The group hasn’t been in the same zip code in four years. It takes about four hours for the first party to go sideways.
The Setup
COVID broke the group apart. College scattered them further. Now they’re back in Calabasas — a city that, as Jemma Durrant puts it, will eat you alive if you let it — and the question the show is quietly asking from the first scene is whether any of them actually grew up while they were gone, or just got better at pretending.
The answer, by the end of Episode 1, is: some of them did. The rest showed up in cowboy hats.
“It’s Smoke, Babe”
The show opens not with a party or a confessional, but with two women on a beach at Point Dume — Suede and Nicole — laying out the entire season’s foundation before anyone has had a drink.
Nicole is thinking about moving back to Calabasas. She was the shy kid in school, the one nobody let into their circle, and she is still carrying that even with 1.6 million followers and her face all over social media. Suede did online school and missed most of the Calabasas social ecosystem entirely — she was six feet tall, a self-described weirdo, and she didn’t have the same experience. What the two of them have now, Nicole says, is one of the only real friendships she has built through this world. If the apps were deleted tomorrow, they would still see each other.
Then Jemma arrives with smoothies — two of which immediately hit the floor, so they are sharing the one that survived — and the conversation shifts.. Nicole brings up Dylan — specifically, that he was spreading a rumor about Jemma in high school involving the phrase “bloody mary.” Suede asks what that means. Jemma explains: she lost her virginity to him, she bled, and by the next day at school everyone knew. She is still a little scarred. She adds that she has recently made out with him again. She knows it is not good.
Nicole asks if they are a thing. Jemma says no — that he used to tell her he felt nothing for her, that she was gross. The table is quiet for a second.
Jemma then brings up Emma Medrano, who she describes as crazy when it comes to guys and someone who hooked up with Dylan. Nicole says Dylan hooked up with everybody. Jemma says she thinks girls did it to make themselves feel better at her expense.
Suede’s response is immediate: if she sees Dylan, “it’s smoke, babe.” Then she adds the caveat — she cannot stand up for Jemma if Jemma is going to be at his house tonight. Stand on business.
It is one of the better openings a reality show has had in a while. Three women, one smoothie, and every thread that will unravel for the rest of the season already on the table.
Dylan & Emma, Before the Party
At Emma’s house, Dylan arrives in boots he describes on camera as genuine leather and immediately pushes her into the pool. This is somehow charming.
What follows is more interesting than the flirtation. Emma and Dylan sit poolside and talk about what the ranch gave him — sobriety, perspective, something to care for other than himself. He tells the cameras: “The moment I decided to get sober was when I realized rock bottom is where you stop digging. So you get arrested, you get into fights, you wake up not remembering things, you’re losing things, you’re hurting people, you’re stealing.” Emma tells him that hurt recognizes hurt. Emma tells the cameras that neither of their parents took the time to figure out why they were both acting out the way they were. At their core, she says, they were always going to come out the other end good.
They also decide to show up to Jemma’s party together, which is either oblivious or deliberate, and the show lets you decide.
The Hercy Situation, Already
Before anyone gets to Jemma’s party, the season’s second major fault line is already being drawn over coffee at LaLa Land.
Kimora, Emilie, and Jodie are catching up when Emilie casually mentions that Hercy Miller slid into her DMs — “need you,” all caps. Jodie, who describes herself as Hercy’s “low-key sis,” calls it pretty embarrassing on his behalf. Kimora is less amused. She tells the cameras that she and Hercy were talking on and off when she was 15 or 16 — he was the first guy she ever talked to — and that after they stopped, he immediately started dating her friend, which ended that friendship. Her summary of Hercy’s pattern: literally every single woman who walks this earth, he has talked to them through DMs or in person.
When Hercy and Preston show up — both in all black and sunglasses, exactly as predicted — Kimora puts it directly on the table. She asks Emilie, in front of everyone, whether she wants Hercy or not. Emilie’s answer is a careful non-answer: they should all start on a clean slate as friends. Hercy agrees they are friends. The camera holds on Kimora’s face just long enough.
Later at the party, Hercy and Emilie slip outside to talk. He tells her he wants to take her out. She says okay. He tells the cameras that if something came from their friendship, it would be pretty cool — but that what he and Kimora had was just kids talking on FaceTime, nothing more. He thought they were on the same page.
Kimora, watching from across the party, is not on the same page.
Nicole, in the Middle
Before the party even starts, Nicole has already delivered information to both sides of the Jemma/Emma conflict — and done it with the best intentions, which somehow makes it worse.
