In ‘The Order,’ College is Magic

The Order, whose highly-popular second Netflix season appeared in June, features seemingly normal college students getting sucked into crazy magical adventures. Belgrave University seems like an ordinary university for the elite. With normal fraternities, sororities, and all the usual riff raff you can find at any college. However, the majority of students don’t know the secret it holds: a magical secret society, designated to keep order in the magic world, actually runs the campus. The school grants Jack Morton, an ordinary boy from an ordinary town, the privilege of attending the school on a full-ride scholarship. With his grandfather’s help, he attempts to get to the bottom of the strange happenings that have occurred within the walls of the school for years.

The Order does a good job at building up to the action, providing lots of mystery and many unanswered questions. I got so tied into the show I could hardly take my eyes off it. The ridiculous magic and good character development made it hard to stop watching. It’s action-packed and uses lots of humor to defuse the constant tense situations that arise while the characters try to learn to control their magical powers. Did I mention that there are werewolves?

But there are some very visible flaws within the show if you actually pay attention, which I had to because I was reviewing it. For example, innocent college students are constantly dying in magical crossfire. This never seems to phase the main characters, and they use some magical incantation to make all the non-magic-users remember it as an accident.

While that could slide a few times, I feel like at some point someone would question, “Why do students constantly die in terrible accidents at this elite college?” It makes no sense. The Order is supposed to take place in the modern world, yet as the show goes on, the deaths of innocent bystanders becomes more of a joke than a problem. Obviously a show with magic and werewolves isn’t going to be realistic, but it could do a better job at addressing all the deaths within the show instead of blowing them off after five minutes like they were nothing.

If you like Teen Wolf or Harry Potter, then this is the perfect show for you. It maintains a good balance of young adult drama and crazy magic adventures all at the same time. It provides a wide variety of relatable main characters, At times the show is very ridiculous and cliche, but it’s usually pretty funny. Every episode in both seasons entertained me.

Once again, Netflix has produced another binge-worthy show that holds the audience’s attention throughout its entire running. The only reason I would say to skip it is if you’re deathly afraid of werewolves, like my dad, who refused to watch a single moment of the entire show. If you’re a fan of fantasy, drama, or you’re looking for a new show to binge, then I would definitely recommend checking out The Order on Netflix.