Netflix First Kill season 1 recap guide: Episodes 1 to 8

Based on a short story by V.E. Schwab, First Kill is a new vampire series on Netflix full of horror, romance and compelling characters. It’s great to see a series with two gay female leads and their love story unfolds across a backdrop of monsters and ghouls and more, oh my.

For those who might want to follow along with a helpful guide, below we recap the entire season, so hopefully if you have questions or you miss something while watching, we’ll be able to assist  you in figuring it out!

First Kill is about a hunter and a vampire who fall in love against all odds and must fight for their relationship as their families try to keep them apart.

First Kill season 1 episode guide: Complete recaps for episodes 1 to 8

The following article contains heavy SPOILERS, so keep that in mind while you’re looking through it. We’re breaking down each episode of the show’s first season, so if you have questions or want to learn more about the show, start reading!

First Kill episode 1 recap: First Kiss

Meet Juliette Fairmount (Sarah Catherine Hook), a seemingly normal teenage girl, except for one thing: she’s a vampire. The opening of First Kill episode 1, shows a sizzling little montage of blood and a heated make-out session between Juliette and her eventual love interest,  Calliope “Cal” Burns (Imani Lewis). It appears to be part of Juliette’s dream, a frequent occurrence, she mentions in her voiceover narration after jolting awake in her bed.

Juliette’s before-school routine looks pretty normal, too. She greets her family, her father Sebastian (Will Swenson), her mother Margot (Elizabeth Mitchell) and her older sister Elinor (Gracie Dzienny), who arrives after a late night cutting a statuesque figure in a stunning yellow evening gown.

We soon learn that the Fairmounts are concerned for Juliette because she hasn’t had her first kill yet, a necessity for vampires or else they become extremely sick. The only thing tiding Juliette over for now are gross blood capsules, but they won’t keep her content forever.

The morning lecture from Elinor is cut short by Juliette’s childhood best friend Ben Wheeler (Jonas Dylan Allen) picks her up for school. Like Juliette, Ben is also gay, Juliette admits they dated once when they were 12 before they both figured out that they swung for different teams.

Unlike most shows, Ben is actually the cool kid at school and Juliette is popular by association. “Bottom line: when I’m with Ben, I blend in.” The headaches might be pervasive and her body might be raging, but Ben makes Juliette feel normal.

Ben also has his own romantic troubles. He has a thing for a boy named Noah Harrington (Roberto Mendez), who has a girlfriend at the moment, as Juliette points out. It turns out Ben has good reason to think he has a shot with Noah, but more on that later. He reminds Juliette she promised to go to a party with him at Noah’s house that night.

In the cafeteria, we get out first glimpse at Cal. It turns out Juliette has been pining for a while, she’s yet to work up the courage to talk to her. Luckily, fate intervenes outside the school when they run into each other and have a moment involving Juliette gently plucking a bee off of Cal’s shirt.

Juliette can’t help but obsess over Cal, even in class, as she tries to battle her persistent cravings for blood. It become obvious that Juliette is going to need to feed and kill ASAP or risk losing complete control.

Outside the classroom, she notices that Cal dropped a bracelet and when Juliette picks it up she gets burned—it’s pure silver, dangerous to vampires in this world.

Before going to the party, Juliette gets confronted by her family regarding her blood capsules. Margot urges Juliette to feed, lest she feed recklessly. The Fairmounts have worked hard to blend in and maintain secrecy over the years. Margot asks Elinor to talk to Juliette, to “make her understand.” Elinor tells Juliette to go out there, find someone and feed, maybe even the girl she’s got her eye on.

At the party, it doesn’t take long for things to get steamy between Juliette and Cal. During a game of “spin the bottle” the pair get a chance to make out during some classic seven minutes in heaven. But it all becomes too much for Juliette. Overwhelmed by her senses, she bites Cal and Cal immediately stakes her through the heart!

We then get to see this story from Cal’s perspective. She comes from a powerful family of hunters who answer to The Guild. They’ve moved countless times around the country to hunt monsters and Savannah is just the latest stop.

Cal tags along a hunt with her brothers Theo (Phillip Mullings Jr.) and Apollo (Dominic Goodman) to find and kill a ghoul in a cemetery. Like Juliette, Cal has yet to have her first kill, but her brothers are extremely adept killers, as are their parents. Cal  got her first chance the winter before, but failed, so now she’s relegated to the lookout.

While trying to kill the ghouls, Cal notices a third creature sneaking up on her brothers and tries to take it out herself, unfortunately it’s a vampire and it overpowers Cal! Luckily her brothers manage to rescue her in time. It’s also interesting that this vampire is much different than the Fairmounts.

Before Cal heads to the party, we learn that Cal realized what Juliette was almost immediately. Cal noticed Juliette’s blood capsules and left her bracelet in the hallway as a trap, to test Juliette’s resistance to silver. She also knows that Juliette is a daywalker, which means she’s something special, a legacy vampire.

After that, we return to the closet scene where Cal stabs Juliette straight through the heart. But surely, she can’t be dead already?