Previously on Rebelde Way: A ton of stuff happened! Where to even begin? Vico got expelled. Manuel and Nico resolved to investigate the Society, and Manuel finally worked up the nerve to break up with Feli. Did they actually break up? Of course not. Pablo busted Nacho in the sad trailer, and is now blackmailing Marizza. Mansilla finally cottoned on to the fact that these kids have serious emotional issues and made them do a group exercise, which involved…groping each other’s faces? I don’t know. Did it make them have some empathy for each other? Let’s find out!
Opening monologue: Everyone has acquaintances, but it’s hard to find real friends. Fair enough.
We pick up right where we left off. Manuel’s trying to break up with Feli, but she flips out and threatens to commit suicide if he leaves her. Just then, Belen (Mia’s ex-roommate, who hasn’t shown up since like episode 3) rolls up and tells Feli they have to work on their chem homework. Feli’s like, “Ahaha, that was such a wacky joke! I know you’d never break up with me! Toodles!” Nico’s like, “…yikes.”
“Your life sucks worse than mine right now, which is impressive.”
Nacho’s sad trailer. Pablo comes in and tries to kick Nacho out into the cold night so he can practice guitar. Oh, right, Pablo plays guitar. I’d almost forgotten about that. Nacho runs to go tattle to Marizza.
Marizza’s room. Luna’s writing a letter to Flor, lest we forget that her sister exists, and says that she enjoyed Mansilla’s teamwork exercise. Lujan snarks that Marcos nearly passed out over having to touch a giiiirl. Luna muses that the exercise made her feel sad, for some reason. Marizza’s like, “Is it ’cause you were abandoned by your mom?” Smooth. Luna asks how she knows that, and Marizza’s like, “Oh yeah, the psychologist totally picked up on how your mom doesn’t love you. What’s up with that?” Luna runs out of the room, and Lujan’s like, “Wow, that was hella rude.” When Lujan “Fists of Fury” Linares has to tell you to back off, you’ve really fucked up.
“I thought that was tactless, and I sometimes tackle people to the ground instead of talking to them.”
Nighttime, teachers’ lounge. Mansilla sits there, musing over the newspaper. Mama Dunoff comes in with some coffee for him, and he tells her that he can’t sleep. She’s like, “I can help you sleep, heyyy ;)” Just kidding, she doesn’t. Barely. He shows her the paper, and she asks if that’s why he was arguing with the other teachers earlier. “You heard that?” he asks. “I was observing you,” she says. “And that wasn’t the first time ;)” Mansilla asks if she’s spying for Dunoff, and she’s like, “No, you’re just the first interesting thing that’s come around here in a while 😉 😉 ;)” Mansilla’s like, “…anyway, back to my students’ problems…” Mama Dunoff tells him that she thought he agreed with Vico’s expulsion, seeing as he signed Dunoff’s “everyone agrees with me about expelling Vico so stop asking questions” form. OR DID HE? Mansilla is not pleased.
Lujan and Marizza dramatically run off to search for Luna, but they find her in about five minutes, so whatever. Luna sniffles that the psychologist is right; Luna’s mom hates her for not being “normal.” What? Luna is the most normal of all these kids. Marizza starts ranting about how Luna’s mom sucks for wanting Luna to be a “vegetable” like Flor (RUDE!), while Lujan rolls her eyes in the background and half-assedly tries to get her to stop. It feels so good to love Lujan again. But Marizza cutely tells Luna that she’s super smart and fun and they all like her a lot, so who gives a shit about her mom? They all have a hearty chuckle. Everyone’s friends again! Nacho pops up and tells them Pablo kicked him out, and they agree to let him sleep in their room. Marizza grouses about Pablo and his shitty music, and then has a brainwave.
The next day, Mia is marching a bunch of girls down the hall, trying to rally them into caring about Vico’s expulsion. They’re all enthused about rehearsing something to support Vico (what?), but immediately shut down when Mia tells them it’s a protest, not a show. “Aren’t protests like…for the working class?” one girl asks. HEE! They sniff that Mia might have transformed Vico, but she was still a scholarship student. Besides, they’re getting a cute new guy in her place, so it’s all for the best! They swan off, leaving Mia to have a meltdown in the hallway. Manuel rolls up and tells her that he has to talk to her. They agree to meet in secret, away from Feli and her crazy eyes.
