Underage is a mystery that unravels the secrets of teenage lives

📺 Secrets of teen life unravel behind school walls as Shahid’s Underage opens in familiar territory: an all-girls school, a close group of friends, and complex family dynamics, before shifting into a realm where power balances tilt and teenage fates intertwine. Across 12 episodes, writer Amin Gamal and director Yehya Ismail — best known for Rivo — trace the exact moments when fleeting jealousy and quiet obsession snowball into high-stakes choices, offering an intense look at the turbulence of adolescence.

The plot: Hana (Jayda Mansour) vanishes after an eventful school day, prompting her best friend Mariam (Jessica Hosameldin) to launch a search that leads her to bloodstains inside an abandoned school bathroom. As the disappearance escalates into a full-blown investigation, questioning reveals rivalries and secrets among Hana’s inner circle. Every girl lands squarely in the crosshairs of suspicion, leaving Mariam trapped in a mystery far beyond her depth. Ultimately, the series culminates in a shocking revelation behind Hana’s murder, completely reframing earlier events.

What we liked: The series uses the disappearance not merely as a suspense tool, but as a gateway to expose the hidden world of teenage girls and the pressures that surround them, avoiding straightforward portrayals of victims or suspects. By focusing heavily on the characters’ motives, anxieties, and personal crises, it constantly deepens the web of suspicion, giving viewers reason to second-guess their assumptions at every turn. Credit also goes to the show for relying on a young cast and introducing fresh talent to the screen.

The downside: While the show builds intrigue and keeps audiences hooked until the end, it occasionally falls into typical high school crime-drama clichés. The pacing sometimes pushes for sudden character turns at the expense of organic development and deeper motives. Giving key characters more breathing room to evolve would have served the story better than scattering focus across multiple simultaneous subplots and relationships, which left a few narrative threads feeling rushed toward the finish line.

Our verdict: Underage delivers an engaging experience for fans of mystery and social dramas, offering a contemporary take on teenage life with all its pressures, jealousies, and intricate friendships. Though it may not reinvent the crime-drama playbook, it keeps viewers invested in the characters’ fates and the truth behind what happened.

WHERE TO WATCH- Underage is streaming now on Shahid. Watch the trailer on YouTube (watch, runtime: 0:36).