''Betty'' is an American teen

comedy Comedy is a genre of fiction that consists of discourses or works intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter, especially in theatre, film, stand-up comedy, television, radio, books, or any other entertainment medium. The term o ...

television series created by

Crystal Moselle Sierra Ditson "Crystal" Moselle (born August 1, 1980) is an American filmmaker. Her debut film was '' The Wolfpack'' (2015), a documentary on the Angulo brothers. She has also made '' That One Day'' (2016) and ''Skate Kitchen'' (2018). Early lif ...

. The series is based on Moselle's 2018 feature film ''

Skate Kitchen ''Skate Kitchen'' is a 2018 American teen drama film written and directed by Crystal Moselle based on her short film ''That One Day''. Rachelle Vinberg stars as Camille, a teenage girl who befriends a group of female skateboarders in New York C ...

'', which was in turn based on her 2016 short film ''That One Day''. It includes most of the cast of the original feature film, and focuses on the

Gen Z Generation Z (or more commonly Gen Z for short), colloquially known as zoomers, is the Western demographic cohort succeeding Millennials and preceding Generation Alpha. Researchers and popular media use the mid-to-late 1990s as starting birt ...

all-girl group's efforts to stand out in New York's predominantly male world of skateboarding. The series premiered on

HBO Home Box Office (HBO) is an American premium television network, which is the flagship property of namesake parent subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is ba ...

on May 1, 2020. In June 2020, the series was renewed for a second season which premiered on June 11, 2021. In August 2021, the series was canceled after two seasons. ''Betty'' received positive critical reception, and was nominated for a

Gotham Award The Gotham Awards () are American film awards, presented annually to the makers of independent films at a ceremony in New York City, the city first nicknamed "Gotham" by native son Washington Irving, in an issue of ''Salmagundi'', published on ...

for Shortform Breakthrough Series.

Plot

''Betty'' follows "a tight-knit group of girl skaters and follows their everyday lives as they navigate the male-dominated world of skateboarding. The title comes from the derogatory nickname sometimes thrown at them by men."

Cast

Main

* Dede Lovelace as Janay, a bold vlogger * Kabrina Adams as Honeybear, a shy aspiring filmmaker * Nina Moran as Kirt, a flirtatious ladykiller and a "lovable stoner" * Ajani Russell as Indigo, a low-level weed dealer from a wealthy family * Rachelle Vinberg as Camille, a serious skater who tries to fit in with the male skaters

Recurring

* Caleb Eberhardt as Donald (season 1) * Edmund Donovan as Bambi (season 1) * Katerina Tannenbaum as Ash * Reza Nader as Farouk * Alexander Cooper as Charlie * CJ Ortiz as Luis * Brenn Lorenzo as Ceila (season 1) * Jules Lorenzo as Yvette (season 1) * Raekwon Haynes as Philip * Karim Callender Abdul as Dante (season 1) * Noa Fisher as Peachy (season 1) * Kai Espion Monroe as Kai (season 1) * Lil Dre as Tai * Andrew Darnell as Sylvester * Roblé Ali as Jzabel * Isabel Palma as Shelby * Rad Pereira as Victoria * Moises Acevedo as Micah

Guest

* Ben Sinclair as Biker ("Ladies on Fire") *

Tony Hawk Anthony Frank Hawk (born May 12, 1968), nicknamed Birdman, is an American professional skateboarder, entrepreneur, and the owner of the skateboard company Birdhouse. A pioneer of modern vertical skateboarding, Hawk completed the first documen ...

as Skater ("Ladies on Fire") *

Amy Sedaris Amy Louise Sedaris (; born March 29, 1961) is an American actress, comedian, and writer. Most recently, she has appeared in both ''The Mandalorian'' (2019–2020) and ''The Book of Boba Fett'' (2022) as Peli Motto. She played Jerri Blank in the ...

as Woman on Trail ("Sweet Tooth") *

Gina Gershon Gina L. Gershon (born June 10, 1962) is an American actress. She has had roles in the films ''Cocktail (1988 film), Cocktail'' (1988), ''Red Heat (1988 film), Red Heat'' (1988), ''Showgirls'' (1995), ''Bound (1996 film), Bound'' (1996), ''Face/ ...

as Oracle ("Sweet Tooth")

Episodes

Series overview

Season 1 (2020)

Season 2 (2021)

Production

Development

On August 14, 2019, it was reported that

had given ''Betty'' a series order consisting of six episodes.The series is created, directed, executive produced by

who also co-wrote and directed ''

''. The series is a spinoff of the film and features many of the same actors, with some tweaks to various storylines. Lesley Arfin, Igor Srubshchik Jason Weinberg were executive producers alongside Moselle. Production companies involved with the series are Untitled Entertainment, A Dreamy Crystal Moselle Sequence, and Arfin Material. The series premiered on May 1, 2020. On June 18, 2020, HBO renewed the series for a second season which premiered on June 11, 2021. On August 24, 2021, HBO canceled the series after two seasons.

Casting

Alongside the initial series announcement, it was reported that Rachelle Vinberg, Nina Moran, Moonbear, Dede Lovelace, and Ajani Russell would reprise their roles from ''Skate Kitchen'' as series regulars. As with the film, the actors play fictionalized versions of themselves.

Filming

The series was filmed on-location in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. The show has no sets.

Reception

Critical reception

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, the first season holds an approval rating of 97% based on 30 reviews, with an average rating of 7.15/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Earnest, audacious, and effortlessly cool, ''Betty'' captures the spirit of skating and friendship with style." On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, it has a weighted average score of 77 out of 100 based on 14 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Betty was noted by ''

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'' for depicting the friendships of women, several of them queer or of color, "in a naturalistic way." Ashlie D. Stevens wrote of the series in ''

Salon Salon may refer to: Common meanings * Beauty salon, a venue for cosmetic treatments * French term for a drawing room, an architectural space in a home * Salon (gathering), a meeting for learning or enjoyment Arts and entertainment * Salon (P ...

'', ""Betty" isn't fast-paced or bursting with dramatic turns, but therein lies its appeal. This is a show that is about watching a new generation of women empower themselves and the women around them, seemingly in real time." Robert Lloyd of the ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...

'' noted while "there is no nudity, that old HBO staple", that a strength of the show is "its main themes are friendship, self-knowledge, identity, equality and freedom...It feels innocent, which is not to say naive. And it is appropriately, almost casually exhilarating." ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' and ''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...

'' named the first season to end-of-year "best new series" lists. The second season has a 100% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 5 reviews, with an average rating of 8/10. On

, it has a weighted average score of 74 out of 100 based on 7 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

Ratings

Season 1

Awards and nominations

Notes

References

External links

* * {{HBONetwork Shows 2020 American television series debuts 2020s American LGBT-related comedy television series 2021 American television series endings English-language television shows HBO original programming Live action television shows based on films Skateboarding mass media Television series about teenagers Television shows set in New York City