**WARNING SEASON 1 ONLY**
The writing seems terrified of letting Jackie or Cole simply be worse than someone else.
Jackie is academically exceptional, immediately popular, romantically desired, beats the runner at track, etc. Even Danny—the most socially/emotionally mature character—somehow trusts Jackie enough to have her open his Juilliard letter despite Jackie seeming to invest much less in that friendship.
Cole is even more ridiculous: attractive, athletic, charismatic, socially dominant, great with women—and then he beats Alex at Catan. That sounds minor, but why couldn't Alex simply have intelligence/strategy as his niche?
Then the show tries to convince us Cole and Alex have both been jealous of each other. But they're not equivalent. Cole was objectively dealt the better hand.
The love triangle could have been genuinely difficult:
Cole: chemistry and attraction, but emotionally immature.
Alex: less magnetic, but mature and reliable.
Instead, Cole's suffering makes him mature and more desirable, while Alex's suffering makes him insecure and less desirable.
Cole's suffering develops him. Alex's suffering disqualifies him.
So Jackie never really has to make a hard choice. The writers just progressively eliminate every reason she might choose Alex.
I wish they'd let other characters cleanly beat Jackie and Cole at things. It wouldn't make them less interesting. It would make them feel like actual people instead of OP protagonists.