So one thing I do, because I have no life, is read the various Wikipedia pages on this show — sometimes assisted by Google Translate — trying to find the names of the tertiary characters or get a handle on plot events that I might’ve missed. (As far as I can tell, Random Amanda does not in fact have a name in any version of this show, so Random Amanda she will remain.) One thing that surprised me was that this show has basically been subbed or dubbed in nearly every language except English. What’s up with that? I mean, we have the Mexican remake on Netflix, but that’s not the show I’m watching right now.
Opening monologue: I love you, I hate you. I’m not self-aware enough to realize that I’m just a teenager with mood swings.
We pick up where we left off. Julieta’s just revealed to Manuel that she knows a ton about the Society. “Are you one of them?” Manuel asks. DUN DUN DUN! But no, Julieta’s backtracking now — she knows a lot, but she doesn’t know if it’s true, because she’s not in the Society, her ex-boyfriend was, except he might not have been. She might just be making everything up right now. Manuel’s like, “Aw hell no, this is farther than we’ve gotten since episode twenty, you don’t get to back out now.” Julieta tells him that Rodrigo used to be a good boyfriend, but sometime last year, he started acting all superior to the other students, and she suspects it was because of his involvement with the Society. She thinks Rodrigo is the “watcher” for fifth year — the Society has one for every grade, to keep an eye out for prospective members. Manuel’s all shocked: “EVEN THIRD YEAR?” Yeah, Manuel, she said every grade. Keep up. Manuel says that now that he knows at least one person who’s in the Society, he can start looking for clues. Julieta’s apprehensive about this, but eventually agrees to help, because she promised to stand by Manuel always, blah blah blah. Seriously, what kind of hold does Manuel have over the girls he goes out with?
So we’ve found out that there’s someone in third year who’s involved with the Society. Let’s not at all obviously cut to Marcos! He and Lujan are preparing to paint his room, and Lujan puts on some music and tries to get him to have a dance party. She’s kind of embarrassingly awkward, but at the same time SO CUTE. Aw, I love Lujan and Marcos. Marcos starts to join in, but then his mom busts in and is all, “Are you having FUN instead of feeling guilty over your DEAD BROTHER?” Lujan’s like, “Maybe I better go”, but Marcos is like, “No! Let’s be REBELDE.” Lujan’s all twitterpated and remarks that she’s never seen him like this, and Marcos says it’s all because of Marizza. Lujan’s like, awkward.
Back at school, Pilar and Vico excitedly get dolled up to go out with Joaquin. Worst threesome ever. I feel like I’ve said that before, and Pilar was also involved that time. Anyway, Joaquin comes in and subtly tries to shut Pilar and Vico down. Vico picks up on his hinting and backs out of their date, to Pilar’s naive disappointment. Joaquin and Pilar leave, and Vico bitters that she’s going to destroy him. I hope she’s improved since the last time she tried and took herself down along with her target.
Music montage of Luisana Lopilato overacting at the salon. Mia and Mercedes get their hair done and have some hearty laughs. They’re basically BFFs! Luna comes in and shows off her extensions, which look kind of fake, but maybe that was the best they could do in 2002. Then Mia and Luna hear over the radio that Sonia’s sick, and they want to drop everything to see her. Mercedes is like, “No stay, I must ingratiate myself to you more!” but Mia’s like, “No can do, I gotta visit the mother figure I like better.” Nevertheless, Mercedes calls Papa C and tells him she has good news for him. (She means that she’s getting along with Mia. She and Papa C haven’t hatched a plan to kill Sonia, if that’s what you were thinking.)
Pablo and Paula are still hanging out at the country club, playing Pictionary or some shit and getting along swell. Papa B’s like, “What upppp” and Pablo’s like, yikes! I promise I wasn’t having fun! Papa B’s like, “No no, why don’t I leave you the car (even though you crashed it that one time), and the credit card, and you can hang out and get HELLA LAID.” Pablo’s like, “Oookay.” He and Paula end up at her apartment (ick), and her ankle is mysteriously healed. Pablo almost notices this, but then he’s distracted by her liquor cabinet. He’s all like, “Omg, BEER”, and how Paula is not turned off by this, I do not know. She puts the mack on him and he scrambles off like, “Oh, shit, I’m leaving now. I have a thing. With my friends. Right now. Totally.” Paula suggests that he invite said friends over. ICK. I hope she’s not so indebted to Papa B that she has a foursome with Guido, because there’s no amount of money in the world to pay for that.
