Young Royals - Season 1
“Young Royals presents a nice alternative to the usual coming-out journey.”
Title: Young Royals
Episodes Reviewed: Season 1
Creators: Lisa Ambjörn 👩🏼🇸🇪, Lars Beckung 👨🏼🇸🇪, and Camilla Holter 👩🏼🇸🇪
Writers: Lisa Ambjörn 👩🏼🇸🇪 (6 eps), Lars Beckung 👨🏼🇸🇪 (6 eps), Camilla Holter 👩🏼🇸🇪 (6 eps), Sofie Forsman 👩🏼🇸🇪 (6 eps), Tove Forsman 👩🏼🇸🇪 (6 eps), and Pia Gradvall 👩🏼🇸🇪 (6 eps)
Reviewed by Mimi 👩🏻🇺🇸
Technical: 4/5
Netflix’s latest bingeable import may be one of the best teen soaps I’ve watched in decades. It’s up there with the UK’s Skins (2007–2013) and compares to Norway’s Skam (2015), which has since been adapted in eight other countries. Young Royals leans into many well-worn tropes of the genre—such as an exclusive boarding school, the navigation of social hierarchies, and forbidden love—while maintaining a contemporary and fresh perspective. And like its predecessors, the series has been lauded for casting actual teenagers.
Ripe for high drama, the main storyline follows a prince named Wilhelm (Edvin Ryding), the younger of the Swedish royal family’s two sons. After he’s caught on video brawling at a party, his parents ship Wilhelm off to Hillerska, the same boarding school that counts his older brother Erik (Ivar Forsling), the crown prince, among their illustrious alumni. The brothers’ William-and-Harry-esque dynamic offers non-Swedish viewers something recognizable, as we’re led into this otherwise arcane and peculiar world of old money. Serving as Wilhem’s guide, his second cousin August (Malte Gårdinger) epitomizes all the class snobbery and self-importance one might expect from an aristocrat. While August appears eager for Wilhem to assimilate with his blue-blooded classmates, the young prince seems more interested in getting to know Simon (Omar Rudberg), a “non-res” student who lives off-campus with his lower-middle-class family.
While the show doesn’t shatter any formulas, it trusts that the conflicts laid out in the compact, six-episode season are compelling enough, the stakes apparent. There’s no need to resort to sensationalizing (in contrast to American hits such as Gossip Girl or Riverdale). Instead, the writing invests in developing the characters’ inner lives and interpersonal relationships. In this way, Young Royals avoids talking down to its viewers, whether adolescent or adult.
Gender: 4/5
Does it pass the Bechdel Test? YES
Although not the focal point of the series, young women emerge as some of the more complex and intriguing characters. Introduced as a friend of Wilhem’s from his preschool days, Felice (Nikita Uggla) fulfills the role of the archetypal Queen Bee, regarded as “perfect,” popular, and so rich she might as well be a royal. August pursues her because of her status and wealth, even though she lusts after Wilhem.
The love triangle is much less interesting than the unlikely friendship Felice forms with Simon’s sister Sara (Frida Argento). Scenes of the girls’ equestrian class perfectly encapsulate their dynamic: Felice struggles to ride and handle the horse she begged her parents to buy her; while Sara, unable to afford one of her own, happily cares for Felice’s animal. Their unequal footing is highlighted right off the bat. But Felice also plays against the stereotype. Forgoing Mean Girl clichés, she and her friends welcome Sara into their intoxicating bubble of designer clothes and dorm room sleepovers. Later, sidestepping a potential catfight, Felice chooses her friendship with Sara over dating August.
In place of outright bullying, the obliviousness of their privilege rubs off on Sara in other insidious ways, amplifying her hunger to be like them. She’s both sympathetic and flawed, and Argento’s nuanced performance makes her character’s social climbing particularly fascinating to witness.
