Spoiler alert: This article contains major spoilers for My Life With the Walter Boys

The Gist:

• Alex and Cole have this ongoing feud because Alex thinks Cole “stole” his first girlfriend, Paige.
• Turns out, Paige came onto Cole, making it look like he was the one who initiated the unexpected hookup.
• The feud continues after Alex starts dating Jackie because he thinks Cole is going to try and steal her too.

If you have siblings, then you’re probably familiar with the unspoken rule that says it goes against all things moral to date your sibling’s current or former partner. This rule is also etched in the friend code. The feud between Alex (Ashby Gentry) and Cole Walter (Noah LaLonde) in the new Netflix teen drama series My Life With the Walter Boys seems to stem from this very rule being broken. We should point out, however, that the operative word is seems.

While there’s a lot of drama in the series that centers around love, loss, and heartache, Cole and Alex’s rivalry serves as a major plot point worth exploring. So, let’s dig into why the tension between Alex and Cole is so thick throughout the show we could cut it with a knife.

Despite how smitten Alex is with Jackie (Nikki Rodriguez), she isn’t his first “love.” In fact, Alex previously dated Paige, a blondish-brunette beauty with a whole lotta attitude! We learn in Episode 6 that Alex and Paige were an item, that is, until Cole came back into the picture.

Apparently, during Paige’s farewell-to-summer party (which was thrown before Jackie arrived in Colorado), Alex stepped away from Paige to go play pool (the two were dating at the time). Upon his return, he was unpleasantly surprised to find his girlfriend making out with Cole. It’s worth noting that the party was a major hit and practically the entire school was in attendance. Not a good look for Alex!

It was after the hookup that Alex and Cole’s rivalry really started.

Spoiler alert: This article contains major spoilers for My Life With the Walter Boys.

The Gist:

• Jackie Howard, a 15-year-old from New York, moves to Colorado after her parents and sister are killed in a tragic accident.
• Jackie moves in with the Walters, and it’s clear a connection develops between her and two brothers, Cole and Alex.
• Although Jackie and Alex wind up dating, the chemistry between her and Cole lingers.

My Life With the Walter Boys is the newest addition to Netflix’s lineup of teen dramas. Speaking of drama, the show features an unspoken love triangle between Jackie Howard (Nikki Rodriguez) and two brothers, Alex Walter (Ashby Gentry) and the irresistible Cole Walter (Noah LaLonde). While the chemistry between Jackie and Cole is obvious, she initially takes the safe route by starting to date Alex in Episode 5.

But something tells us that isn’t the end for Jackie and Cole. The connection between them stands out like a sore thumb the entire season. So, does Jackie ultimately end up with Alex or Cole?

There are plenty of moments throughout My Life With the Walter Boys Season 1 that lead up to Jackie and Alex dating. Alex clearly shows interest in the good girl from New York from the get-go but it takes him five long episodes before he finally makes a move.

Alex first scores major cool points after introducing Jackie to the loft, a place he often goes to when he needs an escape from his rowdy brothers. Recording her height on the wall (alongside his siblings’) added a few more. But it was after finding a Colorado version of Manhattanhenge that really sealed the deal.

During Thanksgiving, Jackie’s Uncle Richard (Alex Quijano) describes to the Walter family a place in Manhattan where the sun aligns perfectly with the Manhattan street grid. The result — an explosion of rays shooting in all directions. It was something Jackie’s mother loved and obviously, something that means a lot to her.

So, naturally, Alex’s ability to find a place that even slightly reminds Jackie of her life in New York serves well for the less popular Walter boy. And boy does it because, by the end of Episode 5, Jackie and Alex share a romantic kiss in the barn after returning from “Manhattanhenge” and they start dating. And it all plays out right in front of Cole (who is jealous).

And that brings us to Jackie and Cole’s relationship.

The Gist:

• Cam Newton said that NFL teams aren’t interested in him because of his hair.
• He wasn’t drafted to another team when his one-year contract with the Carolina Panthers ended.
• There was talk about Cam rejoining the Panthers in 2022 as the backup quarterback, but that didn’t end up happening.

While football players bow out or retire from the sport every year, fans weren’t expecting Cam Newton to disappear from the NFL. However, after his one-year contract with the Carolina Panthers ended, he wasn’t drafted back onto another team.

There has been a lot of speculation about what has kept Cam away, but he claimed that staying away isn’t his choice. He has pointed the blame at something else in the league.

According to Cam, it isn’t his ability that holding him back — instead, it’s his hair. In recent years, Cam has grown his hair out to be rather long and he claimed that teams aren’t happy with that decision. He also implied they could just be using that as an excuse.

“People have hinted towards to say like, ‘Cam, we want you to go back to the 2015 clean-cut Cam. But that was a different me. Right now, where I’m at, it’s about embracing who I am,” he told Josina Anderson on her Undefined podcast.

Also, Cam said that people implied his new look could be “scary,” he told Bleacher Report. “And I would say, ‘Yo, like I’m not going to name names, but there [are] other quarterbacks that [are] in the league that don’t look like me, but they got [have] long hair. They don’t scare them, do they?’” he explained.

“So, we can go tit for tat, tat for tit with it. But I would just turn and nod to that and say, ‘That’s not the reason why I’m not in the NFL,’” Cam admitted. So, the real reason for his absence seems to be ambiguous … even with the chance that it could be his hair after all.

Cam said that there were conversations surrounding him returning to the Panthers for 2022, but nothing came to fruition. He was reportedly asked to be backup for Sam Darnold, which Cam was OK with as long as he was given a chance to “prove himself.”

“It was small talk,” Cam told Dan Patrick, according to MCNC Charlotte. “It was the Panthers trying to get me back and they didn’t know. At that specific time, Sam Darnold was there.”

“Every situation I’ve been in, even with New England and going back to Carolina, I never had an offseason,” Cam added. “That kind of capped my mental to understand the offense as a whole and the philosophical approach to why the offensive coordinator is calling certain kinds of plays.”

Cam admitted that a variety of teams failed to reach out to him, including Washington. For those teams, he was willing to take a backseat on the roster, but he found that even his former mentors weren’t reaching out to offer him any help.

While Cam isn’t signed to a professional team as of this writing, he does still stay involved in football. He played in Auburn University’s “Pro Day,” his alma mater, in early 2023, according to the NFL. Otherwise, the once-mighty player isn’t active in the sport.