New year, new mystery.
The fourth season of Blood & Water follows Puleng (Ama Qamata) and the rest of Parkhurst High as they attempt to move on from their recent trauma and the events of the baby-napping ring, with the crime having gone to trial and all those involved arrested. The group hope that a new year at Parkhurst will be a fresh start for everyone but soon enough an anonymous texter begin causing drama, hoping to shine light on a past crime and bring those responsible to justice. Both Puleng and Fiks (Khosi Ngema) find themselves targets after a sex tape featuring Puleng and Iván (André Lamoglia, Elite) (side note: I really loved this character crossover) is leaked and Fiks herself is forced to look back on her actions.
Meanwhile KB’s (Thabang Molaba) music career takes off with Chris (Arno Greeff, Recipes for Love and Murder) as his manager but a sampling error puts the pair in danger once more with the wrong sort of people. Wendy (Natasha Thahane) also returns from Spain but finds her relationship with Chris difficult to maintain, especially with her own grades failing. Tahira (Mekaila Mathys) faces similar issues and chooses to take drastic measures to improve her scholarship chances, putting her entire future in jeopardy. With so much going on in their lives will the students even make it to graduation or will secrets and lies threaten them once more and make this a last year they’re sure to never forget?
Season four saw us going down the classic teen drama route of anonymous texting, with ‘Pool Boy’ targeting both Puleng and Fiks and blackmailing them over a previous incident at Parkhurst. Whilst the mystery within the rest of the narrative felt a bit weird (more on that later) I did enjoy the actual execution and getting to see this new form of danger for the students through blackmail. Anonymous texting is pretty much a teen drama staple at this point (PLL, One of us is Lying) and I do always enjoy the mystery of it all. It was a bit annoying that the culprit was somebody we’d never even met (how very PLL) but in terms of entertainment I did enjoy from this perspective.
I liked how season four addressed the severe trauma several of the characters have went through these past four years and how they aren’t going to just magically move on from everything, especially considering how so many family members were involved in the baby-napping ring. We saw both Puleng and Fiks seeking therapy as well as Sam’s (Leroy Siyafa) own PTSD after his kidnaping and later intimacy issues as a result. So many of these teen dramas have their character’s involved in daring and dangerous activities but so rarely do we actually see the aftermath and here especially it can’t have been easy to realise that your parents/friend’s parents aren’t necessarily good people.
Whilst I definitely enjoyed this fourth season of Blood & Water it also felt kind of random and honestly the show could have ended at season three and nothing really would have changed. The overall storyline here had little to do with the baby kidnapping ring, moving on completely and focussing on a whole new mystery that just did not feel as genuine. So much of the backstory was pre Puleng even joining Parkhurst and so I don’t really know why she became involved other than trying to save Fik’s life. It just felt weird being introduced to these completely new characters who were apparently hellbent on revenge, all for an incident we’d never even hear of in the three years the show had been running. After such a well built up arc across the first three seasons this final mystery just felt a bit too random and it’s definitely one of the show’s weaker seasons in this regard.
Although there’s been no official news yet I am going to assume that this was the final season of Blood & Water, especially since we saw the main cast all graduate and leave the school. Unless the show tries to introduce us to a whole new set of characters I do think this is the last time we’re going to see Puleng, Fiks and the others and on the whole I have really enjoyed this show for the past four years. On the surface this was just another teen mystery drama but I think that the missing sibling and baby-napping angle gave it a really unique perspective and I really loved following Puleng on her journey to get to the truth. The show’s side characters have also all been really enjoyable and this is definitely one of those rare shows where even the comedic side plots can be just as engaging as the main mystery.
Overall I enjoyed this fourth (and potentially final?) season of Blood & Water and whilst the main mystery felt a little bit random I still liked seeing the characters again and getting to say a final goodbye to Parkhurst as a whole. Blood & Water as a show had been massively entertaining and I really loved the private school setting and the initial baby-napping setup, it felt fresh and different from your other teen dramas. Puleng, Fiks, Chris and more have all been so great over the years and this is definitely one of my higher ranking teen dramas, it never got too crazy and I think it also ended right when it needed to.
Ramblings of a Supposed Writer 