Lujan and Marcos paint his room. Lujan suggests that they spray paint graffiti onto one of his walls (REBELDE), and scribbles something that took me forever to make out, because her handwriting is crap. She writes, “NO POMELOS ALLOWED”, “pomelo” being Marizza’s insult of choice. They’re both twitterpated at the mention of their lady love. Marcos emos that she didn’t leave a number or address for them to reach her in Italy. It’s four weeks, dudes! By the time you guys send a letter and she writes back, she’ll be back in Argentina already. Anyway, Marcos takes his turn graffiti-ing the wall, and Lujan flashbacks to Marizza telling her she might have a crush. Could Lujan like Marcos? She totally could. Sadly, she comes out of her flashback to see that Marcos has graffitied Marizza’s name onto his wall. Denied, Lujan! Also, a little creepy.
Mia and Lujan go to see Sonia, who, like everyone else in this show, is in histrionics over Marizza’s four week vacation. Nevertheless, she pulls herself together long enough to tell Mia that she has to go to dinner with Papa C and Mercedes and prove that she’s not scared of them. Mia’s like, solid advice. And that’s all we see of Sonia this episode, thankfully. (Speaking of minimally appearing characters, there’s zero Blas and Gloria, too.)
Casa Colucci. Mercedes rocks in to see Papa C, and tells him that she and Mia are getting on like a house on fire. She squeals on about how they’re already besties and Mia is a delightful child, blah blah blah. Don’t overdo it, Mercedes. Papa C cautions that Mia has tendencies towards the dramatic and impulsive, which I can also admit, my favorite character she may be. Mercedes lays it on really thick and is like, “No way, I’ve totally won her over, nothing can go wrong!” They agree to string Mia along for a little while longer before telling her the truth, which I’m sure she’ll really appreiciate. ~*~NOTHING CAN GO WRONG~*~
Mia calls Manuel and asks him where the dinner’s going to be. He has no idea, and she sighs that she’ll have to ask Papa C. Julieta’s all pissy that Mia’s calling Manuel, although he assures her that it’s nothing romantic.
Marcos’s house. Lujan’s gone back to being all emo because Marcos doesn’t love her. He assumes it’s because she misses Marizza, because even when she’s gone, everything’s about Marizza. Lujan’s like, “Yeah but I’m not the one with a house-sized crush on her, am I?” Are you sure, Lujan? Marcos caves and admits he’s in love with Marizza, but he knows his love is “impossible.” Time to listen to “Inmortal”!
Blah blah music video blah. When we get back to the episode, Luna and Mia are walking around the park. Mia says that Luna should go show Nico her new hair, in case he’s been thinking of running into Tatiana’s long-haired clutches. So they head off to the club, and Nico proves to be the most unrealistic teenage boy ever by immediately noticing Luna’s extensions. They are kind of obvious and bad, but still. He’s like, “What’s up with your hair,” and Luna’s upset he doesn’t love them. Mia excuses herself, and Nico quickly assures Luna that he likes her new hair, he just has to get used to it. It’s not like she dyed it a different color, Nico. Luna flat-out admits she wanted to look like Tatiana, like dang girl, play it a little closer to the chest. Nico cutely tells her, “You don’t have to look like her, or like anyone.” Aw! They make out, and Tatiana comes round the corner and sees them. Scare chord!
Pablo’s invited Tomás and Guido over to Paula’s place, and they’re tooling around eating chips and watching sports. Paula’s all up on Pablo, and he’s clearly super uncomfortable with it. Tomás and Guido are like, “Why did you invite us over instead of hitting that, dang.” Tomás makes up some BS excuse to leave, and Guido gets a legitimate excuse when Mia invites him to her dad’s dinner. Mia! Love yourself! Pablo tries to leave with them, but they’re like, “NO, STAY HERE AND LOSE YOUR VIRGINITY.” It’s meant to be funny, but it’s kind of not? Pablo very clearly doesn’t want to have sex with her? And for the love of all that’s holy, trim the back of Tomás’s hair.
IT’S SO BAD.
They leave, and Paula starts really trying to grind up on Pablo. “Seriously, we don’t know each other that well,” he says. I found that line kind of funny, but for real, poor Pablo.
Manuel comes to see Marcos, and Mama Aguilar is like, “You have TWO FRIENDS? That is TOO MANY. I bet you guys have FUN together instead of feeling bad about Marcos’s DEAD BROTHER.” They’re all like, yikes, awkward. Manuel tells Marcos that he wants him to go undercover and try to get into the Society — Marcos is the only one that has a shot because his brother was in the Society. Marcos wants to get Mansilla involved, but Manuel’s like, no! Mansilla is NOT TO BE TRUSTED. Mansilla’s getting kind of a raw deal these last few episodes, huh? I can’t even remember what he’s been doing besides harassing Lulu. Anyway, Marcos says he won’t do it because he’s scared, and Manuel has the grace not to press the issue. He leaves, and Lujan asks Marcos if he’s really afraid of the Society. Marcos says no, but he still doesn’t want to try to infiltrate them, because he knows it’s going to go badly. Fair enough.