In Dunoff’s office, Mansilla’s trying to get to the bottom of this whole expulsion business. He says he knows Dunoff went behind his back with the form, because all the teachers have to sign it, and Mansilla certainly didn’t. Dunoff merely remarks that Mansilla’s going to be late for class, and he should probably go teach and keep his head down so Dunoff doesn’t write him up. It’s a pretty subtle threat, for this show anyway.
History class. Hilda is lecturing them all on the evils of using Wikipedia for their research, and wants them to use Real Books for whatever project she’s assigning. I mean, considering their school library consists of one bookcase, I don’t know what she wants them to do. She drones on about the conquest of the Americas, and Marizza trips out into a dream sequence where Pablo is a conquistador and all the girls in class are caricatures of Native Americans, and they do a dance routine that ends in them stabbing him. It’s really weird. I don’t know what’s going on in Marizza’s brain.
I just…I don’t know.
Meanwhile, Manuel looks under his desk and finds that Feli’s bought him a hella expensive video camera, so he can send videos to his family “via computer.” Hee.
Dunoff welcomes the new kid to the school. New Guy (“Joaquin”) is a douchebag, but all the girls are immediately on his dick, especially Marizza. Lujan finds Marizza’s notebook in the cafeteria, and it’s covered with little hearts and Joaquin’s name. This scene is weird, and not just because Marizza met the guy like five minutes ago. Lujan is also wearing a skirt for no reason I can see, and Marizza’s name is written as “Maritza.” You’d think she’d know how to spell her own name.*
(* Before someone feels the need to educate me: “Maritza” is, from what I’ve seen, the more common spelling, so they probably just made the prop before they had decided on how it was written.)
Mia and Manuel meet in the map room. Manuel asks her to help him break up with Feli. Mia laughs at him, but then he’s like, “No, she threatened to kill herself if I left her, this shit is for real.” Mia muses that Feli’s in love with Manuel because she thinks that he’s sweet and faithful, so if he starts acting like an asshole, she’ll get disillusioned and dump him. What a great plan! I bet it’ll go off without a hitch, and it won’t make Feli’s self-esteem issues blow up in their faces at all! Mia, you can do better than this. But neither of them come up with another idea, so Manuel goes along with it. As they leave, though, Pilar sees them around the corner. I wonder what she’ll do with this information!
Mia bumps into Marizza as she comes into the cafeteria. They trade snipes, then Marizza suggests that they just stop fighting, because she has enough stress dealing with Pablo. I don’t know if she’s being serious or not. Anyway, Mia grouses that the popular girls have all punked out on the Vico thing, and Luna sweetly says, “Not all of them, you still have me.” Mia tells her that she’s a scholarship student and she’ll end up like Vico if she steps out of line, but Luna says that she’s Mia’s friend and she’ll back her up. They hug, and it’s genuinely cute. A few tables away, Lujan fumes.
In the classroom, Nico and Manuel discuss Mia’s terrible plan. Nico opines that it’s going to wreck Feli emotionally, and Manuel’s like, “Idk man, it’s the best plan I got.” And it sucks, but oh well. Feli pops up and Manuel tries to be a dick to her. It’s not very convincing, which is weird because we know he can be a creepy jerkface when he wants to. Anyway, he tries to imply that he was ignoring her for Mia, but Feli just brushes that off and asks if he liked the camera. Manuel overreacts about how much he hates gifts and storms off, and Feli is crushed. She and Nico sit awkwardly next to each other. “It’s nice,” Nico offers. Heh.
Nacho’s sad trailer. Marizza and Nacho are setting up some kind of recorder to catch Pablo making emo music, which will…embarrass him? I guess? Nacho hella obviously turns the recorder on before Pablo kicks him out of the trailer, and he has to cover up by breaking Marizza’s glasses. Pablo takes the glasses and like…looks at them evilly? I don’t know.
