Previously on Rebelde Way: Marizza is throwing a party, because it’s been like, ten whole episodes since we’ve had one of those. Manuel pick-up-artist’d Mia to the point that she was insecure enough to ask Guido out. Jesus Christ, Manuel. They all get down to some excellent music choices at the club, although it occurs to me that this show is really missing the boat on some hilarious early 2000s reggaeton.
(I love reggaeton with only a minimal sense of irony. Shut up.)
Opening monologue: A true warrior knows that a war is made of many battles. He learns from his losses. He also probably is not a high schooler.
We pick up where we left off, with Pablo basically assaulting Marizza on the balcony. She knees him in the balls and runs. Wait, was that Pablo’s vengeance plan? How on earth was sexually assaulting her going to make him look good? What did he need Tomás and Vico for? Whatever, I already know there’s no point to asking these questions.
Dunoff’s office. He tells the police officer that he had to take matters into his own hands, as he is incapable of controlling a bunch of teenagers. “Aren’t you a little old to be pretending to be a spy?” the policeman asks. Ha! Then he gets really weird and suggests that he give the kids a talk to scare them straight. Dunoff tells the policeman that the students are all sleeping, so no can do with the intimidation right now. “Excellent! Waking them up in the dead of the night will scare them even more!” This officer should not be working with children, I think. After he leaves, the not-ethics teacher tells Dunoff that all the kids are out of bed. Wait, how does he know this? Did he look in their bedrooms? Even the female students’? That is just disturbing as hell. This school ought to be investigated.
Back in the club, Marizza is dancing again, apparently not traumatized at all from her near-rape encounter. Everyone is getting down to “Sweet Baby“, which is another Erreway song that I guess we’re just pretending isn’t by Erreway right now. Feli wallflowers sadly off to the side, and Manuel comes up and says Marizza is a great dancer. Manuel is being such a crap boyfriend right now. Does it have to be spelled out that you shouldn’t rub your friendship with your girlfriend’s bully in her face? Feli is angsting too hard to dance, so Manuel ditches her to hang out with Marizza. Dump him, Feli! Sadly, she won’t.
Back in the school, Dunoff and the random not-ethics teacher barge into Manuel’s room and wake up Marcos. What’s privacy? Marcos is having a nightmare about getting beaten up. I sense a backstory! Marcos says he doesn’t know where everyone is, but Dunoff doesn’t believe him — which is weird, because anyone with eyes can see that Marcos is the nerdy classmate that no one invites to anything. Dunoff browbeats him into going to the principal’s office. Marcos leans sadly against his Neon Genesis Evangelion poster. Aw!
“MARCOS, DID YOU PUT YOUR NAME IN THE GOBLET OF FIRE?”
Back at the club, Feli is apparently joining Pablo in the drowning-your-sorrows club. Underage drinking for everyone! (Actually, according to the bastion of wisdom that is Yahoo! Answers, the drinking age in Argentina is 18, but carding isn’t really a thing.) She and Pablo cackle over how their shitty lives have driven them to the bottle.
Over on the dance floor, Mia witnesses Vico and Tomás making out, while “Tu y yo” by Thalia plays in the background. Heh. Guido rolls up to ask her to dance, but she blows him off and runs away. Guido stares after her, and also catches sight of Vico and Tomás. I originally wrote, “I can’t believe they’re making out in front of their entire class,” but then I remembered that this is Tomás we’re talking about.
Dunoff’s office. He’s roped Mansilla into this, too, which I guess is fair enough, since Mansilla is the only who gives a shit about any of the kids here. Dunoff chirps to Marcos that this is the perfect opportunity for him to get revenge on his classmates, and Mansilla’s just like, “What” in the background. He suggests that maybe they could stop yelling at Marcos, seeing as he’s actually the only one who hasn’t broken any rules. Dunoff’s like, “Ugh, your teacher code of conduct is harshing my interrogation.” Anyway, Marcos lies and gives the name of a different club, and Dunoff and the random not-ethics teacher run off to go find the students. Pilar’s mom also shows up for the first time in 15 episodes to wail over Pilar and awkward her way around Mansilla. Good to know they brought her back for this.
Mia drags Vico into the bathroom to yell at her for cheating on Pablo. With Tomás, of all people. Vico remarks that Pablo is as nearly a jerky boyfriend as Manuel; she doesn’t have to care about his feelings. Mia points out that even though that’s true, Pablo does have a tendency to get creepy and obsessed with vengeance every time someone looks at him wrong, so Vico should be careful. There’s some random girl who spends the entire scene loitering by the sinks for no reason I can think of.
She doesn’t even go here!
