MTV’s Sweet/Vicious Is The Superhero Duo We Need

MTV’s newest scripted series Sweet/Vicious debuts Tuesday November 15th at 10pm; however, the first three episodes are currently available online at MTV.com and OnDemand via your cable provider. Never one to turn down a chance to preview a series early, I binged all three over the weekend. I liked what I saw, it’s like Kick-Ass meets Veronica Mars, but I imagine most viewers will know whether it’s their jam or not based on the premise alone.

MTV describes Sweet/Vicious as:

an offbeat superhero story about two girls, who never felt like they belonged, finding a home in each other… and trying to kick a lot of ass. Ophelia (Taylor Dearden) and Jules (Eliza Bennett) lead double lives as wannabe vigilantes hell-bent on bringing justice to those who get away with abuse on their college campus.”

Here’s the trailer:

A Serious Central Concept With a Side of Laughter

I strongly believe it’s important for issues like sexual assault, campus rape culture, and PTSD to be explored on television, and not just in a very special episode kind of way. Sweet/Vicious seems poised to do just that. The show doesn’t seem interested in glossing over the tougher stuff. It’s dealing with real shit and all the messy emotional stuff that comes with it. Sometimes Sweet/Vicious is touching and sometimes it’s violent, but I respect the show for not pulling any punches, literally and figuratively.

And despite their main premise being based around a variety of heavy topics, the first few episodes still manage to balance the comedy elements well. There’s a little something for everyone with tried and true stoner humor, physical comedy, and pop culture references galore. No spoilers here, but there were several moments that I found to be particularly hilarious, one of which involved a show tune.

Women Getting Things Done

Not only does Sweet/Vicious revolve around two strong and intelligent female protagonists, Ophelia and Jules, but the show was created by Jennifer Kaytin Robinson, who also wrote every episode of the first season! And not to be outdone, two of the three series’ producers (Stacey Sher and Emily Levitan) are women as well.

And while the list of directors on IMDB currently doesn’t include any women, they do include experienced directors who have helmed music videos and many other female led shows like Broad City, Younger, Weeds, United States of Tara, and more.

It’s also great to see MTV continuing to invest in more female centric stories. Sweet/Vicious is the third of their three pilots picked up to series for 2016, Mary + Jane and Loosely Exactly Nicole being the other two.

Tune in on Tuesday

My verdict – watch this show. It’s tackling important topics, topics that deserve much more time and nuance than an episode of Law & Order: SVU can provide. Plus, it’s about time that someone flips the script on sexual assault stories on TV, moving away from shocking plot twists and victim-based story lines to ones of survivors and character agency, and Sweet/Vicious does just that.

And if my vote of confidence isn’t enough, The Mary Sue is excited for Sweet/Vicious and so are some of my favorite TV critics: