Still missing Teen Wolf nearly two full years after it wrapped on MTV? Wish you didn’t have to wait months for new episodes of The Chilling Adventures Of Sabrina? Well, Netflix has heard your prayers and responded with The Order, the weirdo young adult supernatural drama you didn’t know you needed to while away the (hopefully) last few cold weather weekends of the year.
However, with witches and werewolves aplenty in this streaming series, The Order is in serious need of explanation, even after you’ve watched all 10 episodes.
Technically the brand-new Netflix show, which premiered 7th March, is about Jack Morton (Jake Manley), a college freshman obsessed with joining a the Hermetic Order Of The Blue Rose, a secret society at the fictional, elite Belgrave University. Jack and his grandpa Pete “Pops” Morton (Matt Frewer) clearly believe the Blue Rose is a regular old organisation of high-powered skullduggery like the Skull And Bones society at Yale or Dear White People’s Order Of X. The Mortons, a working class family, hope Belgrave’s secret society will open up doors for townie Jack. If you go into The Order knowing its titular order is actually a cadre of magicians — as all promotional materials and the premiere’s cold open announces — it’s excessively easy to forget Jack has no idea he’s stumbling into many supernatural conspiracies.
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All of that changes for Jack by the end of the first episode, “Hell Week, Part One,” when he witnesses a group of Order members playing around with necromancy. And, if Jack has any questions about whether something otherworldly is really afoot at Belgrave, the premiere-closing appearance of a massive werewolf banishes all doubts.
The addition of werewolves is what gives The Order its focus and a way to separate itself from Netflix sibling Sabrina, which already has a group of dubious-at-best witches its lead probably shouldn't trust. Here, Belgrave’s other secret order, the Knights Of Saint Christopher, are a group of werewolves sworn to fight dark magic. The Blue Rose’s powered machinations keep setting off the Knight’s wolf-y senses, so it seems these witches aren’t as good as they want Jack and his witch peer mentor-love interest Alyssa (Sarah Grey) to believe.
At the cnetre of all of this black magic drama is Edward Coventry (Max Martini), the grand poobah of the Order and Jack’s unwitting biological father. Because, outside of the immortal battle between werewolves and witches, The Order also features a soap opera-ready familial drama. Prior to the events of the series, Jack’s mother Chloe died by suicide. For reasons unveiled over the drama’s 10 episodes, we learn why Jack and his deeply bitter grandpa blame Coventry, who allegedly has no idea he fathered a son, for the tragedy. Part of the Mortons' drive to get Jack into the Order in the first place is to bring Coventry down from the inside.
But — because this is still a sexy teen supernatural show — Jack has to take breaks from his magical vengeance plot to scheme his way into better grades, pine for a cute girl, and find his own Stiles Stilinski-ish goofy, lovable, lanky sidekick. Finally, a show Scott McCall (Tyler Posey) and Sabrina Spellman (Kiernan Shipka) can agree on.
The Order is available on Netflix now