Give them the 'Boots'

A new Netflix coming-of-age drama, plus 'Peacemaker,' 'The Lowdown,' 'Slow Horses,' and more

Alan Sepinwall

10 Oct 2025 — 5 min read

Liam Oh and Miles Heizer join the Marines together in 'Boots'

Whats alan watching give them the boots

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What's next?

Things to look forward to in the next week or so:

Later today, my take on the Peacemaker Season Two finale, for paid subscribers;
My recap of the fifth episode of The Lowdown, for paid subscribers;
My recap of the fourth episode of Slow Horses Season Five, for paid subscribers;
A few spoiler-y thoughts on the premiere of The Chair Company (which I may or may not cover weekly), for paid subscribers;
My take on the third season of The Diplomat, for paid subscribers;
The first of a two-part look at different kinds of TV Shows That Don't Exist, for subscribers to the What Else Is Alan Watching? bonus tier;
The free Friday newsletter, filling in various gaps.

Catching up:

Here's what I published since last Friday's newsletter:

I recapped the penultimate Peacemaker Season Two episode, where we learned some surprising things about this terrible parallel world:

I recapped the fourth episode of The Lowdown, which was an excellent spotlight on real-life Tulsa native Jeanne Tripplehorn as Betty Jo:

I recapped a Slow Horses episode where Jackson Lamb weaponized his own farts and other flammable things to help his team deal with a group of Dogs occupying Slough House:

And I reviewed The Chair Company, Tim Robinson's new comic mystery series for HBO:

What is your major malfunction?!?!

Among the more curious shows Norman Lear made over the course of 100 years on this Earth was the 1994 CBS sitcom 704 Hauser, which you could consider a spinoff of his most famous series, All in the Family, in that it took place in Archie and Edith Bunker's house, and thus was set in the same universe as All in the Family, The Jeffersons, Maude, et al. But shared real estate usually isn't the thing people are looking for when they want something tied into a previous show that they loved.

But while working on 704 Hauser, Lear met writer Greg Cope White, who spent six years in the Marines despite being a closeted gay man, in the years before the introduction of the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy. Lear and White remained friendly over the years, and eventually they realized they wanted to tell White's story, which led to White's memoir The Pink Marine, and now its streaming adaptation Boots, adapted by Andy Parker. I haven't read the book, but the show is an engaging coming-of-age story, with strong performances by Miles Heizer and Max Parker.

Boots is a period piece, set in 1990. Though Parenthood alum Heizer is in his early 30s, he can still pass for an 18-year-old, and we see the fictionalized Cameron Cope enlist in the Marines as a response to a lifetime of being bullied, and also as a chance to stick with best friend Ray (Liam Oh), through a program that allows friends to sign up and go through basic training together. Inevitably, life at Parris Island proves to be very different from what either of them expected, especially when their group is assigned a new training officer, Staff Sergeant Marcus Sullivan (Parker), who, depending on the day or time, seems determined to either protect Cameron or destroy him. His motivations won't surprise you, but Parker plays him with impressive intensity and vulnerability.

This is primarily Cameron's story, but Boots also functions well as an ensemble piece, telling us enough about the other recruits and their varied motivations for enlisting to make their stories interesting even when they don't directly intersect with our hero's various dilemmas. The only one that doesn't work, oddly, involves the show's most famous castmember. Vera Farmiga plays Cameron's mother, Barbara, who is so inattentive that she doesn't even realize at first that her son has left home and enlisted in the Marines. We follow her for a while as she gets to know other Marine moms, but those scenes always feel like a distraction from the main story, and don't even add anything to when Barbara and Cameron finally reconnect late in the season. Having Farmiga attached no doubt helped get Boots made, but most of her scenes are oddly skippable.

The training officers use some of the same language and tactics familiar in previous movies and shows on the subject; anyone who's seen Full Metal Jacket will be able to recite a few bits of dialogue along with the recruits. The show is more rah-rah than you might expect, acknowledging some of the dehumanizing aspects of military life — especially if you have to keep your sexuality a secret just to serve — but primarily leaning into the various positives Cameron and most of his comrades are getting out of the experience. But the cast is solid, it moves smoothly, and effectively mixes light and dark moments. And even though it could easily be a miniseries, Parker and company conclude the season in a place where it wouldn't feel like that much of a stretch if Netflix wanted to make another season.

Is it in the top 5 of shows featuring Norman Lear's name? No. Possibly top 10, since his filmography is a bit top-heavy. But I enjoyed Boots, and if this is the final credit at all for one of the best to ever do it, it's not a bad one at all.

That's it for today! What did everybody else think?

I can be reached at alan@alansepinwall.com