Before we get into it, I should probably apologize for the title. But I won’t, because it was too easy and now you have “Disco Inferno” stuck in your head, which is never a bad thing.
Previously on Rebelde Way: Marizza is throwing a party at a nightclub for great justice, and also because they’ve only been in school for like a week, and everyone’s already bored. Pablo is planning to get revenge on Marizza at this party, which somehow involves Tomas macking it with Vico, to Tomas’s chagrin. The Society lured Manuel into the laundry room and strung him up like an offering to the goat overlord. And Luna ran away from her friends again.
Opening monologue: If you’re by yourself, you won’t care about anything. So…I guess because Manuel went off by himself, he doesn’t mind being hung upside down by a hook in the school’s laundry room? I don’t always know what this show is trying to tell me.
Anyway, we open with Marizza and Mia girl detective-ing it up at Sandra’s hair salon, as they’ve reluctantly joined forces to figure out why Luna is such a headcase. Hint: it’s mostly Marizza and Lujan’s fault. Marizza yells that it’s Mia’s fault, because she was trying to turn Luna into one of her sycophants, and Mia argues that she just wants to make Luna classy, like her! Heh. Again, Marizza has a point, but someone really ought to bring up how she and Lujan constantly gang up on Luna every time she does something they don’t like. Anyway, Luna can’t stand their fighting and runs out to stop them. Marizza and Mia have cracked their first case, completely unintentionally! She suggests that they could all get along, and there are more important things in life than being in charge of a high school dance troupe. Mia says she already knows there are — there’s shopping, getting your hair cut, make up…Heh. Luna says Marizza and Mia don’t know real suffering, and she has to show them. Sandra smiles smugly to herself as Luna drags Marizza and Mia off to meet her vaguely ill sister. I don’t know, if Luna’s defining suffering as familial struggles, don’t Mia’s dead mom and absentee dad count for anything?
Dunoff’s office. Pilar tries to get some money out of him to buy a new blouse, but Dunoff shuts her down, as they are apparently too poor for that. Pilar’s like, “Oh, so you have enough money for a new car, but you can’t buy me new clothes?” I mean, in fairness, that car was a bribe. But still, she has a point. Pilar stomps off, telling him that she’s going to sleep in the dorms with the rest of the students for the next few days. I guess she has her own room? Well, whatever, this is just so we know how she plans on sneaking out with everyone else for the party.
Laundry room. Manuel is still dangling from the ceiling. I like how they’re being really shifty about showing what he’s actually hanging from. Anyway, the Society kids get up in his face and tell him that they’re going to get him kicked out of school. Why did they have to kidnap him to tell him that? He already knows! Everyone’s been telling him so since like the first day of school! What’s really funny is that their voices are all deep and echoey, even though Manuel’s is normal. Maybe they have to wear hoods to disguise that they’re all wearing Darth Vader voice changers. My friends and I used to steal my brother’s and read Girl’s Life magazine out loud to each other while wearing it. I don’t know why I admitted that. They punch him in the throat and are all enhanced interrogation techniques on him for like, five seconds until Manuel caves and says he’ll leave the school on Friday. They’re like, “Oh, we cool then,” and shuffle out of the laundry room after dumping him back on the floor. I guess no one sees like ten kids walking down the hallway dressed like the Klan.
Nacho’s trailer for abandoned orphans. Lujan gives him Marizza’s presents and gets all emotional over being able to help out a fellow orphan. She tells him he reminds her of when she was little. Lujan used to dress like Little Lord Fauntleroy? Whatever. She sob stories about how she grew up in the orphanage and nobody ever cared about her. And then she was only adopted because the Cuthberts needed a boy to help out on the farm! This is the most tragical thing that’s ever happened to her! Sorry, I got carried away. Nacho’s like, “If no one cares about you, then who sent you to this school?” Lujan’s like, “Oh, right. I forgot about that plotline.” Me too, Lujan. Nacho offers to steal her file for her. Lujan says she’s already tried it a thousand times and failed, and Nacho’s like, “Well, you’re a girl and girls are bad at stealing.” I see Nacho’s sexism is also straight from the 1890s, along with his outfit. When was the last time someone washed that sailor costume, by the way? I mean, the laundry room’s always booked for torture sessions so I guess it’s hard to get it done, but still.
