Jackie (Nikki Rodriguez) and the Walter boys will soon be back for a second season of Netflix’s My Life With the Walter Boys in Silver Falls, Colorado.
Season 1 landed at the end of 2023, watching Jackie move across the country and adjust to a new home, life and surroundings. Since it’s been a while between installments of the show, based on the book by Ali Novak, the details of what happened and between who might be fuzzy.
Those looking for a recap of Season 1 of My Life With the Walter Boys can refresh on the highlights below ahead of Season 2.
Jackie Howard Moved In With the Walter Family in Colorado
The story hinges on Jackie Howard (Nikki Rodriguez) moving in with the Walter family. Her late mother Angelica was best friends with Katherine Walter (Sarah Rafferty) in college, so the Walters offered to take Jackie in when both her parents and her older sister Lucy died in a car accident. After growing up in the concrete jungle of New York City, Jackie’s adjustment to the rolling hills of Colorado was complicated, to say the least. Despite the big life changes, she remained focused on her goal of getting into Princeton for college, where her father went.
L-R: Corey Fogelmanis as Nathan, Ashby Gentry as Alex, Connor Stanhope as Danny, Noah LaLonde as Cole, Sarah Rafferty as Katherine, Marc Blucas as George, Alex Quijano as Uncle Richard, Nikki Rodriguez as Jackie, Zoë Soul as Haley Young, Alisha Newton as Erin, Isaac Arellanes as Isaac and Myles Perez as Lee in ‘My Life with the Walter Boys’
Netflix
As if moving across the country away from her familiar surroundings and changing schools weren’t challenging enough, Jackie moved into a family with 10 children — nine sons and one daughter, Parker (Alix West Lefler).
The Walter Boys
Some of the Walter brothers connected with Jackie quickly when she moved into Katherine’s art loft studio on the ranch. Corey Fogelmanis’ Nathan was one of them. A musician at heart, Nathan helped Jackie navigate school on her first day, and he also invited her to go on runs with him in the mornings. Danny (Connor Stanhope) also got along with Jackie early on after she expressed her love for theater. Danny wants to be an actor, and Jackie helped him rehearse lines for the school play after she found him up late one night watching movies. Danny is also Cole’s fraternal twin brother. Will Walter (Johnny Link), the oldest brother, also told Jackie to let him know if she needed anything right away. Will worked in real estate and lived with his fiancée Haley Young (Zoë Soul).
L-R: Isaac Arellanes as Isaac, Myles Perez as Lee, Connor Stanhope as Danny, Noah LaLonde as Cole and Ashby Gentry as Alex in ‘My Life with the Walter Boys’
Isaac (Isaac Arellanes) and Lee (Myles Perez) Garcia are the Walters’ cousins on Katherine’s husband George’s (Marc Blucas) side. They didn’t immediately take to Jackie because they viewed her as just another person in an already crowded house where it’s hard to get attention. This was more Lee’s view, but Isaac didn’t help matters by putting hair dye in Jackie’s shampoo to bleach her hair. The youngest boy Benny Walter (Lennix James) participated in these shenanigans, as did Jordan (Dean Petriw), who always has his video camera on him to capture documentary-worthy moments like that prank, which stemmed from a bet between Isaac and Cole.
That leaves Alex (Ashby Gentry) and Cole, the two brothers who pay the most attention to Jackie in their own ways.
The Love Triangle (Alex vs. Cole)
Jackie met Alex first when she walked into the Walter house. Then she watched Cole climb out of the Walters’ pool in slow motion, but it was Alex that ultimately ended up with her first romantically. Jackie clocked Cole’s attitude quickly, but as her new friend Grace (Ellie O’Brien) says, The Cole Effect cannot be denied. It turned out Cole didn’t really date last season, at least according to Nathan, but he had girls over often to hook up. He did have an on again off again thing with Erin (Alisha Newton), who saw Jackie as competition right away.
L-R: Alisha Newton as Erin and Noah LaLonde as Cole in ‘My Life with the Walter Boys’
Chris Large/Netflix
Alex shared his history textbook with Jackie in class the first day of school, showed her the loft and encouraged her to jump down into hay in the barn to “live a little.” “Tomorrow will be better,” he told her after her first day at school. Alex and Jackie showed off their romance publicly later on at school and within’ the Walter household, but she still shared some close calls with Cole.
After getting in trouble for cutting class and drinking at Dylan Newsome’s (Kolton Stewart) cabin, Jackie and Cole had to stay home instead of going to a party at The Lark Café with the rest of the family. Cole almost kissed Jackie in a round of Truth or Dare at the cabin, and then she almost drunkenly kissed Alex that night. Of course, the power went out when a storm arrived, and Jackie and Cole were all alone in the dark grounded at home, and they really saw each other in a moment of bonding. Another rainy moment involving Cole’s broken down pickup truck brought them close too.