Just then, Luna busts in and says they need to see something outside. They all leave, random girl included, and Pilar slips out of one of the stalls. “How iiiinteresting!” she evil monologues to herself. I mean, at least she didn’t bring her notebook to the club.
Outside, Feli is completely wasted and doing a striptease on the floor. Is it like in the female actresses’ contracts somewhere that they have to take their clothes off at some point? It’s getting kind of weird. Mia, Vico, Luna, and Manuel all gape at her, but of course none of them actually DO anything about it until she takes her dress off. Jesus Christ, you guys. Finally, after God and everyone has gotten a good look at Feli’s bra, Manuel runs up and puts the dress back on her. Then Tomás takes his shirt off, because apparently he thought that was an invitation for everyone to start stripping. God, I love him.
The next part is really weird — there’s some tall guy looking over at where Manuel’s dragging Feli off, and I don’t know if we’re meant to think he’s perving on her or what, but Marizza comes up and hits him, and then a fistfight breaks out in the club. I went back and rewatched it like three times and I still don’t really know what’s supposed to be happening. The gist of it all is that the police come and kick them out of the club.
Back at school, Pilar’s mom brings Mansilla some coffee, and they bond over idealism and improving their country and joining the Bolsheviks. Not really that last one. Pilar’s mom straight-up asks him if he’s married, and Mansilla says he was. She disses Dunoff to him as well, and says that she doesn’t love him. This is a lot of information within the first five minutes of meeting someone. They mention that Mansilla was abroad for several years, but he’s come back to work at this terrible school for MYSTERIOUS REASONS that I’m sure will be revealed in about 100 episodes. Marcos pokes his head in to ask if they’ve found the other kids yet, and Mansilla invites him in for a coffee, which is really just code for “Please come cockblock my boss’s wife because this is getting awkward.”
The club. Mia calls her dad, and Papa C bails them all out. Sonia shows up too, and calls Papa C uptight for daring to lecture the kids on sneaking out and underage drinking. I think we’ve just hit on the root of all of Marizza’s boundary issues, here.
Next day. It’s Friday, which mean it’s free dress day for all the kids. Wait, has the entirety of the show so far taken place in one week? That’s amazing. Anyway, Dunoff comes in to read them all the riot act, and says whoever was responsible for screwing up the commission meeting and planning the breakout will be expelled immediately. Marizza sweatdrops. Dunoff adds that until someone comes forward, they’re all banned from leaving campus, and they won’t have their Hogsmeade weekend free weekend either. Pablo suggests that they just turn Marizza in. Mansilla shows up and asks them to have an ethics discussion about the party debacle. He tells them that when people agree to do something as a group, they make a commitment to each other, and if one of them sells out the group, they’re breaking the commitment, and that makes them a snitch. What the fuck! This isn’t like, the Polish resistance or some shit. A kid ratting out their classmates for breaking the school rules isn’t the end of the world. I mean, I do sort of agree that they should keep their traps shut in this case, since 99% of them were at that party. But a teacher really shouldn’t be encouraging them.
Feli runs off to the bathroom, presumably on account of her hangover, and Mia follows. It turns out that Feli’s so hungover and out of it that she goes into the boys’ bathroom. Hijinks! The show hits us over the head with Mansilla’s point: they can’t take Feli to the school nurse, as then they’ll find out she’s been drinking, and she’ll get in trouble. Of course, you could also make the opposite point, which is that now the kids are going to cover up potentially dangerous stuff because they don’t want to tattle. Well, whatever.
Manuel receives another threateny note from the Society, reminding him that he agreed to be kicked out today.
Vico is randomly hanging out with Marizza and her friends, for some reason. Lujan says that no one’s going to rat Marizza out. A weekend in the school won’t kill them. “Yeah, ’cause you don’t have a home to go to,” Vico snips. Dude! She and Lujan almost rumble, but Marizza breaks it up and Vico flounces off. So she was literally just in this scene to snark on Lujan’s dead parents. Anyway, the dance teacher comes up and tells them that they can meet with the principal later. Marizza tries to browbeat her into meeting with Dunoff now, but the teacher says she shouldn’t push it after the party debacle. Marizza sits down in shock that the teachers are actually taking some responsibility for these shenanigans.
Papa C and Sonia both show up to speak to Dunoff. They bicker over who gets to meet with Dunoff first, until even Gloria loses it and tells them to just go in together. Weirdly, Dunoff ends up apologizing to them for not having good enough security. I mean, kind of true, but the parents should really take some responsibility for their kids. Sonia and Papa C start bickering again over whether or not it’s uptight to actually parent your children.
