When you have five minutes to get as much information as you can, it definitely isn’t easy, especially when it is about something you love.
And I do love Sterling Point.
I made a mistake. I had the screeners for Sterling Point sitting there for a while, and I decided — like a fool — to press play at 11 p.m. Eight episodes later, it was very much no longer 11 p.m. I laughed. I cried. I screamed at my TV. I wanted to reach through the screen and smack a few people. I decided Sully was going to be my new best friend, that I wanted Oona’s courage bottled and sold, and that Maple is, well… Maple.
That’s the thing about Sterling Point, which drops all eight episodes on Prime Video on August 5. Every single character is wildly different from the next, and somehow every single one of them is someone you recognize.
So when I got to sit down with Bo Bragason (Oona), Nikko Angelo Hinayo (Sully), and Mabel Strachan (Maple), I wanted to know the same thing I’d been asking myself at 3 a.m.: why does this show hit the way it does?
The answer, unanimously and immediately, was Megan Park.
The Writing Really Spoke for Itself
Park created the series, directs it, and executive produces alongside Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage’s Fake Empire and Margot Robbie’s LuckyChap. For Hinayo, working with her had been the goal for a long time.
“The writing really spoke for itself,” he told me. “I’ve always wanted to work with Megan Park, and for it to finally happen has been so, so amazing. And the way that she writes is so – honest to God – just so truthful.”
But it wasn’t only what was on the page. It was what Park invited them to bring to it.
“It really helped that she was really encouraging and having us really be ourselves when playing our characters,” Hinayo said. “And I think that translated really well. So that’s one thing that I think people should look out for.”
Bragason jumped in to co-sign – hard.
“She’s like a force of her own,” Bragason said. “If you get the chance to work with her, definitely do, because she’s so trusting. She works in a way that not many directors do, in terms of encouraging improv and just sticking within the context of a scene and then making it your own. I found that to be so, so nice.”
Strachan agreed, and pointed to something you feel the second the show starts: it doesn’t look or sound like TV. It looks and sounds like a real place.
“Megan is so clever and just amazing,” she said. “It really feels, when you’re watching it, like you’re really being transported into Muskoka. All of Megan’s projects feel so natural, and they feel so real. And I’m excited for people to see that.”
Sisterhood Is the Spine of the Show
Sterling Point follows 17-year-old Annie Jacobson (Ella Rubin), raised in New York City with her twin brother Connor (Keen Ruffalo) and their adoptive father Steven (Jay Duplass), whose life detonates when she inherits her estranged grandfather’s island in Canada. What she finds there: new friends, first feelings, and family secrets nobody meant for her to dig up.
What Bragason wants people to walk away with, though, is bigger than plot.
“I think the main thing is just that Sterling Point paints what life is in any situation, no matter where you are,” she said. “There’s definitely a lot of things people could relate to in terms of the queer storylines. I think it’s so important to have that representation and to have more of it on our screens.”
And then there’s the relationship at the center of her own arc — Oona and Maple, played by Bragason and Strachan, running parallel to Annie and Ramona (Amélie Hoeferle).
“Sisterhood is such a cool part of this show,” Bragason said. “It’s so wonderful to see, between Mabel and I, and then Ella and Amélie playing Annie and Ramona. I don’t know. It’s just — it’s good. I love this show.”
Strachan’s favorite part is how many different kinds of love the season makes room for.
“I loved how there were so many different relationships,” she said. “There were sisters, and then there were parents and kids, and then lovers. I love how there was something for everyone in it.”
Go Text Your Sister
Here’s my honest, unprofessional, entirely emotional review: the morning after I finished Sterling Point, I texted my sister out of nowhere to tell her I loved her. She immediately replied asking what was wrong. Nothing was wrong. I’d just finished a show that made me appreciate her more.
Watching TV is literally my job, and I have never seen a series pull that much emotion out of me that fast. This cast is extraordinary. Park has made something that feels lived-in and specific and true, and then handed it to actors who were trusted enough to make it their own.
All eight episodes of Sterling Point Season 1 premiere August 5 on Prime Video. Clear your night. Charge your phone. You’re going to want to call somebody when it’s over.
