Sorry this is late and if it ends up being a little lame. I didn’t work very hard on it; I spent much of my night drinking and watching my country destroy itself :))) Anyway, the episode:
Opening monologue: When the road is hard, that makes triumph even better. You have to fight for your rights, and stuff.
All the kids are discussing the stolen wallets. Actually, first they take a bizarre detour to plug Austin Powers, of all movies — Random Amanda fangirls over Goldmember, and pulls out a locket from her sweater. Is she carrying around a picture of Mike Myers? Love yourself, Random Amanda. Anyway, they all wonder why the wallets were stolen, and Nico says whoever did it must have done so to save Lujan. Lujan’s like, “Omg!” but everyone’s like, “Lmao who would want to save Lujan?” and Nico’s like, “…I dunno.” Blas comes in and is like, “Everyone stop having fun now,” and ushers in Etchamendi. The two of them tell the class that they’re going to be searching everyone’s rooms for the wallets, and Tomás is like, “I don’t think my father, the inventor of the toaster strudel, would be too pleased to hear about this.”
(I joke, but that’s actually pretty close to what he says.)
Meanwhile, Mama B and Marizza are discouraged in their search for Pablo. Mama B is freaking out over what to do, and Marizza says they need to keep their minds clear and calm. Who is this person, and what has she done with Marizza? Anyway, she says Pablo will probably call Mama B once he gets to his destination, and they can track him there. Dude, they saw the bus pull out of the station! They can’t check the route? Mama B says she’s grateful to have Marizza with her, and thanks her for caring so much about Pablo. Marizza’s like, “…ouch.”
Etchamendi comes back from his wallet search, and says he found them in Dunoff’s office. Everyone’s like, “Oh snap!” Pfft, like that proves anything. Kids just waltz in and out of that office all the frickin’ time. After class, Lujan tells Marizza that Marcos originally framed her for stealing the wallet, and Marizza cottons on that the Society must have made him do it. For some reason, though, they don’t put two and two together and still can’t figure out who might have stolen the rest of them. Lujan’s like, “Whatever, they’re still going to kick me out.” So…we’re basically back at square one and this was pointless.
Etchamendi tells Dunoff that Lujan can’t be the thief, for…some reason. “We’ve got to be fair,” he tells Dunoff. I appreciate this and all, but I don’t get how he came to that conclusion. His logic is not like our earth logic. Dunoff says he’ll call Lujan’s tutor, and Etchamendi insists that the tutor come to the school so they can speak with him personally.
Mama B and Marizza return to the school, and Mama B calls Pablo. He refuses to tell her where he is and hangs up. Man, if I ever hung up on my mother without a good reason, I would get the bawling out of a lifetime. It’s a good thing Pablo’s never planning on coming back to Buenos Aires. Marizza tells Mama B they have to at least cover for Pablo until they find him, and they BS to Gloria that Pablo’s left school to see his sick grandma.
Mama D rocks into class for their first day of English (gotta love how they keep adding classes halfway through the year!), and all the kids immediately start needling Pilar. “Do you have a grandma to teach us home ec too?” Fernanda snarks. Marizza is mildly comforting and remarks that this is exactly what her mom does, too. Aw. I love when Marizza manages to not be a dick to the other students.
Sonia goes to Casa Colucci to try and convince Papa C to let Mia model. He’s looking through the photos that were taken, and the camera lingers wayyyy too long on them. This is so gross. Once again, he says he won’t let Mia model for the campaign, and Sonia and Luca get all pissy. Sonia’s like, “You’re clipping her wings! She has to have a passion!” Ah yes, the creative outlet of standing in front of a camera and following directions*. Papa C says Mia already has a passion: she’s in love! That’s…also not really a hobby, Papa C. Sonia’s like, “Ha! That ship sailed like twenty episodes ago, fool!” I mean, if you count “pining” and “inappropriately hooking up with a teacher” as part of being in love, Mia technically still has that going on. Anyway, Sonia and Luca flounce on out, and Papa C is not happy.
* I’m not saying modeling’s not a job, or that models don’t enjoy their work, but let’s be real about how much input 15-year-old girls have on million-dollar fashion campaigns, you know?
Gloria tells Lujan that her tutor is here and wants to see her. Scare chord! While she waits in the office, Lujan confronts Marcos about framing her for the wallet theft, and he’s like, “Whatever! You don’t exist to me!” Dammit, Marcos, I used to like you. Lujan’s about to go chase him down and probably beat him up, but then Gloria tells her that her tutor’s ready to see her. His name is Guillermo, and Lujan notes that he’s not quite how she imagined him. Could it be that he’s not really her tutor? It totally could.
Marizza tells Mama B that she had an idea: eventually Pablo’s gonna need to buy something, and like a dumbass, he’ll probably use his credit card, and then they’ll find him. It’s foolproof!
