Sweet Vicious, MTV’s newest original show, follows two college students—Jules and Ophelia—as they battle sexual assault on their campus. Literally.
Computer hacking Ophelia and sorority girl Jules make a powerful duo as they take it upon themselves to take care of the sexual assault epidemic plaguing the campus of their college, Darlington, by beating up and threatening rapists.
The first episode sets the scene for the whole show, with a figure dressed in black sneaking through a window to threaten and stab a guy, showing him a picture of a girl he sexually assaulted. This ninja-like figure, who we soon learn to be one of the protagonists, Jules, leaves out the window as soon as the police arrive. Ophelia, the other protagonist, is introduced as she wakes up from a one night stand. Not longer after, we learn that she is risking expulsion despite her intellect due to her weed problem. Our two heroes cross paths as green-haired Ophelia bumps into ninja-clad Jules, the former running from a staff member who caught her smoking and the later attacking another guy.
The two are brought together when Ophelia finds Jules’s lost necklace and returns it. Interested in Jules’s double life, Ophelia puts a tracking device into her phone and follows her as she targets her next offender. And good thing, too, because this guy is able to overpower Jules, causing emotional flashbacks to her own rape to occur while she is knocked out. Luckily, Ophelia shows up, and is able to kill the guy before he kills Jules himself.
Faced with the consequences of their actions, the two girls find themselves in Ophelia’s car with a dead body in the trunk and Wicked’s “For Good” playing on the speakers. The two bond by performing the iconic number, made ironic by Jules’s blonde hair and Ophelia’s green hair, representing the musical’s protagonists, Glinda and Elphaba. After taking a detour to a bar to keep their mind off the night’s events, the two girls stumble out to find that Ophelia’s car has been towed, dead body and all.
The second episode is equally as entertaining yet powerful as the first, setting the show up for the rest of the season with Ophelia and Jules officially taking on the role of the campus’s protectors. Only two episodes in, the show already presents itself as more than capable of tackling heavy topics, such as the use of recreational marijuana, racial profiling and rape culture, leaving fans excited to see where the rest of the season takes them.
You can catch up on Sweet Vicious on the MTV website, and watch new episodes Tuesdays at 10/9c after Teen Wolf.