At the tennis courts, Emma mentions to Nicole that there is some drama between her and Jemma. Nicole, who was just at the beach with Jemma that morning, tells Emma exactly what Jemma said — boy crazy, sleeps around — and frames it as rooted in Dylan. Emma tells her it is extreme to call another girl anything over a boy she has no claim on, that Dylan is a “whore” and they all know it, and that she has never personally done that to anyone.
Then, getting ready at Jemma’s house that same evening, Nicole tells Jemma what Emma said — specifically, that Emma told her Jemma prank called her and called her a whore. Jemma’s response: “B—ch, I wouldn’t need to call you from *67 to tell you that you’re a slut. Look in the mirror.” Nicole admits she feels like a gossip, but says she wants everything out in the air. The problem with Calabasas, she says, is that you always hear everything and there is never a confrontation.
Emma’s read on Nicole by the end of the night is precise: she found the perfect position to be inside the drama without absorbing any of the consequences. Nicole’s read on herself is that she just wants the situation resolved. Both things are true, and the tension between them is what makes Nicole the most complicated person in the room.
The Party
Emma walks in holding a bottle. “Party’s here.” It’s either a peace offering or a declaration, and everyone in the room is trying to figure out which.
Dylan sits down between Suede and Jemma the moment he arrives — in the cowboy hat, which Jemma clocks immediately on camera: “Are you here, like, from Montana?” Suede calls it extremely immature. Nicole is watching everyone. The party has the specific low-grade tension of a room full of people who have already decided how the night is going to go.
The first crack comes from Suede, who walks up to Dylan and tells him she heard he was a really shitty boyfriend. He corrects her: they never dated. She was a midnight snack. Actually — two AM. Jodie, who witnessed the exchange, immediately goes to find Jemma.
Jemma confronts him. He performs confusion. He asks what’s with the aggression. She tells him she isn’t being aggressive. A group forms. Dylan announces he is dealing with an army of girls and his back is against the wall.
Suede calls him a prick. He says Jemma doesn’t spit — she swallows. Suede tells him that women who care about him should not be treated that way and walks off. Emma stays.
Jemma & Emma
Alone, the two of them finally have the conversation the episode has been building toward — and it doesn’t solve anything.
Emma confronts Jemma about the “boy crazy” and “sleeps around” comments. Jemma counters with the prank call accusation. Emma says that is small compared to what Jemma has said. Jemma says the last time Emma was a topic of conversation was 2019, and it is 2025. They go in circles and leave it unresolved.
Their read on each other afterward tells you everything. Emma feels bad for Jemma — thinks it is sad to be so wrong about something and so certain you are right. Jemma thinks Emma never wanted the problem solved and just wanted to ruin her night. Both of them are partly correct and neither of them is ready to admit it.
Nicole’s Guilt
The most unexpectedly moving thread of the premiere has nothing to do with Dylan Wolf. It happens at dinner, when Nicole sits down with her father Amir and tries to explain why she feels guilty having an easy life.
Amir immigrated from Iran at 16, alone, while his parents stayed behind. He worked McDonald’s and valet shifts until he landed a computer programming job, and over time brought his entire family to the United States. Nicole tells him that she has always felt like her main goal in life was to make him and her mom happy — and that how easy her life has been compared to his makes her feel ashamed.
His response is quiet and precise. Guilt, he tells her, is a mechanism for realizing you have done something wrong. She has not done anything wrong. He raises his glass. “I’ll drink to you,” he says.
It is the episode’s best scene, and it reframes Nicole before the party drama begins. She arrives at Jemma’s that night carrying something real underneath the gossip and the careful positioning — a daughter trying to justify her own happiness to a father who never asked her to.
What Episode 1 Is Actually About
The premiere of “Calabasas Confidential” is not really about Dylan Wolf, even though he touches every storyline in it. It is about what happens when a group of people who defined themselves by how others saw them in high school come back and find out the definitions are still running. Jemma got her spark back at college, but Dylan is still the person she measures it against. Emma claims to be over the drama, but she showed up to the party with the drama’s source. Nicole wants to be cool with everyone and spent the whole episode shuttling information between people who are not cool with each other.
The city will eat you alive if you let it. Some of them are still letting it.
Calabasas Confidential Season 1 is streaming now on Netflix.
For more “Calabasas Confidential,” check out our “Confidential Calabasas” page here.
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