The first episode of Dare Me, based on Megan Abbott’s 2012 novel of the same name, opens with images of blood splattered in various places, smeared on a cell phone, being washed down a drain. As teenage cheerleader Addy (Herizen Guardiola) intones ponderous narration, it’s clear that some horrible act of violence has occurred. What happened, and to whom? Within a minute or so, the show cuts to three months earlier, leaving the question of impending violence hanging over nearly the entire season, as each episode opens with more vaguely ominous images and narration, only to pull back into the intense (but not deadly) world of high school cheerleading.
It’s a frustrating bait and switch that teases a murder mystery only to instead deliver a stylish but extremely slow-moving teen drama, albeit one with strong performances and intriguing relationships. It’s not until the seventh episode (out of 10) that we even learn the identity of the person who ended up dead, and the show is far more interested in the cutthroat nature of teen-girl friendships and high school hierarchy than it is in solving a crime. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but show creators Abbott and Gina Fattore draw out their meager suspense so extensively that it ends up more irritating than enticing. There’s only so many times you can catch glimpses of pools of blood before the show starts to feel like the boy who cried murder mystery.
The creators also tease out the sexual tension among the three main characters: Addy, her best friend and fellow cheerleader Beth (Marlo Kelly), and the squad’s young and pretty new coach Colette French (Willa Fitzgerald). As captain of the squad, Beth is used to being in charge under the ineffectual previous coaches, but when Colette comes in, nearly all of the girls fall under her spell, especially Addy, upon whom Colette lavishes praise and special treatment. Demoted because Colette doesn’t believe in designating cheer captains, Beth finds herself for the first time on the outside looking in, and she starts to give Addy the cold shoulder as Addy spends more and more time with Colette.
Is there something more than friendship and admiration among these three women? Smoldering looks and furtive touches indicate that there must be, but every time the show seems to be on the verge of revealing some unspoken attraction, it cuts to another scene or has the characters pull away. That’s titillating at first, and then it’s just frustrating. The sensationalized elements of the story serve mostly as distractions early on, making it difficult to focus on the often rich drama of the cheerleading squad. With its reckless teens drinking, taking drugs and having sex (not to mention its extensive use of neon-purple bisexual lighting), Dare Me is a bit like HBO’s Euphoria crossed with Friday Night Lights (FNL's Peter Berg is an executive producer), and there are subplots that delve into the corrupt relationship between the school athletics program and the rich local boosters who are out to serve their own interests.
Dare Me is set in small-town Ohio, not in Texas, but there’s the same sense of the town placing all of its hopes on the local high school athletes to help rejuvenate and/or sustain the precarious local economy. Beth’s dad Bert (Paul Fitzgerald) is determined to build a new football stadium (even though the football team is terrible), and he’s counting on the squad’s ability to get to the state championships in order to drum up interest. He’s an obvious sleazeball who left Beth and her day-drunk mother to live across the street with his mistress and other daughter Tacy (Alison Thornton), who also happens to be a cheerleader. Some of the cruelest moments in the show come from Beth taking out her anger at her father on the naïve, spoiled Tacy.
Smart, well-intentioned Addy can seem like a pawn between impulsive mean girl Beth and inappropriately solicitous adult Colette, but she has her own desires and principles, and she keeps the show grounded when it gets too soapy and overwrought (especially in the subplot about married Colette’s affair with a local military recruiter she knew when they were in high school) or too heavy-handed about teenage excess. Addy’s episode-opening voiceover speeches about masks and shadows and other portentous but nebulous concepts can get tiresome, but she remains an appealing protagonist.
At the same time, the creators make sure not to paint Beth or Colette as one-dimensional villains, and the fifth episode especially, which depicts the same events three times from the perspectives of the three main characters, takes care to show how these seemingly hardened women are often barely holding themselves together. Beth in particular suffers various kinds of abuse, which provide context for her behavior without excusing it. The show is so consumed by the central trio’s relationship that most of the supporting characters barely register, though, and the story’s larger context often gets lost. All of those hints and insinuations add up to a repetitive, insular drama rather than a fully realized thriller.
Starring Herizen Guardiola, Marlo Kelly, Willa Fitzgerald, Zach Roerig, Paul Fitzgerald, Rob Heaps and Alison Thornton, Dare Me premieres Sunday on USA at 10 p.m. ET/PT.