Editor’s note: The following contains spoilers for My Life With the Walter Boys
The Big Picture
The relationship between Will and Hayley in My Life With the Walter Boys felt rushed. The wedding between Will and Hayley didn’t address their underlying issues and felt like a plot device. The lack of development and their unhealthy dynamic made it difficult for the audience to root for their relationship.
Throughout the first season of Netflix’s My Life With the Walter Boys, we join teenager Jackie Howard (Nikki Rodriguez) as she is introduced to and immersed in not only Silver Falls, Colorado but life with Katherine (Suits’ Sarah Rafferty) and George (Marc Blucas) and their many, many children. As Jackie gets the lay of the land, particularly amidst the war she’s now in the middle of between Alex (Ashby Gentry) and Cole (Noah LaLonde), she’s learning about the relationships the other characters share with each other and those outside of the Walter family — some of which work better than others, especially with so little time to dig into them in just one 10-episode season. One such couple that didn’t quite work as well as the series thought it did was between the lovely Hayley (Zoë Soul) and Will (Johnny Link), whose story and development — both individual development and as a couple — felt incredibly rushed.
My Life with the Walter Boys
Jackie Howard’s life is disrupted by a freak accident, she is ripped from her home and has to start over on a ranch in Colorado, with her guardian and a family of 12 boys.
Release Date December 7, 2023
Creator Ali Novak
Cast Sarah Rafferty , Alisha Newton , Nikki Rodriguez , Ashby Gentry , Corey Fogelmanis , Noah LaLonde
Genres Drama
Streaming Service(s) Netflix
Who Are Will and Hayley in ‘My Life With the Walter Boys’?
When My Life With the Walter Boys begins, we (and Jackie) are introduced to Will as the oldest of Katherine and George’s many children, a 24-year-old man who lives with his girlfriend Hayley in an apartment in the main section of small-town Silver Falls (rather than at the farm with the rest of his family). Will and Hayley are engaged to be married, but their future is uncertain as several complications arise (at the start of the series and throughout the season) that not only call into question their wedding but their future together. In the beginning, their wedding is uncertain because Hayley’s parents are not on board with the two getting married so young; they want them to wait a few years and continue pursuing their lives before, at the age of 24, tying the knot and settling down. Then, after they stopped worrying about what her parents thought they should do and decided to hold off anyway, Hayley’s educational pursuits and Will’s career pursuits got in the way.
Hayley sells her wedding dress to pay for other (necessary) things, while Will becomes obsessive over his new adventure while running Lark After Dark and trying to prepare for a future with Hayley — so much so that he stops really paying attention to her and what she wants, even going so far as to lie to her about who decided to keep the café open on Thanksgiving. After their problems come to a head, Will moves out of their apartment and back in with his family on the farm for several episodes, leading to him having the realization that he wants to be with Hayley more than anything. She realizes this as well, and the two have a rush wedding in the My Life With the Walter Boys Season 1 finale.
Related ‘My Life With the Walter Boys’ Season 2 Needs To Ditch This Character With little connection to the Walter family, why is this character a series regular?
Will and Hayley’s Development Was Too Rushed in ‘My Life With the Walter Boys’
Image via Netflix
Ultimately, it feels like Will and Hayley only got married so that the series could have a big event to mark the end of the season and spark some delicious teen drama, especially between Alex, Jackie, and Cole. But, as such, the wedding didn’t do Hayley, Will, and their story any favors. It didn’t feel like the natural culmination of Will and Hayley’s story, which, if anything, should have concluded with the realization that they were not ready whatsoever for a walk down the aisle.
Will and Hayley spend so much of the first season fighting about issues that were more than just things they could easily work past; these issues were genuine differences in how they wanted to live their lives. Will spends the season so focused on work and improving their lives that he neglects his relationship with Hayley, while it’s hard to know exactly what Hayley wants (other than Will to be more mindful and considerate), as it’s not even clear in her conversations with best friend Tara (Ashley Holliday Tavares). These issues break them up, understandably so, as they are then forced to reckon with their differences and how they want to approach the rest of their separate lives — something that then builds to the two throwing caution to the wind and deciding to get married.
Will and Hayley Shouldn’t Have Gotten Married
Will and Hayley get married in the My Life With the Walter Boys finale despite the fact that they don’t actually work through any of their outstanding issues. They decide to ignore them, proclaiming that they want to be together (as if that’s all that matters). However, even if they had started to work through their issues, it was too soon for them to get married regardless (from the audience’s perspective). We didn’t even get much of a chance to see the two as a couple in this short, 10-episode period. Instantly, they are hiding things and fighting, proving why they don’t work together. They break up and get back together in the course of this one season. Altogether, they are kind of an unhealthy pairing. So, the two getting married feels incredibly rushed, unearned, and not something that the audience can really root for. The two needed more (and much better) development as both individuals and a couple before this for the story to work. But, as of now, it’s difficult to even care about them or whether their marriage lasts (which it probably shouldn’t).
The series relied on the characters telling us, rather than showing us, what a good couple Will and Hayley are, which is an instant way to make people root against a pairing. Plus, now we have the cliffhanger mystery of who “Morgan” is, as Hayley received a text from this person while in bed with Will after the wedding but lied to him about who it was. Did she sleep with someone else while they were on a break? (And let’s not start with the Ross and Rachel stuff from Friends here, if so.) But, again, why should we even care? The couple’s entire arc was incredibly rushed and made it difficult to root for both characters as a whole. As of now, it’s not clear whether there’s any way to fix this in the upcoming second season either.
My Life With the Walter Boys is streaming on Netflix.
Watch on Netflix