Dunoff walks out of the office and sees Pilar pacing, and totally gets an “Oh shit, do I have to parent my daughter?” face. Heh. Pilar wails to him that she doesn’t want Mama B to be her teacher, and he promises to fix it.
Sonia and Luca show up to the school, and Mia and Marizza are all snippy and passive-aggressive over trying to get their attention. Sonia tells the girls that Dunoff doesn’t want her giving any more dance classes. She and Mia hustle off together, to Marizza’s displeasure. Luca tries to explain that Mia’s all sad and motherless, and Sonia’s going to end up dating Papa C anyway, so Marizza might as well get used to it now. Marizza doesn’t like that at all and storms off. She runs into Feli and Luna, who drag her off to help Lujan.
In Mia’s room, Sonia tells her that they gave the campaign job to Luz. “What do I do now?!” Mia wails. I mean, I know focusing on your education is kind of a crapshoot when you go to this school, but I promise there’s this place called university, where you’ll actually learn stuff. Sonia says that if Mia gets permission to leave the school with Luca, Sonia will help her sneak around and model behind Papa C’s back. Oh, this will end well.
Meanwhile, the Society is still running around holding meetings without any kind of supervision (or without anyone noticing that they’re all skipping class, apparently). They discuss how Marcos did an A+ job with the wallet theft, but one of the members (a girl) says that someone saved Lujan’s ass, so they haven’t succeeded in getting her expelled. They get all upset that someone fucked up their plans, and decide to go after “whoever” helped Lujan out too. “Nobody makes a fool of the Society!” the leader guy yells, hitting the table so hard the candle nearly falls over. It’d be funny if they set the basement on fire and had to get pulled out.
Lujan is still in the office, having a tete-a-tete with her “tutor.” He doesn’t quite believe that she didn’t steal the wallet, and babbles on that he’s in charge of turning her into a good and studious person. I don’t know why he thought sending her to Elite Way would accomplish that. Lujan asks why he picked her, out of all the orphans, and he BSes that the head of the orphanage gave him her file and he thought she had potential. He promises to come see her more often and tries to give her money, but Lujan’s like, “I don’t need money!” (I thought she did?). What she needs is THE TRUTH! He tells her that he’s married and has kids, and if she ever needs him, she can email him. She can’t call him because he’s…allergic to phones.
Marizza, Luna, and Feli stand around and fret over Lujan. Feli wails that she’ll die if they expel Lujan, and Marizza’s like, “Since when did you sit at our lunch table?” Feli points out that she’s grateful to Lujan for helping her and Marizza’s like, “Lujan? Helping people that I do not approve of?” Maybe Lujan should hope she gets expelled after all, because I wouldn’t want to sleep in a room with Marizza after that. They decide they have to listen in on Lujan and her tutor’s conversation. Dudes, I was there, and we learned absolutely nothing. They lure Gloria out by telling her that Papa C is waiting for her in the hall. And Papa C is in fact in the hall! What a wacky coincidence! He tells Gloria he’s here to see Manuel, and she smoothes that all the kids are in class, but he could hang out with her while he waits. “You came early on purpose, didn’t you?” she asks. Papa C’s like, “Uh…sure.”
Feli, Marizza, and Luna bust in on Lujan and her not-tutor. She mumbles that she should go, and he kisses her goodbye on the cheek (which is pretty standard for Argentina, but Lujan scoots away awkwardly). Her not-tutor leaves, and the girls are like, “Tell us more!” (Like, does he have a car?) Lujan is all sad and says that something about this doesn’t feel right. Feli’s like, “Oh, I know, you’re just not used to having someone give a shit about you because you’re an orphan!” Hee. Lujan’s like, “No, for real, something is weird here.”
Speaking of weird things, we now have to watch Gloria try to flirt. This is deeply uncomfortable. Papa C asks when class will be over, as he wants to see Mia too. “Oh, Mia’s not here,” Gloria derps. She left, with Luca’s say-so! Papa C’s like, “Luca? Thanks for the coffee, Gloria, I gotta go.” Aw, sucks to be Gloria.
Papa C calls Sonia, who naturally refuses to tell him where Mia is. Manuel leaves class and runs right into Papa C, who freaks out that he needs Manuel’s stalking skillz, STAT. He must find out who Mia’s in love with! Manuel’s like, “Yikes.” I don’t know why this is a hard choice. I would tell the entire world that Mia has a thing for Blas, and watch Papa C rip Blas apart. That sounds pretty fun! All Manuel does, though, is hedge that Mia likes someone at school, but it’s not a boy, per se. He means that it’s a grown-ass man, but I would also support Mia and Lujan dating, if that’s where the show was going. Sadly, it’s not.
