Previously on Rebelde Way: Dunoff busted Tomás for dealing drugs, and now he’s going to be expelled, for real. But on the upside, Nico Provenza, Boy Detective, is on the case. Vico’s web of lies has been untangled, and even Manuel is taking Mia’s side. Sonia volunteered to mess with Papa C’s dating life by sending Mia information on his new girlfriend, Mercedes. Meanwhile, Gloria decided to tell Papa C her feelings via text(!), because the future is now.
Opening monologue: You’re not alone because ~you’ve got a friend in me.~ A nice sentiment, but not really fitting for these kids!
Tomás is still in the middle of getting expelled. “Please, God, I don’t sell drugs! You have to believe me!” he cries. It’s like…not good acting, at all, but I feel so bad! It’s not his fault he’s so dumb! Oh, Tomás, you really have won me over with your simple-minded, weak-willed ways.
Dunoff clearly hasn’t been as charmed by Tomás as I have, and is like, “If I can’t expel you, I might actually have to like…look into this further. THE HORROR.” Poor Tomás freaks out so much that he has a genuine panic attack. Dunoff’s like, “Oh, crap. More responsibility.” Meanwhile, Hilda heads into the teachers’ lounge and is like, “Dudes, there’s totally a kid having a heart attack in Dunoff’s office and Dunoff has NO IDEA what to do.” Hilarity! Mansilla, bless him, actually understands the gravity of this and runs off to save Tomás. He gets Tomás breathing again and Tomás wails that Mansilla has to help him. Mansilla’s like, “Bro, that’s all I do around here.”
A good time to cut to an upbeat pop song! Lulu’s teaching the girls to dance to “Bonita de más”, like they haven’t done the dance routine for that song fifty million times already. Lulu ends class five minutes early because she has to help the boys practice, like the unbiased educator she is. Marizza’s pissed, but Mia’s against her on principle. Dammit, Mia! Lujan tells them that their issue is with Lulu, not each other, and they need to work together. I see Lujan’s been replaced by a pod person again. Marizza comes up with the idea that they should choreograph an offensive dance and pin the blame on Lulu. Mia’s friends point out that it’s a good idea, but she’s all snippy about it.
Nico comes into the office with his signed authorization form, so he can go be guilt-tripped by his family some more. He stops outside the door and hears Mansilla and Dunoff trying to calm Tomás down. Nico’s all like, “A clue!” Inside, Dunoff’s like, “I’m sorry for giving you a panic attack, I’m just saying, you’re totally a drug dealer, and expelling you would make my life way easier.” “BUT I DON’T SELL DRUGS!!!” Tomás wails. Nico leaves suspiciously. In the cafeteria, he spills the whole thing to Manuel, and Manuel says Nico’s gotta tell someone. Nico panics that he’s already a target for being a scholarship student and a Jew; he doesn’t want to add “snitch” to the list. Manuel tells him that this is serious: he knew people that did those drugs in Mexico, and they DIED. Nico’s all like omg!! Drugs are bad!!
Mia’s room. Vico awkwardly asks Mia and Feli what she should wear, and they both ignore her. Aw. She looks so sad. Vico tries to apologize, and says she acted badly because she hates her brother, and they kept Feli’s thing with him a secret. She kind of shoots herself in the foot by trying to apologize only to Mia, though. Seriously, were Feli and Vico ever friends? Anyway, Mia sniffs that for once, she’s not interested in trying to fix things, and they turn their backs on her.
Everyone’s in free dress, so I guess it’s Friday. Guido drags Tomás to class, while Tomás wails that he can’t go. A cute girl walks by and Guido is distracted enough for Tomás to slip away. Man, Pablo would’ve never slacked off like that. He doesn’t show up in this episode, either. Was Benjamin Rojas sick or something?
Mia comes into the cafeteria, and Manuel catches up to her. They stand way too close to each other for way longer than they have to, then Manuel gives her the econ report she was supposed to do. He tells her that he did it as an apology, because he was wrong about her and Vico, and this is getting awkward now so he’ll be leaving. He scrams and is about to go to class with Nico when Guido rocks up and tells them Tomás is in hella trouble, and now he’s disappeared. Manuel and Nico are all ready to run off and help (for some reason), when Luna shows up and wants to talk to Nico. Nico’s like, “Dude, can’t talk now, Tomás is totally selling drugs and now he’s run away! See ya!” Luna’s like, “What.”
Everyone gathers for class, and econ teacher notes that more than a few students are missing. Luna tries to cover for them, but econ teacher shoots her down. Mansilla tries to come in and talk, but econ teacher is hella pissy and passive-aggressive with him, probably because Mansilla cockblocked him with Lulu all those episodes ago. He snips that no, Mansilla can’t have a second with his class, and Mansilla just shrugs and is like, “K, I guess my drug talk can wait.” Heh. Luna follows Mansilla out of the room (to econ teacher’s displeasure) and tells Mansilla what’s up. Mansilla says he’ll take care of it.
