny, it’s clear that this plot lacks any particular narrative direction and only exists to fill up the timeslot. It’s also the evidence that the writers were just making up stuff as they went, raising questions as to whether they even bothered to brainstorm these ideas before translating them into the script.
The season ends in a graduation party which feels like a farewell to the audience – because it is difficult to imagine a new instalment. Blood & Water has been a visual feast and for the first three seasons offered a buffet of gripping narrative. Ultimately, the weakly executed season four feels like a standalone story not well put together. It is more like a filler story than an actual continuation of a series that has been loved for three years. The series now joins a long list of promising shows that never lived up to their potential due to bad writing. Goodbye Blood & Water. You had a good run.
Tonny Ogwa is a storyteller from Nairobi, Kenya. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Kalahari Review, The Daily Nation, Qazini, Debunk Media, The Republic, and more. When he is not writing, he’s trying to learn Spanish on Duolingo and listening to Thalia.