【Nanda van Bergen】

The Nanda van Bergenfirst thing I noticed about Good Trouble, Freeform’s spin-off of The Fosters, is that it's down to get adventurous with its themes, characters, and storytelling format. Elevated by a smorgasbord of diverse talent on and off-screen, it relays poignant stories about equal pay, transgender rights, and Black Lives Matter without missing a beat.

But instead of getting bogged down, it caters to a younger audience by also being downright tantalizing and entertaining. Television has become a strong medium for distinctive millennial and Gen Z stories through recent breakouts like Sex Education, The End of the F***ing World, On My Block, American Vandal.

Good Trouble, which wrapped Season 1 on April 2, manages to carve its space in this genre despite getting buried by the #PeakTV discourse.

It sets a firm foot in the real world as opposed to the nostalgia of high school or college. Maia Mitchell and Cierra Ramirez reprise their role as foster sisters Callie and Mariana, who move to Los Angeles for work. They live in an “intentional communal” building called The Coterie, which is home to people from different backgrounds who share bathrooms and a kitchen and bond as a family.

The showconsistently pushes the boundaries for its characters and what each of them represent.

Through their work -- Callie is a progressive clerk to a conservative judge, Mariana is a minority female engineer at a male-dominated tech company -- large-scale issues like gun violence, racism, lack of women in STEM fields, gender pay gap are tackled.

Mariana is fighting for better pay and more visibility in a company that has time and again let down its female employees. She also addresses the pay gap between white women and women of color. In a particularly great scene from the ninth episode titled "Less Than," she leads a rational, productive discussion with her fellow female employees who believe tackling the pay gap issue is more important than the racial issue.

Callie often clashes with her boss because she's assigned a hot button case for the course of this season: a police officer who fatally shot an unarmed African-American man.

These are nuanced, timely problems plaguing our world right now. Good Troublelooks at them like we -- the millennial audience -- would.

Through the Coterie residents like building manager Alice, a closeted Asian-American woman, bisexual artist Gael Martinez and his transgender sister Jazmin, plus-size influencer Davia, and Black Lives Matter activist Malika, Good Trouble taps into social issues without letting these buzzwords consume the show entirely.

It’s not aiming only to be political or divisive. In fact, the entire vibe is to tell these extremely crucial stories but with a certain degree of positivity and hope; through a hard but rose-tinted glass. Good Trouble thrives because it achieves the perfect balance between these emotional, strenuous arcs and the lighter, amusing ones. As it dives deeper into the characters' personal lives, itsets a sexy, charismatic tone to parallel its more serious takes.

Callie's romantic entanglement with Gael gives way to one of the first major love triangles I've seen on TV to prominently feature a bisexual male. Gael grapples with his feelings towards her as well as the man he's dating. Alice, pining for her ex-girlfriend, tries to own her sexuality while attempting to come out to her parents. Mariana's slow burn romance with her colleague Raj takes some unexpected yet wise turns.

Suffice it to say, Season 1 doesn't lack in dramatic yet refreshing plot lines that completely reeled me in.

Another reason Good Trouble stands out is its choice of direction. Every episode is constructedto oscillate between the past and present. Scenes and conversations don't always take place in a linear timeline, letting the mystery simmer about how the episode will end. Crazy Rich Asians director Jon M. Chu helmed the pilot and set a benchmark for all other directors.

This is the perfect escape from reality without ever really leaving it. Despite a strong stance on critical issues, the show retains the sweetness of its predecessor The Fosters and offers its own modern spin on it. The theme song, Kim Bingham's"Bel Ami," will be stuck in your head for a long time.

Most importantly, it knows representation matters to the audience and has no time for token inclusivity storylines. By reflecting the world we live in, Good Trouble has proven to be exactly the type of show we need right now.

Good Trouble Season 1 is now available to stream on Hulu. Season 2 premieres on June 18.