Back at Luna’s house, she introduces them to Flor and then hustles off to get some juice. Mia is all weirded out by being around a sick person, although Marizza isn’t much better by insisting that Flor totally can walk, she just has to try. And lo and behold, all Marizza has to do is help drag her up, and Flor is standing by herself. Then Luna comes back and flips out at the sight of Marizza manhandling her sister. She tells them to leave, and says she’ll follow them back to school. She actually does, but I can’t believe Mia and Marizza went through all this trouble to track her down and are just going to leave without dragging her back with them.
Flor’s like, “Getting yelled at and aggressively grabbed by this mouthy rando was the best day of my life.” They gotta let this girl out of the house more.
Over in some hallway, Pilar chirps to Tomás that her dad gave her some money, so they’ll be able to go to the party together. (But…didn’t Dunoff just say…oh my God, nevermind.) Tomás is like, “Oh yeah, actually, Pablo’s letting me stay behind and mack it with his girlfriend, so I won’t be needing you, bye.” Pilar seems genuinely upset by this, but says that it’s fine. Tomás beams: she’s such a good friend! (When were these two ever friends to begin with?) He gives her a hug and runs off. Pilar is sadface.
Library. Nico is panicking that he’s next on the Society’s list, because he had the misfortune of throwing his lot in with Manuel back in episode one. Yeah, I bet if Nico had stuck with…*checks my recap from 2012* Diego Arias, none of this would be happening to him. Nico immediately starts planning on the best way to drop out of school so he doesn’t incur the Society’s displeasure. Jesus Christ, Nico, have some self-respect. An ominous shadow falls across their table as Manuel says he isn’t planning on dropping out. He lied to the Society! It’s almost like torture doesn’t work! The shadow darts away and a scare chord goes off. What’s funny is that from that angle, Manuel and Nico should be full well able to see who’s eavesdropping on them.
Where could this person be? WHERE?
Manuel runs off and finds Marcos in the hallway and starts wailing on him. Marcos is a spy! If he reports Manuel to the Society, Manuel will KILL HIM! Marcos tries to crabwalk away from his psychotic classmate, but Manuel’s on a rampage. He’s like, “You were HIDING behind your locker!” Marcos is like, “Dude, we do occasionally attend class at this school.” Then Manuel’s like, “Oh, right,” and completely snaps out of his violent rage. There’s actually a record scratch sound. God, I love this show.
Pilar jumps Guido and asks him to go to the party with her. Guido’s like, “I know continuity isn’t this show’s strong point, but aren’t you going out with Tomás?” Pilar tells him they have an open relationship. That is hilarious. Guido’s like, “I seriously cannot think of anything I’d rather do less than have a threesome with you and Tomás.” Not really. He points out that he doesn’t want to have any bad vibes with his friend, and Pilar says that Tomás is taking Vico, per Pablo’s request, so she’ll be alone. Guido sort of squints at her: “Tomás is taking Vico?” Wasn’t…Guido…like…in the room with them when Pablo asked? Whatever. He shrugs and is like, “K.” Pilar shouts after him that they’ll have a great time. Guido’s like, “What a weirdo.” I spontaneously start shipping them.
Mia, Marizza, and Luna all head back to school. I’m amazed that Luna actually came back with them instead of lying and punking out, which is her usual M.O. Marizza squeals on about her party (Luna derps, “Did you clear it with the principal?”) and endears herself to me slightly by saying that Mia doesn’t have the ovaries to sneak out. Mia is deeply offended.
The girls find Nacho back in Marizza’s room, and Luna squeals over seeing him again, like he wasn’t being rude as hell to her the last time they met. Marizza is also wearing the nerdiest pair of pajamas known to man:
Maybe she’s doing it ironically.
