This article, “who is Erika Vu” contains spoilers regarding the Netflix series Boo, Bitch season 1.
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The protagonist of Boo, Bitch is teenage outcast Erika Vu. Her journey throughout the series has its ups and downs, especially as her popularity within high school peaks and troughs. The teen has some truly blistering highs and some pretty dark lows in season one, but who exactly is Erika Vu?
Who is Erika Vu in Boo, Bitch season 1?
Erika Vu is played by Lana Condor (To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before) and is the lead actress in the series. She is a quiet, reserved teenage, who prefers to live in the shadows and avoids all forms of conflict. With graduation looming, her best friend Gia proposes that they actually attend a party for once and that night leads to some monumental changes in Erika’s life.
The reason that Erika prefers to shy away from parties and any real drama is because of the school bully Riley. During orientation, Erika accidentally bumped into Riley and caused her nose to break. Riley had it in for the geek from that moment onwards. At the ID photograph, Riley told everyone that Erika Vu was actually called Helen Who. The name stuck and even appeared on Erika’s ID card every year. Erika decided from then on to remain hidden and to avoid the bully.
The studious teenager, who has no real social life, plucks up the courage to go to this high school party once she sees that they’ve even called her Helen Who in her yearbook. At the party she quickly makes friends and nearly kisses her crush, Jake C, who happens to be Riley’s boyfriend. Gia and Erika head home high on adrenaline and maybe some other substances too, but are unfortunately hit by a truck. Erika discovers the next morning that she has been flattened by a dead moose and is now for all intents and purposes a ghost.
This disaster means that she has a new, carefree attitude and a clear motive to live life to the fullest. She believes that by kissing Jake C she will be able to ascend to the afterlife and cease to be a ghost, although this doesn’t work. At a party she stands up to Riley and becomes the most popular girl in school. This popularity goes to her head and she transforms into a mean girl. Erika ditches best friend Gia and makes frenemies with Riley and her fake friends instead. She starts to manipulate others and control boyfriend Jake. Erika becomes a fully-fledged dictator, causing riots in school and the cancelation of prom.
Eventually Erika realizes that she has become a monster and she apologies to all her friends and family members. It is revealed that Gia is in fact the ghost, who lied to make Erika fearless. This new attitude backfired badly though and turned Erika into a power-mad fraud. She lost sight of who she was and ruined people’s lives in the process. In the end Erika tried to make amends and helped Gia become the prom queen. Erika then continued to date Jake C and went to college, where she still communicates with Gia via a lava lamp.
Erika starts off as a likeable teen who was tormented by a vulgar bully. Her new lease of life led her to some dark places and she became the bully she once feared. Thanks to her friends and family though, Erika was able to see the troubling path she was taking and she turned things around. She was truly awful to Gia and made some horrific decisions, but seems to have come out on top in the end. I don’t think I could be as forgiving as the other students though.
