Netflix’s latest hit series is a legal romantic comedy series called Partner Track. That’s right: beware, She-Hullk: Attorney At Law, there’s already another attorney-focused streaming original on the scene. The show, which has been a trending high Netflix TV rankings since it premiered over the weekend, stars Teen Wolf cast member Arden Cho as Ingrid Yun, a young lawyer struggling to climb the ladder in her New York City law firm. Cho believes the existence of the series challenges stereotypes and workplace issues an Asian character on TV has yet to confront before.
Partner Track, which is based on a 2013 novel of the same name by Helen Wan, was a role that Arden Cho says she was intentional about pursuing the TV project due to the rare position it in which it features a young Asian woman. Cho recently told Entertainment Weekly,
Not every Asian girl is the sexy vixen or nerdy friend or whatever stereotypes and roles had been portrayed in the past.
Arden Cho also spoke to the specific elements of the rom-com series that open up a discussion about women in color in the workplace. Continuing, she explained,
We can see the lack of diversity in these environments and how tough it is to have so many different things against you. Ingrid is not only a person of color; she's also a woman and looks younger. There are so many different elements that end up being against her. With Partner Track, you get to see it from her perspective, but also Tyler and Rachel's perspectives. You get to see how the cards are dealt differently for some of their white male co-workers. It's different for someone who has family ties, and connections, who comes from wealth, or has alumni relationships. You see all the obstacles people of color might experience in a corporate setting, which is relatable to different work settings.
Netflix memorably opened up more opportunities for Asian women in leading comedic roles with the All The Boys movies, where Lana Condor played a different kind of Asian-American high schooler than the stereotypes we’ve seen in the genre. With Partner Track, the streamer continues to champion different Asian-led stories, this time around with a show about a relatively new lawyer who is facing common and relatable problems to other POC in the workplace.
As Arden Cho shared, Ingrid Yun deals with the competition of being an Asian woman among many white male co-workers, who have more connections or have wealthy backgrounds. This makes it easier for them to go further faster, whereas she has to work twice as hard. It certainly offers another perspective apart from Disney+’s well-reviewed She-Hulk series, which is also primarily about a female attorney... but one who can transform into a big, green superhero.
It’s great to see more shows like Partner Track speak to the struggles that can occur within workplaces, especially in the corporate world. In addition to this, audiences are entertained with Ingrid’s Season 1 journey and rooting for different possible love interests, just as you’d expect from your typical legal series starring a bunch of twenty-somethings.
Partner Track ends a bountiful string of August Netflix new releases, which also included other bingeable shows like The Sandman, Locke & Key and Never Have I Ever. You can check out Partner Track only with a Netflix subscription.
