Most critics like Betty, and the praise is unusually consistent. The reviews describe an unhurried hangout series about a group of girl skateboarders in New York, and they value it for the same reasons: the friendships feel lived-in, the skating sequences have real momentum, and the young cast comes across as people rather than performers. Several reviews single out its handling of gender and queer self-acceptance, and one credits it with treating a storyline about sexual assault through the trust between the characters rather than through spectacle.
The reservations are few. IndieWire is the lone dissenter, finding the series flashy and entertaining but thinner than the film it grew from, style over substance. Elsewhere the complaints are minor; even Variety, at the lower end of the positive reviews, admires how the show captures the feeling of being a teenager. The spread is narrow, and the consensus is a warm one.