Naco hands over Lujan’s file, and chirps that he also overheard Dunoff planning to bring in a task force to find him. He feels so important! How Marizza doesn’t strangle him with his sailor tie, I don’t know. The task force is coming in tomorrow night, which is the night of Marizza’s party, naturally. Lujan’s like, “Well, I guess that blows the party then.” Oh, Lujan, you’re so naive.
Mia’s room. Vico coos over Mia’s hair (which looks the same as always, but whatever), and Mia gasps that she got it done on the BAD SIDE OF TOWN! She’ll be shopping at the supermarket next! Wait, are you telling me that somewhere in between interrogating Sandra, dramatically meeting Flor, and dragging Luna back to school, Mia also found the time to get her hair done? Jesus Christ. Anyway, Mia changes the subject: “What about you? How’s your revenge going?” I like how telenovela characters just take these things for granted. They giggle over how glad they are to be friends again, then Feli comes in. She’s holding a stuffed dinosaur and is like…pretending to brush its teeth? I don’t know. Mia tells her that she and Vico have made up, but she still can’t tell Feli who Vico’s secret boyfriend is. Feli is Not Pleased.
Nighttime, Manuel’s room. ~Someone~ sneaks in and puts a note under his pillow, because this school still doesn’t have any locks on its doors.
The next day. Lujan despairs over her file: it doesn’t have any information about the person who put her in the school, except for their bank account number and signature. Sure, that’s not important information at all. (Sidebar: I Googled “how to find someone by bank account number”, just to check if they could track down Lujan’s mysterious benefactor with this information. I really hope I’m not on a list somewhere now.) Marizza says they’ll just photocopy the file. Imagine a world where people didn’t have cameras at their disposal all the time!
Meanwhile, in Mia’s room, she lies awake fretting over how Manuel called her hysterical. Dudes who legitimately believe in female hysteria ought to be punched, but that’s neither here nor there.
Back in Manuel’s room, Nico stares at Marcos while they’re getting dressed. Dude! Boundaries! Marcos is like, “Can you not watch me put my pants on?” Nico shoos him out of the room so he can go through all of Marcos’s crap. Manuel wakes up and Nico says that he thinks Marcos was the one eavesdropping on them earlier. I mean, if they’d bothered to look slightly to their left, they’d know by now, but whatever. The sound in the background sounds vaguely familiar? I think it’s — oh my God, it’s “Youth of the Nation,” by “Christian metal” band P.O.D. I think I downloaded a Star Wars: New Jedi Order fanmix with that song on it in 2005, because I have no other explanation for how I know it. Manuel discovers the Society’s note under his pillow, and says that they want to meet him in the park. Well, by all means, go ahead, Manuel! That doesn’t sound like a trap at all. Nico wails that they know Manuel’s not planning to drop out. It’s almost like you two should have these conversations in your room or something.
Classroom. Guido and Tomás are bullying Marcos just to pass the time before class. Marizza gets up on the desk to announce her party, and everyone’s all, “Omg, you’re having a party?” Uh, didn’t she pass invitations out in the last episode? Whatever. She tells them that the school board is having a meeting, so they’re going to have to — gasp — work together to sneak out. Everyone’s all appalled at the idea of hanging out with other cliques. They don’t break out into “Stick to the Status Quo”, to my chagrin. Marizza tells them that they’re going to unite for the first time in history as a class. That probably would have been more dramatic if their class had been together longer than two weeks.
Dunoff’s office. He’s drawn up a map of the school and labeled it with all the places the task force will be looking, including all the entrances and exits. Hijinks! How will the kids get out now? It’s also worth mentioning that the school has a “map room.” A room dedicated solely to maps? Is this normal for a high school? No wonder everyone is better at geography than Americans 🙁
Marizza calls him and tells him that Pilar is macking it with a boy in the cafeteria. She doesn’t even try to disguise her voice, and you’d think Dunoff would recognize it because she spends half her life in that office, but he doesn’t. He runs off to go shame Pilar into submission, and Marizza and Lujan sneak in to replace the file. “You really inherited your mom’s acting skills!” Lujan dorks. She sneaks her file back and they make off with the list of the task force’s telephone numbers.