Dunoff’s on the phone with Etchamendi, who’s reaming him out for not finding out more about the wallet theft. Gloria saves his ass by finding some of Renata’s wallet photos in the “park” (i.e. those two trees outside), and Dunoff smugly tells Etchamendi that the investigation is coming along, thanks to his intuition.
Lujan convinces Feli to call Augusto, but a girl picks up and says she’s Augusto’s girlfriend, to the surprise of no one.
Mia comes back to school, where Papa C is not happy about her recent activities. Mia’s all snippy about Papa C ~forbidding~ her from modeling and hanging out with Sonia, but…eh, I kind of agree with him. I don’t think any decent parent should be thrilled about their teenage daughter posing in their underwear, nor do I think it’s wrong of Papa C to encourage her to stay in school. But as we know, the teenagers are always right in this show. Papa C also snaps that he knows she has a thing going with a teacher, and Mia’s like, “The only people who know about that are Blas and Manuel!…oops.” Papa C also forbids her to date Blas, but Mia’s like, “I’m fifteen years old and can do whatever I want!”
…dammit, Mia, you’re my favorite character, but that was actually the worst thing I’ve ever seen, including everything Marizza’s ever pulled.
In class, Nico rolls up to Marcos and gets him to admit that he put the wallets in Dunoff’s office. Marcos doesn’t think the Society’s going to figure out it was him (I bet they will), but Nico tells him to be careful.
Guido brings Fernanda a cookie and tries to hit on her, but she recalls Tomás saying that Guido still has a thing for Mia, and she’s like, “Your cookie is rejected!” They go into chem class, where the teacher is telling everyone to pair up. Luna and Marizza immediately get together, leaving Lujan alone. I wonder who else in class won’t have a partner? No points for guessing Marcos, because duh. Meanwhile, Marizza spills some of her solution and sees Pablo singing “Dos segundos” in the droplets. Someone on this show must have been super pumped that they just figured out how to use special effects.
Papa C goes to visit Sonia, and instead finds Pepa worrying over Nacho. I guess someone has to, because it’s not me. He lets her cry all over him, and Pepa gets all twitterpated. Dammit, Pepa, now is not the time! I don’t need another love triangle to recap twice a week! She runs away and some youngish guy (“Ramiro”) comes in looking for Sonia. He calls her and doesn’t really say anything incriminating, but he’s smarmy enough that Papa C starts eyeing him suspiciously. When Mercedes calls a while later, Papa C says he has a plan to split Sonia and Luca up: Sonia is cheating on him! Luca will definitely have to dump her! Gosh, I wonder if Sonia is in fact not cheating on Luca, and this whole thing will blow up on Papa C’s face. Again.
Dunoff and Pilar try to talk Mama D out of teaching. It doesn’t work.
Luca walks in on Manuel going through Papa C’s papers. He initially thinks Manuel’s just doing his job (and by “his” I mean “Luca’s”), but then notices that Manuel’s reading a bunch of papers about poor working conditions in Malaysian factories. Manuel panics and quickly shuffles the papers away, although I’m not sure Luca has the two brain cells necessary to figure out what he was doing. Luz shows up and Luca skedaddles to let her and Manuel be alone together. Luz is all over Manuel for giving her the confidence (read: shitty advice) that helped her get the modeling job, and offers to drive him back to school.
Mia is crying over Manuel and takes her problems to…Blas. NO, MIA!
DAMMIT, MIA.
Also wow, her bangs are not looking good here. Anyway, she tells Blas that she told Manuel they were dating so he would think she was over him. Blas notes that Manuel was the boy who broke Mia’s heart. Oh, great, I can’t wait for him to go beat up a student again and get away with it. Anyway, she wails that he has to deny everything, as she doesn’t want him to get thrown out of school on her account (I would take him getting kicked out on anyone’s account), and he promises not to abandon her.
Mama B comes to the school and tells Marizza that Pablo’s used one of his credit cards like a dumbass, and he’s apparently in Rosario. “Where in Rosario?” Marizza wants to know. “It’s only the third-largest city in the frickin’ country,” she doesn’t add. Mama B doesn’t know, but Marizza suggests she go there, look for him, and kick his ass. Mama B frets that she doesn’t really know what to do. Marizza is understandably less than impressed with her.
Manuel brings Luz into the school and shows her around. He sees Mia and Blas standing together outside of the office, and loudly announces that there’s never been such a pretty girl in the school. They walk off, and Blas tells Mia that he’ll help her, and she’s like, “You literally just stood there, how are you planning to help.” “Like this,” he says, and kisses her. THIS IS THE OPPOSITE OF HELPING.
Between this and the US election, I have never been more upset in the space of 12 hours in my life.
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