My Life with the Walter Boys is a Netflix drama series that is based on the popular Wattpad novel by Ali Novak, with all ten episodes currently streaming.
The first episode introduces us to the titular family who live on a ranch, and it's a pretty full house even before protagonist Jackie shows up, following the tragic death of her family.
Jackie finds herself taken in by Katherine and George Walter, with the former being Jackie's mother university classmate who went on to be a close friend. In the event of her passing, she was instructed to take care of Jackie, which is where the series picks up.
But it's difficult. Jackie's gone from a glamorous life in Manhattan to a rural one surrounded by Katherine, George and their busy household of ten children, most of them boys, with one girl. It's even more complicated when two of them seem to take a shine to Jackie romantically.
Here's what went down in episode one...
Moving to Colorado...
My Life with the Walter Boys opens with a happy scene, where Jackie Howard (Nikki Rodriguez) is at a Spring Break party at High View Private Academy for Girls. Straight away it's clear she's settled there, having arranged the party herself and done a very good job of it.
But that's all ripped away from her pretty quickly. Enter Jackie's Uncle Richard, whose arrival is immediately concerning to Jackie and she assumes something has happened. He takes her to one side and the scene fades to Colorado airport.
There, an overwhelmed Jackie pushes a trolley of her belongings and FaceTimes her uncle to let him know she arrived safely, trying to hold back her tears as he apologizes that he couldn't be there to meet the Walters, who had just arrived at the airport.
Katherine (Sarah Rafferty) embraces Jackie and tells her she's happy to have her here, introducing her to her husband George (Marc Blucas). Things seem a little awkward, and Jackie puts her headphones in on the drive to their house.
While she's scrolling through Twitter, she lands on a video that explains why her Uncle George had appeared at the party. The video shows a news report with a presenter paying tribute to fashion designer Angelica Howard, revealing that she, her husband, and their eldest daughter tragically died.
When they arrive at the Walter's home, things are already pretty chaotic. The youngest child is running around, two of them are playing loud video games and another almost runs into Jackie with his skateboard.
While Jackie is getting a tour of the house and trying to settle in, it is revealed that Katherine used to be best friends with Angelica, and she has taken her in following the tragic death of her family.
When Katherine is called into work on an emergency, she leaves the eldest sibling Will (Johnny Link) in charge of things and introduces him to Jackie. Will takes her around the rest of the house and she meets everyone, as well as their drastically different personalities ranging from quiet musician Nathan to the "Tony Hawk wannabe", Lee.
Crucially, she also meets Cole (Noah LaLonde) who is sunbathing outside and she can't help but stare at him, making it clear she has a pretty obvious crush on him already.
Jackie is shown to her room which is currently filled with art supplies, with Will admitting it has become a makeshift room for her quickly given the sudden news. Cole interrupts her settling in by loudly dropping a box on the floor and calling her "New York" as a nickname, which she disapproves of.
Outside, Will scolds Cole for his behavior and tells him to "drop the attitude" because she's been through enough, but he argues that she needs to "learn to take a little rough and tumble".
Back in Jackie's room, Katherine has returned from work and the two have a heart-to-heart, where she expresses that she looks so much like her mother, saying that Angelica talked about her and her sister Lucy all the time.
Jackie asks Katherine why she only met her at the funeral, and she reveals that they had when she was very little, so she wouldn't have remembered. But she says it was hard for them to meet up given their busy schedules and the fact they lived in different states.
She reveals that Angelica had wanted Katherine to take care of Jackie in the event of an emergency, and she says they'd made a promise to be there for each other's families if the need ever arose.
After a chaotic family breakfast, Jackie heads to her first day at her new school, Silver Falls. Cole drives some of his siblings along with Jackie there and she hesitates for a while, staying in the car while everyone else scrambles out and grabs their things. Nathan expresses concern for her and offers to show her where things are, and she accepts.
Cole teases Jackie about it not being like "fancy Manhattan schools" before a blonde girl runs up and kisses him, dragging him away with her while Jackie looks on. On the way to class, Jackie learns that Cole "doesn't really date" but he "always hooks up" with Erin.
During her first class, Jackie sits next to Alex (Ashby Gentry), another one of the Walter children she met briefly during her arrival. She deals with an awkward moment where she's forced to stand up and introduce herself in front of the whole class, and the teacher asks why she's moved from New York to Colorado.
She stutters and can't get her words out so Alex steps in and claims it was a change of scenery, and shares his textbook with her as she doesn't have all the school supplies she needs yet.
Jackie is struggling to settle in and speaks to one of the teachers, Tara, telling them that she's used to more "challenging work" and wants to address her class situation. Tara says that she spoke to Jackie's uncle and she's worried about how she's coping, but Jackie insists she's fine.
We learn that Jackie wants to go to the Ivy League college Princeton and is trying to get good grades and sufficient extra-curricular activities under her belt, and is worried she can't achieve that at this current school. After being questioned further about her ambitions, Jackie snaps for the first time about what happened.
Tara expresses concern that Jackie was isolating herself from her friends, but she argues that "no one knows what to do when your family die" so "they stopped seeing her", not the other way around.
Cole makes a scene at lunch later that day when Jackie is queuing for lunch, he takes her to the front of the queue pushing in front of everyone and fills her tray up with food, with the rest of the school looking on in confusion while he goes on to pay for said lunch.
Erin is not too impressed about Cole showing any sort of affection towards Jackie, and when he offers to let her sit with them, Erin claims it's "pretty cramped already". But Cole offers his seat to Jackie, right by Erin, resulting in a very awkward first lunch.
The more Jackie spends with fellow students, the more she learns about Cole with the whole school being suspicious of his nice gesture at lunch, as it is apparently very out of character for him.
Meanwhile, Cole is frustrated as he's unable to play football due to an injury, instead, he watches on while others play and is struggling with his college application as a result.
Outside the school, Erin confronts Jackie and attempts to insult her over Cole, but she insults her back and makes it clear she is not interested in Cole, before she heads home for the day.
Jackie has her first proper Walter family dinner later that evening and finds it hard to navigate it as people have their own assigned seats and ways of doing things. When she finally gets settled, she sees a snake on the floor and screams, knocking her dinner all over herself.
It is revealed to be Rumple, one of the family's pets that Jackie had not been informed about so it had given her quite the scare! Katherine gets annoyed and yells at the family, asking them to try and be more accommodating.
Cole brings dinner up to Jackie's room and later takes her outside to see the horses in an attempt to make things up to her. He reveals he's been riding horses all his life and seems to be genuinely quite affectionate towards the animals, different to his demeanor around humans.
When Cole has to leave, Alex steps in and introduces Jackie to his favorite horse, Murphy. She thanks him for sticking up for her in class when she'd been put on the spot about her move to Colorado.
Meanwhile, we see George checking the business account and we see that he is in debt, which could put some serious pressure on the family, especially with a new member joining the household.
The episode ends with Cole and Alex having a tense moment outside Jackie's room where they're both attempting to put some of her moving boxes outside the door. Cole asks if Alex is okay and he lies, saying that he's "good", but we both know there's some tension here.
