My Life with the Walter Boys Has Wrapped Its Second Season, Diving Deeper into Love Triangles

The series influences the rise of love tropes and explores a love dynamic between the younger generation.  

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The Netflix teen romance drama, My Life with the Walter Boys, wrapped up filming for its second season on Nov. 18. 

The Ali Novak novel adaptation, which premiered on Dec. 7, 2023, follows the life of 15-year-old Jackie Howard, who moves in with the Walter family after her family dies in a car crash—leading to a love triangle between Jackie and two of the Walter boys.

The show reported 20 million views within its first month of streaming due to the increasingly popular love story theme, which led to Netflix renewing it for a second season two weeks later. 

“Literary binaries and tropes provide readers with a sense of comfort, a clear debate to weigh in on, and a digestible sense of conflict that keeps a story propelling forward,” Ethan Calof, a PhD candidate in English and comparative media at Vanderbilt University, told Vox. 

The uptick in love triangles in film and television shows that the series appears to have similar concepts such as other teen novel storylines like Jenny Han’s The Summer I Turned Pretty, primarily a love triangle being formed between the younger and older brothers. 

Just like the main character Isabelle in The Summer I Turned Pretty, Jackie chooses the younger Walter brother, Alex, as her love interest throughout the show’s first season. She then realizes she has always been in love with the older brother, Cole, all along. 

“The Summer I Turned Pretty is a great show. I think there’s room for two shows with that kind of theme,” My Life with the Walter Boys show creator Melanie Halsall said in an interview with Variety. “I don’t think it’s a bad comparison at all—I can understand why that is and why those parallels have been made. I think our show has a slightly different tone to it, and a slightly different mission.” 

Those who love teen romance dramas are more than excited for the show’s return, showing how the rise of love tropes allows audiences to be invested in how the protagonist navigates her complex emotions with each brother, as well as choosing a “team.” 

Kasey Coppola, a 19-year-old college student, is thrilled to hear about My Life with the Walter Boys’ comeback, due to it being a “nostalgic, feel-good” show viewers can relate to. She believes that showrunners shouldn’t let go of the love triangle idea and that it’s more important how producers tell the story, instead of focusing on what tropes are utilized. 

“There’s a science to storytelling, but that doesn’t take away its magic, nor the creative license you can explore with it,” Coppola said. “While we can simultaneously popularize new–or lesser known–tropes, I believe finding new ideas with preexisting tropes is how we move creativity forward while holding tropes we love and know–and know work.” 

Coppola mentioned that even though she chooses the “brooding, emotionally unavailable” brother like Cole in each love trope, she would like it if showrunners could try pushing for the “golden-retriever” brother more, though it would take “a lot of her to root for.” 

Despite never having seen My Life with the Walter Boys, the popularity of love triangle tropes stems outside of viewers. 

Gabriana Blanc, a New York University student, has not watched the series but would find it “just as interesting” as Han’s The Summer I Turned Pretty and To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before. 

“I find TV shows with love triangles and romance dramas to be exciting and enjoyable because each show puts their own little twist on what type of love triangle it is,” Blanc said. “Each show and movie brings something unique to the love triangle concept, so therefore I never find them to be repetitive or boring.” 

To keep up with the popularity, Blanc believes that showrunners should try new concepts with love triangles, “as long as it’s a plot that hasn’t been seen before.”

My Life with the Walter Boys season 2 is expected to premiere in 2025, and Halsall said that viewers will get a sense of warmth every time they watch the series. 

“The warmth is really important to me. I think when you watch that, you can see the warmth come out, and that’s what I’m really proud of,” she told Variety. “I don’t think you can watch the show and feel anything other than happy, really.”