Mia comes in and talks to Mansilla about wanting to protest. It’s the greatest conversation ever. She tells him that she totally thought the protest would work because she always sees people protesting about poverty in the news — not that she watches the news, she just catches it because Peter is a nerd about current events (“Who’s Peter?” “My chauffeur, duh.” “Oh.”). On the TV, thousands of people show up to protest against poverty and government corruption and stuff! How come thousands of people aren’t protesting Vico’s expulsion? Heh. Mansilla is pleased that she’s thinking “beyond her shoes”, and Mia says that doing stuff for other people is nice and all, but actually, he really should think about his shoes because they are totally out of style. Mansilla: “What? That’s not…really, you think so?” This is fantastic. He drags himself back to the point and congratulates Mia on not being a total airhead, and tells her that she’ll think of something to help Vico. You know, I’ve started liking Mansilla, but he could really try to give Mia better advice than repeatedly telling her that she’ll think of something.
Back in the cafeteria, Lujan is pissed at Luna for hugging Mia. She snaps that Luna is clearly Team Mia and Lujan is mortally offended by someone being friends with both Marizza and Mia. She says that Luna’s acting like the victim to both Marizza and Mia, which is weird because…she isn’t? It’s also bizarre that Lujan’s being such a dick now when she stood up for Luna at the beginning of the episode. Anyway, Gloria pops in to say that the psychologist wants to see “Marizza.” Luna freaks out that she’s going to have to continue the masquerade, and Lujan’s like, “Tough shit.”
Dunoff’s office. He gets a call from the head of the school board, and has a hella vague conversation that ends with Dunoff promising to talk to Mansilla and set him up with a pair of cement boots. Or that’s the implication anyway. He hangs up and downs some alcohol. Day drinking on the job? That…doesn’t surprise me at all, actually.
In Marizza’s room, Marizza is trying to talk Luna into seeing the psychologist again. She’s like, “Don’t punish me because you’re mad at Lujan!” and Luna doormats that she’s not mad at Lujan, even though she should be. Luna says she’d have reservations about impersonating Mia too, and Marizza goes on another rant about how much she hates Luna having friends that she doesn’t approve of. Not in so many words, of course.
The psychologist has apparently decided that the best and least traumatic way to deal with “Marizza”‘s mother issues is to invite her mom to literally their second session ever without telling her. Just another example of the adults on this show being competent and sensitive when it comes to handling kids! Sonia blurts out that Luna isn’t Marizza, effectively ending this subplot a thousand episodes earlier than I was expecting them to.
Speaking of competent and sensitive adults, we cut to the teachers’ lounge, where Hilda and the chemistry/physics teacher are debating the best ways to crush the students’ spirit in their classes. Mansilla’s just like, “I’m not sure I want to work here anymore.” Dunoff comes in and starts yelling at Mansilla for going over his head and contacting the school board about Vico’s expulsion. Mansilla says that he wasn’t trying to undermine Dunoff, he just wanted them to look over the decision since it wasn’t unanimous. Then Gloria comes in and tells Dunoff that the psychologist wants to see him about “Marizza”, and he’s like, “Why is everyone trying to make me do my job today?”
Pilar helps Feli move back into Mia’s room, and conveniently “finds” a new edition of the paper on the floor. Feli says that the paper is bullshit and she doesn’t care to look at it, and Pilar chirps, “Okay, then I’ll read it to you!” Oh, Pilar. Naturally, the paper reveals Mia and Manuel’s clandestine meeting, because Pilar needs a(nother) hobby in the worst way. Feli doesn’t believe it, since Mia and Manuel hate each other, but Pilar reminds her about that other edition of the paper from a few episodes ago, with “the photo” in it. Wasn’t that photo of Luna and Manuel? Nevermind, I don’t care. Feli’s like, “Later, Pilar, I have to go have a psychotic breakdown.”
Marizza is in dance class with her new group. Naturally she hates it, since she was only in this whole thing to piss off Mia. She didn’t actually want responsibility, dammit! She finds Mia in the science room…painting a poster for Vico? Why is Mia doing this in the science room? Whatever. Marizza tells her that the dance teacher (“Alicia”) wants Mia back in the group, but Mia’s too emo to care. Even Marizza can cotton on that shit is bad, and she tells Mia she’ll help out with the poster. Aw! (She thinks that Mia’s wording is too dramatic. Heh.) But then Gloria has to show up to cockblock their burgeoning friendship, and she drags Marizza off to see Dunoff about the psychologist. Mia stares sadly at the poster, and then Feli flies in from the corner of the screen and tackles Mia to the ground, shrieking at her to stay away from Manuel. Dude, Feli! Manuel and his orange pants aren’t worth it!
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