Becoming Elizabeth and killer queen bees in 7 teen series

With great power comes great fabulosity, but be warned – being a queen bee is a deadly affair. Whether it’s cannibalism, execution, or cancellation, these seven series show the sting in the tail that comes with being HBIC. Buzz, buzz.  

1. Becoming Elizabeth 

When you were two years old, daddy called mommy a sl*t and had her head chopped off. Now you’re 14 years old and daddy is dead so your nine-year-old half-brother is in charge, and you’ve been sent to live with your stepmother and stepfather. Your stepfather is so nice! He makes you laugh, and he treats you like a grownup, too, because you’re so mature. But you’re surrounded by mean girls and nasty boys who’re starting to say that you’re a sl*t, just like mommy. And the executioner’s axe is waiting.  

Well, England’s Tudor court was certainly knives-out! 

Historical drama series Becoming Elizabeth is set entirely during the brief and bratty reign of King Edward VI (Oliver Zetterström), following the death of King Henry VIII. Scheming courtiers turn his closest allies into his deadliest enemies as they pick sides with his 31-year-old Catholic half-sister Mary (Romola Garai), or plot to marry his 14-year-old half-sister Elizabeth (27-year-old Alicia von Rittberg) and cousin Lady Jane Grey (Bella Ramsey, Game of Thrones and The Last of Us) who’re the wards of Henry’s widow Catherine Parr (Jessica Raine) and her new husband, Thomas Seymour (Tom Cullen) – brother of Edward’s mother, Jane Seymour, and Edward’s own guardian, Edward Seymour (everyone was called Jane, Edward or Mary thanks to the great English name famine of the 1500s). Elizabeth is the super-rare gold collectable everyone wants to own and control. The only way she’ll keep her head is if she can out-scheme them all to snatch the crown. 

PS: for a take on Elizabeth’s mother’s story, watch drama series Anne Boleyn. 

2. Gossip Girl 

Times change, but a queen still reigns. The 2021 Gossip Girl revival sets its royal court in Manhattan’s elite private schools for the gilded youth after the end of the Covid-19 shutdown. The new Queen Bee of Constance Billard is It girl, influencer, hot mess and self-confessed bully Julien Calloway (Jordan Alexander). But her half-sister Zoya Lott (Whitney Peak) is coming for her crown, her man and her followers. 

The court is buzzing, thanks to anonymous school sneak Gossip Girl, who has gone global by spilling the tea on royalty on social media, as a form of revenge on these trust fund babies who keep complaining about their icky privilege. Julien has 12 millions followers and a million critics for every wrong step that she takes in the spotlight, from treating Zoya as the Solange to her Beyonce, to treating her teachers like servants, and making Luna (Zion Moreno) and Monet’s (Savannah Smith) social media manager jobs difficult by being a do-nothing donkey. And when the axe falls, you’re cancelled or, worse, cringe. 

3. Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin 

The stalker-slasher vibe of Scream meets the off-the-wall school shenanigans of Riverdale, and a Scream Queens-style multi-generation revenge plot in thriller series Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin. Students from Millwood High School are being terrorised by a stalker who sends them threatening messages and cryptic notes signed with a red letter A, along with malicious warnings like tucking razor blades inside ballet shoes. It’s another day, another trauma for these girls, because two of them are already having to deal with the fallout from being raped. 

Meanwhile the racist, homophobe Queen Bee wannabe of Millwood, Karen Beasley, keeps making their lives more miserable, even stamping down her twin sister Kelly (both twins are played by Mallory Bechtel) in her ruthless climb to the top. But when “A” murders Karen for being The Worst, A’s targets start uncovering the dark secrets they have in common, thanks to a group of mean girls in the past who destroyed lives to protect a rapist. Never be a mean girl enabler, rise up against the queen! 

4. Yellowjackets 

There’s no teen drama with higher stakes than Yellowjackets because when this girls’ soccer team is stranded in the wilderness by a plane crash it is literally an eat or be eaten situation. Social exclusion is damaging at school, but it turns deadly when having allies means you get food and have somewhere warm to sleep instead of freezing to death in the snow, then being eaten.

And while most high school Queen Bees get to be prom queen and decide who’s in and who’s out, Yellowjackets’ Antler Queen gets to decide who her fellow survivors will chase to their deaths before they get strung up, butchered, sacrificed to the elder gods, and served for dinner. Yes, things are a little awkward when the survivors get rescued and return to civilisation, but what mom clique doesn’t share a few dark secrets, obsess on true crime boards, or start a cult? 

5. Vampire Academy 

Julie Plec (The Vampire Diaries) mixes elements taken from across Richard Mead’s Vampire Academy novel series in this show. The setting is St Vladimir’s Academy, a boarding school for the supernatural elite, where social status makes the rules and sets the etiquette. The show centres on old money Moroi vampire Princess Lissa Dragomir (Daniela Nieves) whose best friend, despite a massive social divide, is Rose Hathaway (Sisi Stringer) the dhampir (half-human, half-vampire) who’s being trained to protect her from Strigoi – vampires who’ve gone mad from blood lust. 

They’re like sheltered ballet girl and skate punk-activist besties! Becoming Queen Bee isn’t up to a popularity contest in this school, it’s dictated by birth. But Liss still has to learn to navigate the tricky grownup political currents that she’ll need to conquer if she’s to inherit the throne. And there are secrets about the exploitation at the heart of the vampire-dhampir bond, and uncomfortable truths about where both Dhampirs and Striogi come from, that’ll make her crown heavy to bear. 

PS: Looking for more magical school fantasy, but centred on a university? Try The Magicians 

6. Euphoria 

Welcome to Euphoria. In this advanced class we go off the curriculum to study drugs,  identity, trauma, hookup culture, toxic masculinity and toxic positivity, sex trafficking and sex work, body positivity, social media, and more. Our battlefield of study is East Highland High School in Los Angeles, where everyone is a trainwreck in at least three different ways. The school’s Queen Bee, Maddy (Alexia Demie), is a cheerleader and former child beauty pageant star whose “perfect” boyfriend, Nate (Jacob Elordi), is verbally and physically abusive, and slut shames her for her diva style to undermine her confidence while sexually harassing and blackmailing other girls at the school. Euphoria digs down into the reality of Queen Bee life by showing how Maddy’s parents destroy her self esteem and make her desperate for any kind of validation. 

It also explores how Maddy builds herself up without being nasty to or about other students, by studying and imitating what charismatic people do, from rich ladies at the salon, to Sharon Stone’s character in the movie Casino. She gets an A+ in her studies when she explains the real secret of her social success: “90% of life is confidence, and the thing about confidence is no one knows if it’s real or not.”  

7. Ja’mie Private School Girl 

Seventeen-year-old Ja’mie King (played by 40-year-old Chris Lilley in a wig) is the self-appointed Queen Bee of Hillford Girls’ Grammar School in this spin-off of Australian spoof comedy series Summer Heights High. Ja’mie’s undiluted narcissism gives her absolute confidence in herself as the wise, benevolent leader of the school, and zero insight into just how mean, bigoted and ignorant she really is. But whatever. Ja’mie has a bright future because she’s “quiche” and you’re just not.

“Studies have shown that students from private schools are more likely to get into uni and end up making a lot more money; while wife-beaters and rapists are nearly all public-school educated. Sorry, no offence, but it’s true,” she declares, staring down, as usual, from the moral high ground. But don’t be sad, peasants, because Ja’mie’s prepared to be generous, even if you’re a povvo, Asian, bogan, fuggly, wheelchair person, fat, a sl*t, or a lesbian curly-haired b****. Bless. 

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