In Sonia’s dressing room, she’s reading Pepa the riot act for not putting facial mask cream on her lips, and then for getting the cream in her mouth. Sigh. I’d say Pepa should love herself and find an employer who’s not completely, but Sonia might be the only person on earth who would tolerate Pepa’s epic fuck-ups, like trying to hook up with any rando who calls Sonia’s phone. Papa C shows up wanting to know why Sonia (in reality Gloria) left that bizarre twitterpated message on his phone, and Sonia cackles so hard one of her cucumber slices falls off. Heh. She gets all up in his face about how if he wants to believe it, then yes, she’s crazy about him, and she’ll make out with him to prove it. She smears her mask cream all over his face and then marches off, shrieking for Pepa to follow her.
Marizza brings Dunoff into the main hall to show him “Lulu”‘s choreography, which turns out to be the incredibly gross and pervy dance to “Coulotte Sexy.” Oh God, I thought I never had to see this again. Dunoff is all perturbed, even though I feel like he’s seen Mia’s group perform this before? Whatever. Mia and Feli have been spying from the balcony, and they hurry in so Mia can sniffle that if Papa C heard about this, oh, he would be appalled! Dunoff gets all nervous and says he’ll deal with Lulu. Belen says it’s a pity Mia and Marizza hate each other, because if they worked together, imagine the havoc they could wreak. Mia and Marizza aren’t thrilled by the idea, but I guess they listen to Belen, because the next scene is Mia distracting Gloria with Papa C talk, while Marizza and the other girls sneak into the office to eavesdrop on Dunoff disciplining Lulu. He yells at her that making the boys perform a ~sexy~ dance is in an insult to their masculinity, and Elite Way can’t be having with these gender-nonconforming shenanigans.
Some random street. Mansilla finds Tomás through the power of contrivance, and calls to him from down the street. Seriously, this show makes Buenos Aires the smallest city in the world. The camera dramatically ZOOMS in on Mansilla, and then ZOOMS in on Tomás. Tomás decides the best course of action here is to try to escape Mansilla by running into traffic. Poor dumb Tomás. Mansilla manages to pull him out of the street and is like, “Dude, I already promised to help you, chill out.”
Cafeteria. The Clue Crew has rebanded, this time as Nico, Manuel, Guido, and Luna. Yeah, they might be even less effective than version 1.0, and that one had Tomás in it. “How could he have escaped?” Nico wails. Uh, because this school has no security at all? Guido tells them that Tomás got mixed up with Joaquin and the fifth year guys, but was afraid to do anything about them. As usual, Manuel decides to react with violence. Joaquin picks this unfortunate moment to walk in, and Manuel pins him to the wall and tells him to back off Tomás. (Sandra enables them by barring the door so no one else can come in. Oh, Sandra.) Manuel snarls at him that he’ll fuck Joaquin up because Manuel has nothing to lose and doesn’t give a shit about being at Elite Way. I guess he forgot that his revenge on Papa C hinges on being near Mia, but whatevs!
Meanwhile, Mia is BSing Gloria about her chances with Papa C. Poor dumb Gloria. Mia tells Gloria that Papa C hasn’t found ~the right woman~ yet, but if he did, she would be tall, blonde, passive-aggressive, maybe a secretary whose name starts with G. Mia tells Gloria that Papa C’s been asking about her, and Gloria gets all twitterpated. She frets to Mia that she’s never done anything like this before — I guess she means making the first move, but she could be referring to getting a student all involved in her personal life.
Dunoff’s office. Mansilla’s like, “Why are you such a shitty educator!” and Dunoff’s like, “Because I’m power-hungry and corrupt! Do you have amnesia!” Mansilla wants to get the police involved if Dunoff continues to be such a failure of a principal, and Dunoff’s all, “I’m the authority here!!!”, blah blah they’ve had this conversation a million times blah. Joaquin comes in and asks if he can talk to Dunoff, but Dunoff blows off his responsibilities as usual. “Do you want to talk to me?” Mansilla asks. Joaquin’s like, “No.” Heh.
Gym. Dunoff and Lulu come in, and Dunoff asks the girls to do the dance again. All the girls are nervous about doing it in front of Lulu, but Marizza goes for it and Mia backs her up. Aw! Lulu gets all offended and tells Dunoff that that’s not her choreography. She’s all like, “Why are you doing this to me!!” None of the girls tell her that they’re mad she ignored their existing dance club and the girls’ half of the team entirely in order to get validation from some pervy teenage boys, but they should’ve. Dunoff tells her that they’ll talk later, and the girls all flounce off. Lulu curls up on the floor and cries. Man, people really love crying on that floor. It can’t be that comfortable.
Dunoff comes back to meet with Joaquin, and Joaquin tells him that there is, in fact, something about the drug trade that Dunoff doesn’t know: Tomás wasn’t acting alone. He had an accomplice, named Manuel Aguirre! I, for one, am shocked that Joaquin didn’t throw himself on the pyre because Manuel told him to.