Dunoff finds Pilar and some rando who looks just like Tomás (but apparently isn’t) sharing a bag of candy and…staring into the empty classroom? I don’t know. Dunoff realizes it was a prank call, and Pilar cries that everyone is always spreading rumors about her because they hate her. Dunoff’s like, “Yeah, I don’t really care. Bye.”
“I hate when my only child comes to me with her emotional problems.”
Once he’s gone, Pilar wipes her crocodile tears and turns back to the empty classroom, where all of her classmates come out of hiding and applaud her. It was all a trick! That’ll probably endear Pilar to her classmates for the next two days, and then they’ll all decide to hate her again. In the classroom, actual Tomás asks Pablo why he’s going along with Marizza’s scheme, and Pablo says that he needs to gain Marizza’s trust. Apparently he’s taking a different tack on this whole vengeance thing, and Vico attending with Tomás is part of his plan. “How so?” Tomás asks. Pablo explains that he’s prepared a surprise for Marizza at the party. Wait, did I say explain? That doesn’t explain Vico or Tomás’s involvement at all.
In the hallway, Nico begs Manuel to reconsider walking in to the Society’s hella obvious trap. Although actually, Manuel’s willingness to fight these guys makes a little more sense when you remember that he’s really a senior, not an underclassman. He tells Nico he’s going in prepared, and pulls out a boxcutter. Because that worked out really well in West Side Story. Nico freaks out that Manuel might legitimately get himself into a rumble, and Manuel tells him to stay out of it. Nico’s concern for his safety is harshing his vibe. Manuel runs into Mia in the midst of his storm-off, and she snaps at him for telling Feli that she’s hysterical. He’s like, it’s not gossip, you’re weird, it’s just a fact. Mia says, “You’re like twenty and still in third year!” Hee! So I guess everyone does know that Manuel is 17? They probably all think he’s slow or something. Manuel tells her he doesn’t have to be book smart to figure out that Mia pretends to look down on everything and call everyone else tacky because she’s afraid of interacting with the real world. That’s deep. Mia is Not Pleased by his armchair psychoanalysis. “You deserve that haircut you have!” she yells at him as he walks off.
I love that line so much, I wasted an hour gifing it in Photoshop.
Marizza calls all the task force members, pretending to be Gloria, and tells them that the meeting is canceled until further notice. Wow, that was easy.
Hallway. Guido and Pilar are walking together and being mildly cute, which makes it an excellent time for Mia to show up and ask Guido out. He literally pushes Pilar into the lockers. Oh Lord, Mia, you can do better than this fool. Guido literally says, to Mia’s face, “This is such a great day! All the girls want me!” She doesn’t immediately run away from him, although she should. I hate Manuel for making Mia insecure enough to lower her standards like this. Anyway, Guido dumps Pilar. She runs off to go spill the beans about the party to Dunoff in vengeance. Marizza catches up to her and begs her not to tell. “Were you following me?” Pilar asks. “Uh, yes,” Marizza says. Hee.
Marizza tells Pilar that if she sells them out about the party, she’s just proving them right when they call her a snitch. Well, yeah, but they’re also all just using her, so asking Pilar to give a shit about them is a little rich. But Marizza’s peer pressure works, and when Dunoff comes out all worried about her, she tells him she was just fretting about the prank call earlier. Marizza has the grace to look a little guilty about that.
Manuel heads out to meet the Society. See, when he said they wanted to meet him at the park, I was envisioning an actual park, like, off-campus or something. Manuel walks like two feet from the front of the school to some potted trees in the courtyard. There’s no one waiting for him, just a box at the foot of the tree. Manuel starts opening it with his boxcutter. It sure is handy that he brought that along! Nico runs out and tells him not to open it, because it could be a bomb. Manuel rightly starts laughing at him. “I warned you!” Nico wails, and then runs off to hide behind a tree while Manuel opens the package.