Cafeteria. Guido confronts Tomás about mackin’ it with Vico in the club, in front of God and everybody. Tomás snaps at Guido that Vico is his best friend’s girlfriend, and all he was doing was “taking care of her”. With his tongue. Vico picks that moment to come up and pout to Tomás about missing free weekend and how sad she is. Tomás should totally come comfort her! Guido’s like, “…yeah.”
Back in the classroom, the kids all argue over whether or not they’re all responsible, or if they should just throw Marizza under the bus. Some random kid says that they’re all responsible, but Marizza is more responsible, so there. Who is this guy? Since when did they let him sit up front with the main characters?
Where did he come from?
Marizza decides to go ahead and turn herself in, but Manuel, Lujan, and Luna all scramble after her and say that they helped Marizza put the whole thing together, so they’re just as responsible. If Marizza goes, they all go too! Marizza tries to explain that the party was on account of the Society breaking all of Manuel’s school supplies, but Dunoff’s like, “Shhh, I’m allowed to totally ignore the situation as long as I can keep pretending the Society’s not real.” Then Mia comes in and throws herself on the pyre with the rest of them, for great justice and equality, like the noble land mermaid that she is. *wipes away tear*
All the kids except Marizza go into the office to talk with Dunoff and Papa C. Sonia coos to Marizza that she’s proud of her — it was so noble of Marizza to gather school supplies for Manuel! She’s so proud that Marizza’s defending her ideals! I feel the need to point out that there were like, a million ways Marizza could’ve gotten donations of supplies without throwing a party on a Thursday night at a nightclub that none of them are of age to get into. But whatever. Parenting is for squares. Marizza whines that Elite Way just doesn’t ~get~ her, especially the principal, who’s “basically a Nazi.” Sonia says that the Nazis didn’t win the war because there were people who were willing to fight for what they believed in. Oh my God, scratch what I said above, everyone at this school really does think they’re in the Polish resistance.
Guido asks Pablo to meet him in the bathroom, and he tries to tell him that Tomás and Vico are banging behind his back. Pablo gets all offended that Guido would dare say such things about Tomás and storms off.
Sonia convinces Dunoff not to expel Marizza. After all, like, do students really have to be punished for breaking the rules? I mean, Marizza’s only done this a million times before, but can’t Dunoff just like…ignore it? Dunoff’s like, “Ah yes, a very good argument made by your cleavage.” Still, he has a condition: if Marizza stays, she has to see a psychologist. I think everyone in this school could use some pyschotherapy, but Sonia flips out over her fragile flower of a child seeing a shrink. “BUT WHY?” she wails. I don’t know, to work out Marizza’s boundary issues, inability to feel empathy, and pathological need for attention? For starters? (Although, it’s probably worth mentioning that all of those things could apply to any of the kids at this school on any given day.)
Cafeteria. Mia tells Vico and Feli that she wasn’t expelled, but her dad did suspend all her credit cards. Feli says that she was drinking because she was depressed over Mia and Vico keeping a secret from her, and Manuel running off with Marizza didn’t make it any better. “So now, it’s over.” I don’t know if she means she’s going to break up with Manuel for real this time or not. Anyway, the rest of the cast comes in and they find a new issue of the paper. Predictably, Pilar has busted the Vico/Tomás thing wide open. Tomás denies it, but then Feli’s like, “OHHH, so THAT’S the thing Mia and Vico wouldn’t tell me!” Then she realizes what she just said and is kind of like, “Oops.” Heh.
Pablo storms off and Tomás follows him. Vico is smug. Her revenge worked out perfectly! Except for the part where she took herself down in addition to Pablo and Tomás, but…close enough, I guess.
Some hallway. Papa C reads a report Manuel did for him, which…I don’t remember at all. Maybe it was that economics thesis thing? I don’t know. Who cares. Papa C says that, since the ban on weekend outings has been lifted now, Manuel should totally come over and work on a project. He walks off and Manuel grins evilly. He gets to spend a whole weekend being vaguely threatening but not actually doing anything to Colucci! Later, when they’re packing their bags, Manuel and Nico make a big deal out of Marcos not going anywhere for the weekend, and ask him to at least walk with them outside. Marcos is like, “Omg, you guys want to hang out with me!!!”
This is just sad.
After they leave, one of the ~Society~ guys comes out of fucking nowhere and starts ransacking the room. I don’t know where he was hiding. Or why he feels the need to wear that hood and robe when nobody can see him.
Main hall. All the kids are getting ready to leave. The dance teacher comes up and tells Mia and Marizza that there can only be one group, and a new one will have to be formed. Mia also isn’t allowed to run the group anymore on account of the party debacle. Marizza is smug.
Manuel is walking off to Papa C’s house, and the Society hits him with a car. Isn’t that how they got rid of that girl’s sister in Number the Stars? I guess the Society also thinks high school is just like the resistance.
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