Inspired by Amazon Prime’s latest hit show Sterling Point, we look at dynamics in queer relationships
BY TIGER ROSE, IMAGE BY AMAZON PRIME
If Sterling Point hasn’t been on your radar, you must be living under a rock. Amazon Prime’s new teen drama follows Annie Jacobson, a New Yorker who inherits her estranged grandfather’s island in Canada. There she finds a sister she never knew, Ramona, and a friendship group anchored by Oona: magnetic, funny, Ramona’s best friend turned love interest, played by Bo Bragason.
After finally letting herself fall for Ramona, Oona ends things first, not because of too much love but because of too much fear. We learn that her mother has never been reliable, and Oona’s defence is not letting people in, so she can’t be hurt again. Ending it herself lets her feel like she’s protecting her heart. Creator Megan Park has said the breakup isn’t really about Ramona: it’s Oona’s oldest trigger resurfacing at the worst moment.
It’s a gut-punch of a scene, and one of the most accurate depictions of WLW relationships I’ve seen on screen in years. Call it the “Oona problem”: shutting down dressed up as decisiveness, leaving first so one else gets the chance to. Attachment theory has a name for it: avoidant attachment, the instinct to create distance the moment closeness starts to feel real, because closeness is where the risk lives.
I would argue this is not a new storyline for sapphic relationships. Bette and Tina’s infamous relationship during The L Word shows that the couple choose volatility over vulnerability. Killing Eve took it even further with intimacy expressed through distance and danger, because closeness never felt safe. Grey’s Anatomy’s Callie and Arizona storyline didn’t fall far from this tree; they constantly hurt each other instead of just staying still long enough to be loved back. We even see this in the unscripted TV shows like The Ultimatum: Queer Love, where this pattern continues.
This isn’t just fictional. Hinge’s latest D.A.T.E reports, surveying over 30,000 daters, found 84% of Gen Z want deeper emotional connection, yet many sabotage their own chance of it. Over half said they’d felt ashamed after being vulnerable. We’re more afraid of our own exposure than put off by anyone else’s. Hinge calls this “vulnerability hangover”. I would argue this summarises Oona, shutting the door before anyone gets close enough to see her flinch.
What really hits home for the WLW audience isn’t simply that Oona is queer. It’s that so many of us recognise the choreography: two people fluent in self-protection, stuck in a stand-off where neither reaches first, because exposure rarely feels safe when you’ve grown up without a safety net. Queer relationships also lack some scaffolding that keeps heterosexual couples together. In my opinion, for us there is no default expectation of marriage, less family pressure to “work it out”, so leaving can feel less like avoidance and more like self-respect.
None of this makes the pattern romantic. It makes it recognisable, which is more useful. The alternative isn’t a grand leap into fearlessness. It’s smaller: staying in the discomfort a moment longer than instinct wants and finding out whether the person stays too.
Sterling Point doesn’t resolve Oona and Ramona’s story. They’re left circling the same question, which I would argue tightens the bond between the characters and viewer because this outcome is realistic of normal relationships. Sometimes the first step is noticing their patterns, and recognising awareness can be the beginning of change.
You can watch Sterling Point on Amazon Prime now.
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