Netflix’s ‘The Body’ Explores Queer Girlhood, Catholic Guilt, and the Teenage Search for Faith

The Body is set in a Catholic girls school circa the early 2000s—complete with Juicy Couture pajamas, Yahoo! Messenger, teenage devilry, secret lesbian relationships, and plenty of Catholic guilt. Meszaros plays Lisbeth, a gawky reject whose desperation to join the dance team leads her to some fairly sinful decisions. On Halloween night, mutually pining co-captains Anya (Kristina Bogic) and Elise (Sara Boustany) stage a team initiation that goes wildly wrong—and maybe accidentally summons the devil.

Amid the chaos of their drunken houseparty, Lisbeth takes one for the team and buries a body—literally. Before long, high school devolves into Crucible-style mania as the girls start seeing visions.

Though showrunner Quinn Shephard has described The Body as a love letter to the female-centered horror of the early 2000s, and it arrives amid a similarly themed Carrie remake and the Nov. 20 return of Yellowjackets; the series might be less of a Y2K echo than something entirely new: a snapshot of Gen Z’s faith in 2026.

“There’s a sense of faith in each other, that you need to have, that you just don’t get if you’re not part of a team,” Meszaros says about connecting with her costars.