All Lisa wants to do is to make a movie. It is an obsession that takes many forms in Netflix’s Horror Series, Brand New Cherry Flavor. Like Lisa’s nemesis, Boro quotes, “The road curves but the destination remains the same.” Hence, the horror series becomes an exploration of Lisa’s desire while revealing her vengeful demeanor.
Based on Todd Grimson’s novel, Netflix’s Brand New Cherry Flavor relies heavily on the “pulp fiction” genre that exploits gory horror and gruesome crime. Created by Nick Antosca and Lenore Zion, season 1 begins as Lisa arrives in Los Angeles to try her luck in the industry.
‘Brand New Cherry Flavor’ Season 1: Plot Summary
The drama begins in the early 90s when a 20-something Lisa Natasha Nova (Rosa Salazar) arrives in Los Angeles dead set to direct her first feature film. Lisa has previously directed a short movie, “Lisa’s eyes,” that helps her arrange a meeting with an Oscar-Winning Director/ Producer, Lou Burke.
Lisa crashes at her best friend Code’s flat, who lives with his girlfriend, Christine. Lou Burke gets impressed by Lisa’s determination and signs her a 10000 dollar contract to write and direct her first movie. As Lisa enjoys her little achievements, she notices a strange beefed-up motorcycle rider following her at different city spots.
Lou prepares Lisa to sell the story to a financier, Alvin Sender, and the duo strikes a possible friendship. However, Lou has much more to do with Lisa at the back of his head, which Lisa subtly ignores and artfully rejects. At Alvin Sender’s party, Lisa meets a mystical hermit woman, Boro, who offers to harm anyone for Lisa. At first, Lisa fails to decipher her intentions but soon understands their meaning.
After the party, Lou tries to lure Lisa again, but after she rejects him twice, Lou removes Lisa from the project. He steals her script and waves the agreement on her face suggesting she can’t do anything but comply. A helpless Lisa finds Boro and seeks help from the hermit who designs a curse to punish Lou. Little does Lisa know that in the world of magic, everything comes for a price. An eye for an eye is their true gospel.
Who was Boro?
The origins of Boro transversed back to 900 years ago when he was a beautiful and strong man living in the wilderness of the southern rainforest. During his hunt, he encountered a vast, stunning white mother jaguar, a spirit living in an animal. Boro and the Jaguar mated, and before leaving, the Jaguar gave Boro a share of her powers as a gift. Boro used magic to rule a kingdom and married a princess.
But it wasn’t a happy ending. An army marched towards Boro’s kingdom to dethrone him. However, Boro failed to unravel their tactical positions. He sought help from the mother jaguar, unaware that she might need a sacrifice in return for her aid. Through Jaguar’s black rituals, Boro discovered the location of his enemies and slaughtered them all. When the external threat ceased, the mother jaguar demanded an offering. She wanted Boro to sacrifice his wife.
Boro tried to trick the Jaguar by offering a different woman, but his betrayal was short-lived. Jaguar ate Boro’s wife and mutilated his body. She left Boro in the forest, dying until a young girl happened upon him. Without knowing, Boro used his last bit of strength, and his spirit jumped into the young girl’s body. Boro had been shifting and shedding bodies since then.
When Lisa met her, Boro possessed the body of a woman named Jennifer Nathans. With Jennifer’s body quickly depreciating, Boro scouted for a new skin, and Lisa was her next vessel.
What happened to the mother, Jaguar?
A trapdoor mysteriously appeared inside Lisa’s bedroom. Initially, under a spell of fear, she didn’t dare explore its depth. However, when Lisa mistakenly believed that Lou killed her best friend, Code, she burned with revenge. In a rage, she licked the white Jaguar’s toad kept inside Boro’s fortress, thinking its magic would reveal Lou’s location.
The instance amplified Lisa’s connection with her mother Jaguar’s spirit, who had been haunting her from childhood since her mother left. Before Lisa could explore the mystery, Boro tricked her and lied to her that the toad had poisoned Lisa’s body. The whole ritual Boro orchestrated was to diminish the Jaguar’s possession on Lisa’s body. Lisa understood Boro’s intention and refused to eat her prepared cuisine at the end of the ritual. At the exact moment, a mummified scarecrow spirit appeared and injured Boro.
Later, Lisa found the white Jaguar’s couch at the end of the trapdoor, who disclosed Boro’s betrayal and spirit’s pursuit of revenge. The supernatural sequence suggested that the white Jaguar’s spirit was Lisa’s mother, who had been protecting her against Boro. The spirit informed that Boro had been stealing blood from Lisa’s body, and without her, Boro would be helpless. She removed the poison from Lisa’s system and gave her the keys to Hotel Bel-Air, where Lou Burke was hiding. Before disappearing, the jaguar spirit asked Lisa to take her revenge and then find her.
‘Brand New Cherry Flavor’ Season 1: Ending Explained
Lou accused Lisa of harming her short film actress Mary for the perfect climax shot. However, according to Lisa, they were shooting under the influence of peyote (drug), and the hallucinating substance unlocked a spirit (mummified scarecrow) inside her. When she came back to her senses, Mary was gone, yet Lisa used the gruesome footage in her short film. It could be theorized that the mother jaguar’s spirit, who was also Lisa’s mother, had been protecting her all along. She would have foreseen that Mary was going to harm Lisa in the future. Thus Lisa probably inflicted pain on Mary under her mother’s spell.
All Lisa wanted to do was to make a MOVIE. Hence, when her mother gave her the keys to Lou’s hotel room, she insisted on understanding Lou’s reason for betraying her and stealing her film. Lisa’s refusal to sleep with Lou harmed his male-OSCAR-winning ego, and the rest was a revenge plot. However, Lisa isn’t inherently villainous. She didn’t kill Lou and didn’t even intend to harm Mary.
Lisa finally reached Boro’s hideout to end the mess for once and all. However, Boro had arranged to trade Lisa’s body for his friends’ living corpse and her lover, Roy Hardaway’s life. But Lisa was smart enough not to make another deal with Boro, and thus she ran away. In the story so far, many major-minor characters: Roy, Code, Christine, Jonathan, and two paid punks met their dead end. Lou and Jules Brandenberg survived but with casualties. Lou turned completely blind, where Jules got severely burnt.
In the end, Lisa abandoned Alvin Sender’s offer to direct her movie and left for her home country, Brazil, to find her mother. She also dumped her short film reel inside her apartment, which could mean she surrendered her dream to make a movie. With no option in her hand, Boro possessed Mary’s body and left Jennifer’s body to die.
‘Brand New Cherry Flavor’ Season 2: Possible Conflict
Season 1 ends as Lisa buys a “one-way” ticket to her hometown, São Paulo. She is probably going to find her mother or investigate her disappearance. The jaguar spirit inside the trap door had requested Lisa to see her, and thus, Season 2 will explore her pursuit.
In Mary’s body, Boro will probably follow Lisa to São Paulo to take her revenge and stop her from finding the Jaguar’s spirit/body. While nothing is suggested, the mother jaguar spirit is still on a hunt to take revenge on Boro, and she may use Lisa’s body for the purpose.
‘Brand New Cherry Flavor’ Season 2 will dramatize the hostility of the filmmaker, Lisa, and her lead actress, Mary, with two antagonistic spirits on their separate sides.
Brand New Cherry Flavor is a 2021 Supernatural Drama Television Series created by Nick Antosca and Lenore Zion. It is streaming on Netflix.
