Spoilers to follow. You have been warned.
Netflix’s latest ice-skating drama Finding Her Edge is adapted from a YA novel by Jennifer Iacopelli. If you go to Goodreads and read just about any review on the book, nearly every reader has the same qualm: why does the female protagonist not end up with her fake dating partner?
To provide wider context, this is the premise of the show. Adriana Russo (Madelyn Keys) hasn’t skated in 2 years. She helps her father Will (Harmon Walsh) run their family-owned ice-skating rink but secretly wishes for her chance to get back on the ice. Now it seems her chance is here in the form of ice dancing bad boy Brayden Elliot (Cale Ambrozic). He’s shopping around for a new partner and her coach Camille (Meredith Forlenza) thinks he would be the answer to Adriana’s no partner woes. However, Adriana’s distracted by the arrival of her first love Freddie (Olly Atkins), who was cut as her dance partner due to the worries of height difference. But now he’s back and taller than ever, taking every opportunity to throw this in Adriana’s face as he still feels the anger of being tossed aside by her, even though it was her family’s decision and not hers. It’s all very Jane Austen’s Persuasion.
Adriana realises she can’t let the emotional whiplash of her relationship with Freddie stop her from seizing the opportunity right in front of her. So she chases Brayden down, hops on the train that he’s on, and begs him to give her a second chance via sexy dancing. Brayden’s only human after all; he feels the passion and the spark, so he agrees. Despite the rules of professionalism – no funny business off the ice – Adriana and Brayden find themselves unable to contain that spark as it burns into a passionate bonfire. The Braydriana romantic pairing is where the series excels, yet becomes its kryptonite.
You cannot set up a fake dating trope, only for those involved in said trope not to end up together by the end. I’m sorry, this is just the rules of romance. Also, majority of the show is devoted to the development of Adriana and Brayden, and this is done in their scenes together. Freddie has some stuff going on with his mother but this is shoehorned in conveniently towards the end. Adriana and Brayden get all the steamy, romantic moments. They are dancing sensually on a train, hooking up in a club, and getting all the passionate rehearsal screentime. It’s only natural that viewers would want them to end up together. It doesn’t help that Ambrozic is one of the better actors in the show, who makes Brayden’s yearning for Adriana so palpable.
We don’t even get to see Freddie and Adriana ice dancing together, with the only glimpse being some old video from when they were 12 years old. There’s even one scene where Freddie invites Adriana to hang out, and, I kid you not, it just cuts to them getting back from their hang-out. How am I supposed to root for a couple when we don’t even get to see them be together?
And sure, there are some decent moments between them, like the whole candlelight bruise kissing scene and the secretive make-out while surrounded by linens, but it all feels empty because we never get to see them fall in love, we’re just told ad nauseum that they are.
Listen, this show’s focus is not on the ice-skating/ice-dancing because they don’t even try to make things look believable. The actors are not figure skaters and don’t even look like competent skaters. Most of the scenes on the ice are done by the doubles, which the show makes no attempt to mask. Thus, most of keep watching not for the figure skating but for the messy romantic plotlines. So for the show to give us such a weak romantic pay-off is honestly rage bait.
Maybe it worked, because all I can see on the timeline is rage at the Freddie/Adriana pairing and a demand for season 2. Hopefully the hottest couple on ice find their way back to each other if Netflix greenlights a second season.