I’m sure being four feet away from the bomb instead of two will make all the difference.
It’s not a bomb, obviously. Come on, Nico. It’s actually the files from all the kids the Society has gotten kicked out, going back to 1995. Nico freaks out that the Society’s been around for ten years and nobody’s ever done anything about them. There’s a note in the box telling Manuel that they support him; somebody should’ve stuck up to the Society a long time ago. He and Nico can’t tell if it’s serious or not. They make a pact to hide the box until they find more clues.
Nighttime. Dunoff calls the president of the commission to remind him about the task force, and gets the news that “someone” has canceled it. Dunoff is Not Pleased.
Marizza’s room. Nacho’s gotten a change of clothes, and actually looks like a kid from the 21st century now. He wants to help them escape, but Marizza shoos him out of the room. Luna comes in and chirps that the guard was super grateful for the cup of tea she gave him, it was so nice of Marizza to make it! Oh, Luna. It turns out that they just gave him a ton of tea to make him have to go to the bathroom frequently, although would anyone really be surprised if they drugged him?
Mia’s room. Mia and Vico squeal over their outfits, which are the height of early 2000s fashion, aka absolutely terrible. It’s a pity Marcos is going to inevitably have a makeover, because his geek clothes are the only things that have survived into the 2010s. Anyway, Feli cries that she’s not going. Mia says that it’s a shame, since Feli looks super pretty, and Manuel should see her like this. “You’re only saying that because you’re my friend,” Feli sniffles. “No, I think so too!” Vico says. HEE! Feli wails that she’s a cow, just like Marizza said. Mia says that Feli has a beautiful personality and as stupid as Manuel is, he wouldn’t be with Feli if he didn’t think well of her. Feli is appeased. It’s also worth mentioning that she has the nicest outfit of the three girls (Mia is wearing cow-print boots, send help), so she should be comforted by the fact that she’ll be the only one not cringing at the photos in ten years.
Manuel’s room. He’s put on the orange pants again. This kid should not be allowed to dress himself. He and Nico are super excited, but Marcos declines to go with them. He’d rather stay in and angst to Linkin Park through his headphones or some shit. Nico nervously whispers to Manuel that Marcos might be staying behind because he’s part of the Society. Scare chord! Man, can’t a guy just be emo without getting these accusations thrown at him?
Seeing as the task force hasn’t shown up, Dunoff takes matters into his own hands. He’s recruited the random not-ethics teacher to put on a ski cap and skulk around the campus with him. You think I’m making this up, but I’m not:
I legitimately laughed at this. This is the greatest thing I’ve ever seen in my life.
The entire fucking class gathers on the sidewalk to wait for the bus. They won’t draw any attention at all, I’m sure. Marizza says she’ll trade the school supplies for tickets. I’m hoping she bought them ahead of time, because I can’t think of a single nightclub in the world that would accept high schoolers’ notebooks in exchange for admission. A white van pulls up and everyone’s like, “That’s the bus!” instead of the sensible reaction, which would be, “That is a murder van.”
Nacho calls the police and they bust Dunoff and the random not-ethics teacher, thinking that they’re burglars. Hijinks!
The club. Everyone gets down to “Superstylin’“. I love this show’s music choices so much. Mia/Guido and Manuel/Feli go off to dance, and Vico drags Tomás off to go make out. Pablo goes to the bar like the baby alcoholic that he is. And you know what we haven’t had in a while?
AW YES.
RANDOM.
FUCKING.
DANCE ROUTINE.
Sorry, I had to resize the screencaps because they were so horribly pixelated. 2002 was not a good time for digital video. Anyway, the dance routine goes on for like five minutes. It almost eats up the end of the episode, but no, we have some more drama to squeeze in first. Pablo drunkenly latches on to Marizza and asks her to help him before he voms. She takes him up to the catwalk over the club, and then he tries to rape her. What the fuck! WHAT THE FUCK!
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