5 hours ago
2
“Every bull is different. Just like people.” And despite the all-dude traditions of professional bull riding, in Not Her First Rodeo (now streaming on Hulu), Jorden Halvorsen and her Elite Lady Bull Riders aim to put a boot in the ass of said traditions. The six-episode docuseries from ABC News Studios follows Halvorsen as she manages and competes alongside four women seeking a gleaming championship belt buckle on the pro bull riding circuit. A rider can win it all in 8 seconds. Luke Perry taught us bull riding no-nothings that way back in 1994. And those who do it call it an addiction. But as Halvorsen says, on the back of a jump-kicking bull, “8 seconds feels like forever.” And then there’s the whole might-get-killed part to worry about.
NOT HER FIRST RODEO: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
Opening Shot: At a rodeo in Nocona, Texas, an announcer warms up the large crowd. “Folks! How many of y’all wanna see a cowgirl ride a bull tonight?”
The Gist: In Not Her First Rodeo, just like Bunkhouse Boys Teeter, Walker, and Ryan on Yellowstone, everyone dresses in the standard cowboy uniform of Wranglers and cowboy hat and patterned western shirt, no matter their gender. But that egalitarian aesthetic does not apply to the international bull riding league known as Professional Bull Riders, Inc., or PBR. Jorden Halvorsen, 29, is over ten years pro. She’s won 3 world titles, “and about 30 buckles.” But her status as both a trailblazer and an outlier inspired her to build Elite Lady Bull Riders, and create a space for female riders to succeed where previous women’s bull riding organizations failed.
As rodeo season begins, Halvorsen has a hand-picked team of riders with a mix of veteran seasoning and rookie spirit. Alexia Huffman, 26, rode bulls as a kid before taking a ten-year break to join the Army and get married. For Catalina Langlitz, 22, being trampled and nearly killed during a competition in 2022 has put her on the comeback trail. 19-year-old Renata Nunes is a second-generation talent – her father Renato Nunes was the PBR’s 2010 world champion. And Athena Rivera, also 19, is a young rider from Mexico who’s already hooked on the sport. “I just wanna ride bulls,” Rivera says in Rodeo. “They’re taking all my money. But I love it and can’t leave it.”
The cash around here can be funny. While winning purses on the PBR can be lucrative, the ladies of the ELB know the rodeo circuit can also be a lot of work and risk for very little reward. But they’re committed. After years of injuries and ACL tears, Halvorsen wears custom knee braces while riding. And puncturing a lung and falling into a coma were only motivating factors for Langlitz.
Not Her First Rodeo is also an ABC News production, so while it includes reality-style components in its editing and presentation — Langlitz is denoted “The Comeback Kid” while Nunes is “The Legacy” — the series doesn’t drive up the drama in the manner a reality show might. Later episodes will delve into their family backgrounds, bull riding inspirations, and lives outside the rodeo chute. But early on, the focus is on their professional environment, and the adversity they confront as individuals just trying to hang on to a spinning bull. We watch them win big and lose hard inside that all-important eight-second differential, and become a self-contained network of mutual support. Because it seems like everywhere they go in the world of rodeos and cowboying and the PBR, there’s always some guy around to call them cute for trying to play a man’s game.
Photo: DisneyWhat Shows Will It Remind You Of? You might remember Jorden Halvorsen from Netflix’s How to be a Cowboy, a reality series set on a working ranch and featuring cowboy celebrity Dale Brisby, “the original Ol’ Son.” (In Rodeo, Halvorsen credits Brisby with giving her younger self a crash course in the ways of bull riding and cowboying.) And in 2023, Prime Video profiled PBR competitors – all guys – on The Ride.
Our Take: It doesn’t feel like it should have ever been gender-specific, the nonzero chance for a human being in a cowboy hat to be stomped on or straight up killed by a rampaging bovine. But like pretty much anything in America, bull riding was a boys club until women like Jorden Halvorsen grabbed the sport by the horns and refused to let go. In Not Her First Rodeo, the individuals Halvorsen has tapped for her Elite Lady Bull Riders are each interesting in their own right, and regard her as part professional inspiration, part parental guiding hand, even if she’s still in her twenties. So as a group, they make for a strong profile. We also like how this docuseries doesn’t drench itself in reality industry trappings. Rather than feature cutaways full of self-involved drama stoking, Rodeo gets right into what these women collectively believe in, which is riding bulls and kicking rocks at whoever’s got a problem with that, especially men.
It’s also kind of incredible how relevant that 8-second ticker box becomes. For the riders, sure. It’s their end-all, the validation for every workout and injury and ounce of thankless dedication. (Oh, you stayed on? Your right hand didn’t touch the bull that could’ve killed you? Congrats – here’s thirty bucks.) But we mean for us, as viewers. When Not Her First Rodeo gets to its first competition, and each ELB competitor launches out of the chute, we were glued to the superimposed ticking clock like we were watching an Olympic event. “It’s a losing sport,” Jorden Halvorsen says matter-of-factly. “Getting bucked off is just a fact.” Early on, as we saw both eight-second highs and startlingly violent lows – after she’s hung up on a bull, the announcer calls one competitor “Tougher than a T-bone at Waffle House” – we found the pressure and unpredictability of bull riding immediately compelling, especially when attached to the personalities we get to know in Rodeo.
Photo: DisneySex and Skin: Nothing beyond the sexism that apparently stinks up rodeos as much as cow shit does. Driving her big pickup and horse trailer, Halvorsen can’t even ask for simple directions without getting hit with a “What, you havin’ a blonde moment?”
Parting Shot: “Rocky.” That’s Jorden Halvorsen on the start of Elite’s bull riding season. “It happens, for sure. Let’s hope these girls get it together.”
Sleeper Star: Choose your rider! The rookie with something to prove? The comebacker riding for personal redemption? But Rodeo also showcases a very nice friendship between ELP’ers Catalina Langlitz and Renata Nunes.
Most Pilot-y Line: TC Long, rodeo announcer: “Cowboy culture is bigger than ever. Yellowstone got a lot of people interested in the western way of life, and you’re seeing that interest everywhere, from the clothing, to PBR selling out Madison Square Garden. Heck, even Beyoncé made a country album.”
Our Call: Stream It! The name writes itself. But in Not Her First Rodeo, Jorden Halvorsen and her crew of professional lady bull riders are out to back up that name with championship hardware, no matter how tough it gets, and no matter how the male establishment would like to throw dirt on their efforts. “In the chute,” says one bullrider, “I don’t think about anything else.”
English (US)