Blood & Water- Season 3, A Review

There is no escape from the truth.

Blood & Water Season 1 Review. Blood & Water Season 2 Review.

The third season of Blood & Water follows Puleng (Ama Qamata) and Phiks (Khosi Ngema), now attempting to live as sisters and come to terms with what really happened to baby Phume all those years ago. With Phik’s Mother still missing, the police continue with their investigation and begin probing into each girls life, convinced they are still hiding one last secret. It is KB (Thabang Molaba) however who has something to hide, as his Mother Lisbeth (Sonia Mbele) is revealed to be the one behind the baby-ring, putting him in a difficult situation with his friends.

Despite being warned to stay away, Puleng continues her investigating, putting herself in more danger than ever before as she attempts to save a new group of girls from being kidnapped. With so much at stake this time Puleng will need all the help she can get to risk her life and get to the truth, promising and all explosive season with lots of twists, turns and major reveals. Despite finally being reunited the danger is far from over for Puleng and Phiks and despite what they might have thought, this is just the beginning.

Whenever I return to Blood & Water for a new season I always seem to forgot how good the show actually is and it seems a shame that it gets so little recognition or praise. So many other teen dramas start off strong but end up veering in strange and often weird directions (eg Riverdale, PLL) but across its three seasons Blood & Water has remained strong, really demonstrating a how to masterclass in writing the teen mystery. Since its pilot, Blood & Water has remained on point, focussing on the missing sister mystery and building up the suspense whilst still also including the everyday high school drama that makes the teen drama genre so iconic. The show perfectly blends together Puleng’s quest for justice with her entering this new world of the rich and elite and I really like how we continue to get both sides of the story, equally balancing the mystery with the relationship drama. Unlike other shows Blood & Water has also remained completely based in reality and completely on track, following this very serious, real life crime and never becoming silly or overdramatised, it’s really commendable how this show has built up its story up these past three years.

Now that Phikele’s identity was out in the open I liked seeing her finally sit down with her birth family and begin to come to terms with who she really was. This is something we’ve been waiting for since the very first episode and even amongst all the drama of season 3 we still got some really nice family moments and scenes with the Khumalo family. Finding out you were kidnapped as a baby isn’t exactly your very day situation and I loved how we got to really dive into Phik’s feelings on such a massive situation as she wanted to get to know her ‘new family’ whilst also grieving the loss of her ‘original family’ so to speak. I also liked seeing Phiks track down her birth Father and despite his limited appearances I would like to see more from this relationship moving forward, it’s definitely going to be interesting to see Phiks exploring this aspect of her life.

Season 3 definitely stepped it up in terms of story writing and the stakes just felt so much higher here compared to the previous two seasons. Because the kidnapping ring had now been outed to the police and the media the story had moved past its previous high school setting, now entering the very real world where people could and did get hurt. Now that it was common knowledge Phikele was in fact the missing Phume the police were actively working on this case and it wasn’t just Puleng and Wade amatuer sluething. This time around some very dangerous people had come to play and everything just felt a lot more scary, it made for a real high tension watch.

As well as the raised stakes via the kidnapping ring we also got plenty of old fashion teen drama messiness through characters like Chris (Arno Greef, Recipes for Love and Murder) and Reece (Greteli Fincham) and I continue to love their storylines just as much as I do the main mystery. Reese’s continued drug dealing to support her mentally ill Mother was further complicated by Tahira’s (Mekaila Mathys) investigation into the missing money and I liked how the two eventually came together to try and unmask ‘side chick chronicles’, a storyline I really hope continues next season. Chris also had his usual romance problems, this time stuck in a love triangle with Wendy (Natasha Thahane) and new flame Lunga (Mpho Sibeko)– who I really loved as a character! Storylines like this may not measure up to the full on kidnapping ring but I feel like the guilty pleasureless of it all balances out Blood & Water so we get equal parts mystery and teen drama, resulting in an all around enjoyable watch.

Overall I really loved this third season of Blood & Water and always forget how much I love this show. This time around the stakes felt a lot higher, putting Puleng and her friends in some very real danger with long-lasting consequences for all. Blood & Water really is the leading example of how to do a teen drama well and I can’t wait to see what happens next!