Race: 4/5
The series’ subtle yet conscious treatment of race adds dimension to a setting that might otherwise come off as flat. Nobody bats an eye that Felice is biracial, with a Black father and white mother. In fact, many of Hillerska’s students appear to be non-white—a nod to capitalism as a pervasive, global system. But August’s obsession with noble lineage and insistent loyalty to the crown reveal a deeply embedded form of racism. If white English society’s villainizing of Meghan Markle has taught us anything, it’s that August’s disdain for a commoner like Simon probably has as much to do with class as it does race.
Meanwhile, beyond the gates of boarding school, Simon lives in a reality that is primarily non-white. He speaks Spanish at home with his mother (played by Carmen Gloria Pérez, a Bronx-born Puerto Rican actress), and both of his friends who attend the local public school are people of color, though their backgrounds are never explicitly stated.
Sweden’s increase in immigrant and refugee populations unfortunately also has given rise to a “nationalistic” backlash. It seems only appropriate then to cast Rudberg, who emigrated from Venezuela as a child, in the role of someone who exists on the margins of an elitist institution such as Hillerska. The fact that Simon represents a progressive and changing Swedish identity renders Wilhem’s attraction to him all the more threatening to the imperialist tradition, from which the Swedish monarchy hails.
LGBTQ: 5/5
The angst-filled romance between Wilhelm and Simon functions as the gravitational force of the series, and the young actors do a superb job of conveying all the awkwardness and joy that accompany first love. Their differences in class and status create numerous obstacles for the couple, but perhaps the more complicated questions involve their individual relationships to their own sexuality.
The character arcs of the two leads present a nice alternative to the usual coming-out journey: Simon is open about being gay, while Wilhem still seems to be finding himself, which would be perfectly understandable for any other teenager. Unfortunately, as a member of the royal family, Wilhem’s private life exists under extreme scrutiny, bordering on abuse. When he’s pressured to make a statement denying any involvement with Simon while tactfully acknowledging that “Everyone should be allowed to live as gay or straight or whatever they want,” it’s clear that level of freedom does not extend to himself.
The issue here isn’t about Wilhelm coming out to people in his personal life, which actually doesn’t seem to pose a problem, but what it means for someone who did not choose to be a public figure to come out to a nation. Amid heightened circumstances, Wilhelm and Simon’s relationship offers an intimate and surprisingly mature story about young, queer love.
Bonus for Disability: +0.75
Sara is introduced as having Asperger’s and ADHD, and in a positive move that remains unfortunately rare, she’s played authentically by Argento who also identifies as having Asperger’s. Sara’s preference for the company of horses over people, along with moments of misunderstanding social cues, illustrate some of the challenges she faces as a neurodivergent individual, but it doesn’t limit who she is. She’s also ambitious, observant, and strong-willed—in other words, a fully three-dimensional character.
Bonus for Body Diversity: +0.50
Playing the most popular girl in school, Uggla shatters preconceived notions of a typical Swedish beauty with not only her darker complexion but also in terms of body type. She has boobs and a fuller figure than many of her white classmates, but none of these physical traits impact Felice’s social standing one way or another—proving that wealth remains a powerful form of privilege. Nevertheless, we see how whiteness still informs normalized beauty standards through her strained relationship with her mother, who is blonde, thin, and white—all the things Felice is not.
In one instance, her mother gifts Felice with an all-white dress she likewise inherited from her own mother to wear during the school’s traditional Lucia celebration. Felice’s literal struggle to zip up the dress exemplifies a broader issue of her mother, intentionally or not, imposing beauty standards on her daughter that simply do not fit.
Mediaversity Grade: A- 4.56/5
In many respects, the series demonstrates a keen understanding of the issues affecting not only the younger generation but many of us so-called adults, too. Its awareness of the ways class, privilege, and race intersect with identity feels incredibly forward-looking. Without seeking to revolutionize its YA genre, Young Royals certainly elevates it with skillful storytelling and, above all, great entertainment.
Like Young Royals? Try these other teen romances featuring same-sex crushes.
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