It’s hard being an adolescent. High school, embarrassed families, and puberty are all part of the rite of passage. There are times when the need to fit in is so overwhelming that it might drive us to make dubious judgments. Fakes, a new Netflix original series, takes place in such a world. To that end, a new teaser video shows how far two high school seniors would go to become the top dogs at their school before realising they’ve made a catastrophic error. There is a brief glimpse in the teaser into the lives of childhood friends Zoe Christensen (Emilija Baranac) and Rebecca Li (Jennifer Tong).
The story of the duo’s journey to the top and inevitable fall to the bottom is told through fourth-wall-breaking asides. To buy some alcohol for the next weekend’s party, the two begin scanning off bogus identification cards for themselves and their friends. After learning that expanding their business to a larger scale will allow them to live like high rollers, the two plunge headfirst into their new endeavour, not comprehending the potentially hazardous characters they’ll run with along the way.
As soon as they discover that the feds aren’t the only ones on their way, things get pretty tense. Fans of teen-oriented programming will recognise both of the show’s protagonists. Baranac has been on Riverdale, To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, and DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, while Tong has appeared on Arrow. “The Warrior Nun” creator David Turk’s series will also feature Richard Harmon (The X-Files), Mya Lowe (Undercover Cheerleader), Devon Slack (The Handmaid’s Tale), Oliver Rice (Chesapeake Shores), Debbie Podowski (Love Hard), and Toby Hargrave (The Walking Dead) (The Twilight Zone 2019). Tabia Lau and Turko both act as showrunners for the series.
Reality Distortion Field’s Simon Barry and Stephen Hegyes join the project as producers and executive producers, respectively. Lilly Burns and Tony Hernandez of Jax Media join Barry and Hegyes in the latter. If the trailer is any indication, lovers of heist-centred ventures like Inventing Anna, wacky start-up stories like WeCrashed, and YA productions like The Summer I Turned Pretty will like the new ten-episode series’ blend of teenage friendship and criminality at its heart.
The series will release on Netflix on September 2nd, and you can get a taste of what to expect by watching the teaser below. In this wild tale, two adolescent best friends develop (and destroy) one of the greatest phoney ID empires in North America by mistake.
On the 2nd of September, Netflix will release Fakes.