Cole used to be the star quarterback on the Silver Falls High School football team, but a terrible accident screwed up his knee, and he can’t play anymore. He took it really hard, and Season 1 saw him attempt to make do with his situation by working on cars in Tony’s garage and almost planning to take a road trip out west, foregoing college.
Alex and Cole’s Rivalry
If it seemed like there was already tension between the two brothers vying for Jackie’s heart before she arrived, it’s because a girl had come between them before. Her name is Paige (Madison Brydges), and Alex thought he loved her, but Cole came back after Paige and Alex got together over the summer, and Paige came onto him and kissed him.
Madison Brydges as Paige in ‘My Life with the Walter Boys’
Courtesy of Netflix
Alex and Cole had had a rivalry between them before even Paige because Alex wished he was more like Cole. It seemed that most things came easy to Cole like flirting with girls and being popular.
Danny Got into a Summer Program at Julliard
With Jackie’s help, down to opening his admission letter since he was too nervous, Danny got into a summer program at Julliard. She also encouraged him to go even when he doubted that he’d be able to pay for it, saying he could live with her Uncle Richard (Alex Quijano) and find a job with her or Richard’s help.
Danny also grew closer to Erin because they did the school play together. Erin ended things with Cole because it came out that he had slept with her friend Olivia (Gabrielle Jacinto), and Erin was tired of how Cole treated her.
Nathan & Skylar Got Together
Nathan wrote a song for Jackie’s new friend Skylar (Jaylan Evans), and this was the peak of his showing interest. At first, Skylar felt like Nathan came on too strong, but with the advice of friends like Grace and Kylie (Mya Lowe) that it’s nice to feel wanted, he ultimately gave their relationship a shot.
Will & Haley Got Married
Season 1 culminated in Will and Haley’s wedding. They almost called off their engagement after they thought they may want different things in life with Will becoming a bit work-obsessed.
L-R: Zoë Soul as Haley Young and Johnny Link as Will in ‘My Life with the Walter Boys’
Courtesy of Netflix
When real estate was slow for him, Will started picking up shifts at The Lark, a café owned by Mato Summerhill (Nathaniel Arcand), where Haley worked while she was finishing up graduate school. He had all kinds of ideas for developing new business ventures and offernings from the café, which Mato supported, but then Haley started to feel like all he cared about was work. Will moved back into his parents’ for a bit, but the couple came back together and vowed to work on prioritizing time with each other.
At the beginning of the first season, Haley’s parents didn’t want to pay for the wedding, and the Walters were strapped financially from the expensive surgery on Cole’s leg to moths infesting the crops on the ranch, so they couldn’t help out either. Will and Haley held the wedding on the ranch with Jackie helping as the coordinator. Her organizational skills came in very handy, and the ceremony inspired Will to come up with development plans for the ranch to help his parents make more money.
At the wedding, Alex got drunk and told Jackie he loved her, but she didn’t say it back. Kylie helped him get to bed, and he called her “basically a dude,” which left her crestfallen. It seemed she may have feelings for Alex. The two have been best friends since childhood.
Alex Got Into a Summer Rodeo Camp
After competing in rodeo horseback riding, a member of the Intercollegiate Riding Association offered Alex a spot in a summer cowboy camp to train more in riding with auspices for a scholarship. In Season 2, he’ll return from spending the whole summer training in Montana.
Cole Fixed Jackie’s Teapot & They Kissed
Noah LaLonde as Cole in ‘My Life with the Walter Boys’
The cherry on top for the spark between Cole and Jackie was when he fixed a teapot she had previously shared with her sister after Parker knocked it over and it broke in the sink. He also left her a note echoing something she once told him about “nothing being so broken that it can’t be fixed.”
He kept it from her after he realized she was with Alex, but when Danny was packing for New York after getting into Julliard, Jackie found the box in his closet and confronted Cole about it. Jackie then kissed Cole, and when she tried to leave before it went further, he pulled her back. This ultimately sent Jackie back to New York.
She left an apology note on her bed, and Alex confronted Cole about it, asking him what he did. The final moments of Season 1 showed Jackie on the plane with Danny and her uncle, who had threatened to file for custody of her earlier on in the show when he visited for Thanksgiving. At that moment, she had said she was feeling at home in Silver Falls.
L-R: Nikki Rodriguez as Jackie and Alex Quijano as Uncle Richard in ‘My Life with the Walter Boys’
