LOS ANGELES, July 2 -- The entire joke of "Legally Blonde" was that Elle Woods did not see Harvard Law coming, and neither did anyone else. She was a sorority president who studied fashion merchandising, floored an admissions committee with a video essay, and then spent two hours proving that underestimating her was the actual mistake. The premise depended on her innocence being real, not performed.

Amazon's new prequel series "Elle," which premiered Wednesday on Prime Video, spends its first season quietly dismantling that premise. Set in 1995, the show follows a teenage Elle, played by Lexi Minetree, after her family relocates from Los Angeles to Seattle partway through high school. Dropped into a school dominated by grunge aesthetics,...