Joaquin and Pilar sneak into Dunoff’s office to make out. I thought they went to Pilar’s house? Are they making out while the whole school smells like crap? I don’t know. Anyway, Joaquin wants to go straight to the sex, and blows off Pilar’s concern about Vico. He pulls out some pills and is like, “Here, take these so you can relax and have sex with me.” Pilar’s understandably not swayed by that argument. Blah blah she’s a prudish principal’s daughter if she doesn’t do drugs with him blah. Pilar throws the pills on the floor and crushes them (it’s not clear if it’s accidentally or on purpose). Joaquin flips out and she’s like, “What, it’s just a couple of pills.” He’s like, “Dude, you can’t just rock up and buy them at the store!” He’s like, genuinely sweating. He recovers and assures Pilar that he doesn’t NEED drugs, he just uses them for fun! He can stop whenever he wants to! Pilar agrees to sex him up to prove she’s not a prude, but she won’t take his pills. Compromise, I guess. They go down on the couch while Vico creeps in the doorway.
Manuel and Julieta head to Casa Colucci for the most awkward dinner ever. Papa C and Mercedes tell them about their ingenious plan, and Manuel’s like, “Holy shit, that’s the worst plan ever.” THANK YOU, MANUEL. They hear Mia coming down the hall, and Mercedes scrambles to hide. They panic that Mia can’t come to the dinner and meet Mercedes this early, and hijinks ensue to get rid of her. Papa C’s like, “Mia we must talk!” and hustles her off while Julieta watches all, “This family is crazy.”
Here’s a picture of two people regretting their life decisions.
While Papa C’s off trying to talk Mia out of coming to dinner — why don’t they just disinvite Mercedes? — Guido shows up. Mercedes and Manuel try to explain the plan to him — this is Mercedes, who’s dating Papa C, but Mia hates her. “Okay,” Guido says. So they have to pretend Mercedes isn’t here, and not let Mia catch on. “I don’t get it,” Guido says. See, ’cause Mia doesn’t like her, so they want to give her some time. “Okay.” And Mia doesn’t know her new bestie Mercedes is also Papa C’s girlfriend, and they’re trying to put off that awkward moment as long as possible. “I don’t get it.” “What’s there not to get, nene?!” Julieta snaps at him. Hee! Her being a pointless romantic false lead aside, I actually kinda like Julieta.
Vico finds Dunoff and tells him that she heard noises in the office! It might be thieves! Dunoff runs off and catches Joaquin and Pilar making out. Pilar’s shirt is halfway off! Scandalous!
Dunoff flips his shit and grabs Joaquin by his ugly-ass orange sweatshirt while Pilar runs off. He’s all like, “How dare you besmirch my daughter’s honor!” So Dunoff wanted Joaquin to date Pilar and Pilar to do whatever she could to keep Joaquin happy, but making out crosses a line? Make up your mind, Dunoff.
Nico’s club. Tatiana calls in her cousin, Matías, who’s not that bad-looking? At least he’s not rocking a tragic early 2000s mullet. Remember when all the guys in Harry Potter had that haircut? Anyway, Tatiana tells him to go hit on Luna while she drops heavy-handed hints to Nico that Luna brings too many boys to the yard. Nico looks suspiciously over at Matías and Luna. Matías actually seems to be genuinely charmed by Luna, but it’s hard to tell. Nevertheless, when it’s time to go, Luna refuses to give him her number. Denied, Matías! Tatiana seethes.
Manuel goes to see Mia in her room, and tells her that Papa C and Mercedes won’t be going to dinner, so it’s just the four teenagers. It’ll be like double date! Mia pitches a fit, so Manuel locks them in the room together, and drops the key in his underwear. First of all, ick. Second of all, I have no idea what being locked in the room is going to accomplish. Outside, Papa C and Mercedes leave to have dinner elsewhere, and Guido and Julieta are like, “Why are we even still here.”
Back in the room, Mia starts hitting Manuel, and he grabs her. She starts shrieking about how he was raised by wolves, and did his father drag women around too? Manuel does not like that at ALL, and throws her up against the door. She’s all like, “Go ahead, hit me!” Come on, Mia, you’ve been on this show for almost sixty episodes. You should know what he’s going to do. Instead of hitting her, Manuel grabs her and starts making out with her, as usual. Then he unlocks the door and Peter walks by all, “Dudes, what’d I miss?”
Despite everyone’s best efforts, Guido takes Mia to the restaurant anyway, and she sees Papa C and Mercedes. I didn’t see that coming! Mostly because they didn’t bother to explain how Mia got there at all.
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