Puleng Khumalo (Ama Qamata) is a 16-year-old girl who has been living with a ghost her entire life — but “Blood & Water” is not a ghost story, at least not in a typical sense. The South Africa-set Netflix teen drama centers on a different kind of haunting. Puleng’s sister was abducted under mysterious circumstances, and 17 years later, the case remains cold. She hasn’t been seen in nearly two decades, but her presence looms large in Puleng’s family. Every year they celebrate her birthday with an all-out extravaganza.
This year, Puleng follows up the morbid gathering with another birthday party. She finds herself surrounded by rich kids at a stranger’s birthday party — a stranger who someone observes bears a physical resemblance to her. A rowing star and the most popular girl at her elite school, Fikile “Fiks” Bhele (Khosi Ngema) takes a shining to Puleng. She also shares a birthday with her missing sister. With little more than this evidence and a hunch, Puleng becomes convinced that Fiks is her sister.
When family drama leads to gossip and scrutiny at her high school, Puleng seizes the opportunity to leave her old pupils behind and enroll at Fiks’ prestigious high school under a fake surname. She ingratiates herself with the rich kids and overachievers to get closer to Fiks, and investigate whether she’s her long-lost sister.
“Blood & Water” quickly makes it clear Puleng isn’t the only one harboring a secret — her friends, family, and the faculty at her school all have skeletons in their closets.
The series was created by South African filmmaker Nosipho Dumisa, is set in Cape Town, and features a mostly black cast. Back in 2018, “Euphoria’s” Zendaya spoke about her experience being “a light- skinned black woman,” which she described as “Hollywood’s acceptable version of a black girl.” It’s so rare — and refreshing — to see a single dark-skinned black actor on the big or small screen, and to see so many of them on “Blood & Water,” a Netflix show being viewed around the world, feels like a major milestone. It’s also important to recognize that much of “Blood & Water’s” viewership will be comprised of teens, some of whom seldom if ever get the chance to see characters who look like them on-screen.
“Blood & Water” shares some DNA with soapy teen mysteries such as “Riverdale,” “Pretty Little Liars,” and “Gossip Girl,” particularly glitzy parties, a lack of adult supervision, and love triangles. After watching three episodes, I’m hoping the show digs deeper into Puleng’s feelings about her sister, and what it was like for her to grow up in her shadow. The mystery has me hooked, but I’ll be more invested in Puleng and the series if we get more insight into her interior life.
“Blood & Water” is now streaming on Netflix.
