A teenage boy’s penchant for finding some form of trouble is worth studying.
In Lifetime’s newest original film, Friday Night Sext Scandal, we have a storyline inspired by real events.
It intends to explore the dark underbelly of the high school experience regarding teenage boys who go on the hunt for sexually explicit photos from their female counterparts.
And in true Lifetime fashion, they explore the scandalous nature behind this from a different perspective.
The film focuses on one teen boy’s experience of getting reeled into these deplorable actions.
The film stars Riverdale’s Anthony Timpano as Shawn, a 16-year-old jock who is just starting to see advancement in his football career when he’s upgraded to a starter on the team.
Of course, with advancement in the athletic realm comes increased popularity and the opportunity to hang out with upperclassmen, too.
And we all know very little good comes from associating with upper-class jocks.
Peer pressure is inescapable, and Shawn will find himself tested, particularly morally, in his efforts to blend in with many seniors from the football team.
But there’s a price to pay for getting welcomed into the elite circle, and it may be too high for Shawn to handle.
The jocks are involved in a secret group that has them hunting down sexually explicit and nude photos of their female classmates.
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And if that’s not bad enough, they sell and trade those pictures online.
In the process, they unapologetically ruin the lives and worlds of unsuspecting teen girls without considering how difficult it is for them to recover.
The covert website these teen boys operate will have them placing bounties on their female classmates and trading their photographs as if they’re baseball cards.
We’ll see that Shawn sticks by his morals for as long as he can maintain them until the unthinkable happens.
After a knee injury puts him on the bench and threatens the status he achieved as an elite player on the team, Shawn succumbs to peer pressure to stay relevant.
And that’ll have Shawn partaking in this sick game that will undoubtedly hurt those closest to him, including his best friend, Lauren, played by The Hardy Boys’ Keana Lyn Bastidas.
As the boys’ actions increasingly become a problem, with many teen girls at their school falling victim to it, the parents hope to step in and shut things down.
Shawn’s mother, Lucinda, played by Station Eleven’s Tara Nicodemo, leads the charge in that endeavor.
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Unbeknownst to her, her son is involved in this covert group, and it’ll likely be one hell of a shock when she learns the truth about the son she thought she raised to be better.
Passionate, strong, intelligent women surround Shawn. It contributes to how conflicted he feels, knowing what is right and seeing how much hurt and pain the site is causing people he cares about with his own self-interest of staying at the top of the popularity pyramid.
We get a glimpse of Shawn’s loving family and friends and what is the beginning of the end in our exclusive clip.
At a lively dinner table with the loving and passionate women in his life, Shawn announces that he will be a starter on the team.
He buries the lede, but everyone at the table is ecstatic for him when he gets to his great news.
He also slides in that because of this Glo-up, he’ll be attending a big house party with the popular Senior jocks.
And it sounds all great and swells. However, Shawn’s best friend, whom he continues to roughhouse with playfully at the table, warns him about the company he may keep with this new crew.
He’s a bit dismissive of that, but her warning clearly was astute when given the trouble he finds himself in down the road.
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Friday Night Sext Scandal is produced for Lifetime by Neshama Entertainment in association with Wishing Floor Films and MarVista Entertainment.
It is executive-produced by Danielle von Zerneck. Larry Grimaldi, Hannah Pillemer, and Fernando Szew are for Marvista.
Arnie Zipursky, Dayna Zipursky, and Suzanne Berger are the executive producers for Neshama.
Gail Harvey directs a script written by Caitlin English and based on a story by Reeyaz Habib.
And the film stars Keana Lyn Bastidas, Anthony Timpano, Tara Nicodemo, and Devyn Nekoda.
Friday Night Sext Scandal airs Saturday at 8/7c on Lifetime. Check out our exclusive clip below!
Jasmine Blu is a senior staff writer for TV Fanatic. She is an insomniac who spends late nights and early mornings binge-watching way too many shows and binge-drinking way too much tea. Her eclectic taste makes her an unpredictable viewer with an appreciation for complex characters, diverse representation, dynamic duos, compelling stories, and guilty pleasures. You’ll definitely find her obsessively live-tweeting, waxing poetic, and chatting up fellow Fanatics and readers. Follow her on X.