The Trailer for Tegan and Sara’s TV Show Is Here, Queer, Walking With Their ’90s Ghosts

The trailer for Tegan and Sara’s High School, the forthcoming TV series based on their memoir, has landed and it is full of 90s fashion, teen angst, twin drama, and oh so much more. High School, which stars queer twin TikTok sensations Railey and Seazynn Gilliland as Tegan and Sara, is executive produced, co-written, directed, and co-showrun by Clea DuVall. By which I mean: High School is also full of LESBIANS. Oh, and Cobie Smulders is their mom. Canada! (I hope they shoutout Robin Sparkles’ “Let’s Go to the Mall” at some point.)

As a closeted ’90s teen myself, I genuinely loved Tegan and Sara’s High School. So, if you’ll forgive me, I’ll just quote myself about it.

Tegan and Sara alternate writing chapters as they navigate their way back through conservative Calgary, Canada in the ’90s. The narrative builds and then brilliantly cuts out right before their careers take off, but their trajectory is anything but smooth. They teach themselves to make music when they find their mom’s boyfriend’s guitar in a closet under the stairs. They learn to write songs; they learn to harmonize; and, as they’re doing it, they’re pushing against and tearing at each other and slamming their bedroom doors so often the boyfriend takes them off their hinges… But their music is just the backdrop. They both struggle to accept their sexuality, to parse out their internalized homophobia, to come out. Despite their rising fame, they’re both consumed with loneliness. “In those first few months of high school, I learned to avert my eyes, to show them submission, to be a ghost,” Sara writes. She listens to Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness alone in her bedroom and cries.

So, you know, if you’re a ’90s kid, you’re probably going to relate to/cry about this one too! And maybe you’ll tie a flannel around your waist and clomp around in ripped jeans too. Just for posterity.

High School premieres Oct. 14 on Amazon Freevee.

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Heather Hogan

Heather Hogan is an Autostraddle senior editor who lives in New York City with her wife, Stacy, and their cackle of rescued pets. She's a member of the Television Critics Association, GALECA: The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics, and a Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer critic. You can also find her on Twitter and Instagram.

Heather has written 1719 articles for us.

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