Marizza, Lujan, and a bunch of tertiary characters celebrate getting Lulu in trouble. As usual, her sycophants give her all the credit and a round of applause. Mia rocks up (holding a bottle of Pepsi, as per this show’s iron agreement with them), and the girls all dissipate so as not to incur Marizza’s displeasure. They banter for a bit before Lujan comes back and says no one can find Lulu. They run off looking for her, and Mia drinks some Pepsi for their sponsors.
Teachers’ lounge. Dunoff and Lulu come in while Mansilla and Hilda are working, and Dunoff’s like, “No, no, stay, I always like a good public humiliation.” He tells Mansilla that Lulu taught the students a dance that was, frankly, INAPPROPRIATE for a school setting (Hilda, who’s hiding under the table, crosses herself. Hee!). He’s not firing Lulu, but he is suggesting that maybe she shouldn’t work here anymore. Mansilla steps in to defend her, and Dunoff’s like, “Ugh, arguing with you is detracting from the time I could be spending sucking up to rich people on the phone. Bye.” Lulu turns on Mansilla and is all pissed that he backed her up, because she thinks he just wants to make her indebted to him. He tells Lulu that she should admit when she’s wrong and apologize, and Lulu says, “To who? Those girls? They’re monsters!” “Well, you have to admit they’re very smart monsters,” Mansilla says. Heh.
Mia’s room. She finds an envelope from Sonia (with Sonia’s face on it, bless), containing more information about Mercedes. Mia says that Mercedes apparently lived in the US for a while, and for some reason this makes Mia think that Mercedes has a shady past Papa C doesn’t know about. I mean, we’re a pretty shady country, it’s true. According to the report, Mercedes dated a guy in the fashion industry who left her, and Mia immediately concludes that Mercedes is some kind of fashion-businessman serial dater. Or maybe — and I’m just throwing this out here — the guy who left her is Papa C! Could it be?
The Clue Crew 2.0 meet in the cafeteria, this time sans Guido and with Marizza and Lujan. Luna fills them in on the Joaquin/Tomás situation, and Lujan’s like, “Hey Manuel, we have a shared love of violence, let’s go beat him up.” Hee! Tomás and Guido come in, and Tomás thanks all of them, especially Nico, for helping him out. Aw! Nico mentions that he saw Tomás in the park, and Tomás is like, “Oh crap, I totally left those drugs under one of the bushes.” They’re like, “Well, the security in this school is crap, so those drugs are probably just still hanging around.” Then Blas comes in and is all, “Let me tell you guys specifically, for contrivance purposes, that we’re bringing in a bunch of dogs to sniff out the drugs. Later!” Nico volunteers to throw himself on the pyre for Tomás and go get the drugs, and Manuel says he’ll distract Blas. He grabs Marizza’s phone and pretends to be talking into it all, YO MIA I WAS JUST THINKING ABOUT HOW MUCH I HATE YOU, AND I THINK WE SHOULD MEET UP AND YELL AT EACH OTHER IN PERSON, JUST LIKE OLD TIMES. IT’LL BE GR8, SEE YA. Blas follows him out of the cafeteria. Tomás looks happy that everyone’s backing him up, but also a little disturbed by how weird they are. Fair enough, Tomás.
Nico gets busted getting the pills, as we all knew he was going to. Hilda finds him, but she shows some good sense by dragging him to Mansilla instead of Dunoff.
Mercedes tries to get Papa C to go on a trip with her to a spa over the weekend, but he tells her he’s spending it with Mia. Mercedes is like, “Wow, I am shocked you want to spend time with your daughter, and indeed that 15-year-olds are still kids and need parental affection.” She needles Papa C until he gives in. I bet Mia will be thrilled about this.
The Clue Crew, meanwhile, is waiting for Nico and Manuel to get back. Tomás finally has enough of waiting and says he’s going to go find Nico, because he won’t let Nico get in trouble because of him. I appreciate these very different characters getting along and all, but since when was Tomás all noble, and not an endearingly dumb cowardly custard? Then Guido announces that he can’t let Tomás get even more fucked in this situation, and says he’ll go look for Nico. Lujan isn’t the only one replaced by a pod person this episode, apparently. Luna says she’ll go look for Manuel, and they split up to search for clues.
For some reason, by “look for Manuel,” Luna actually meant “look for Mia,” because she’s poking around in Mia’s room. She finds the envelope with Sonia’s face on it, and reminds us all that Flor exists by saying that she should send a copy to her. Then Blas(!!!) comes in and asks what she’s doing in Mia’s room. Uh, what are YOU doing in here, Blas? Luna says she was looking for Mia, and Blas is like, “Well THAT is just UNREALISTIC. I bet you were up to something SHADY.” Ew, stop projecting, Blas. Luna admits she was looking for Manuel, and she knew he was storming off to yell at Mia, so she thought maybe Mia had seen him. Blas is all pissed off by this reasonable and non-creepy explanation. Also, Luna and Mia are friends. You’d think he would’ve noticed that during his stalking sessions. Marizza finds Luna crying about it, and is suspicious: why does Mia have one of Sonia’s envelopes?
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