Opening monologue: Love is the most wonderful excitement, but it can also bring us way down. Still, we can’t imagine our lives without it, and it’s worth the difficulties. New rule for the drinking game: take a shot every time the opening monologue is something like, “Love is hard, but we should fall in love anyway.”
Anyway, the last episode had us on the edge of our seats wondering if Marizza would survive her motorcycle crash. You will be shocked, but hopefully also relieved, so know that she survives!
What’s that? You’re not shocked at all? I know, me either. Anyway, she’s not hurt at all, and immediately starts going off on Simon for being a stalky creep while Sonia goes into histrionics. Papa C has to drag her off to calm her down, and actually, this is a pretty good bit illustrating how well Sonia and Papa C work together. It’s the classic Uptight Loves Wild trope, but the addition of their daughters makes it more interesting — Marizza hates how overbearing Sonia can be and wants to her back off, which Papa C makes her do; Mia craves affection and listens better when she’s being enabled in her wacky schemes, which Sonia does. Speaking of their kids, Papa C tells Sonia that he came to ask for help with Mia.
Dunoff announces to the class that they’re letting Guido back in, and everyone’s all happy. No one wonders how he’s gonna catch up on the lessons, seeing as he hasn’t been going to any school at all for like a month. Guido’s parents are also randomly just walking through the halls, and he brings them into the classroom for a heartfelt speech. He apologizes to the class for being in the Society, and introduces his parents to them, because he’s not ashamed of them anymore. Everyone applauds, because they’re all suddenly really invested in Guido’s personal development for some reason. Vico in particular is all proud of him. Oh, Lord, if she takes him back, I’ll cry. After class, Guido’s parents are all proud of him for not being a jerk anymore, and his mom is like, “Vico will totally want to get back together with you!”
Marizza asks Simon why he’s being so stalky, and he tells her he just wanted to see her. She wants him to get rid of the pictures, and he says he’ll do it if she tells him why she’s so sad. It cuts away, but I guess she doesn’t tell him, because when we next see Marizza she’s complaining about how annoying he is.
For some reason, Renata needs Gloria’s help puzzling out Mansilla’s mysterious floppy disk. Gloria tells her that the document looks like an educational project, and Renata is all suspicious.
Mia, Vico, and Feli sit down with Sonia’s party planner to talk about the quince. Feli makes a suggestion — she wants Mia to light her birthday candles while saying the names of the invitees, which I guess is tradition — which Mia and Vico are all excited about, but Chiche scoffs that that’s soooo passé. Mia and Vico immediately switch to scoffing at the idea, too. Chiche says that all the best quinces have a partner dance instead, which Feli is not happy about at all. They decide to have the dance in the gym, and scurry off to scope it out, leaving Feli sitting sadly at the table.
Sonia and Papa C go strolling through some forest. Sonia’s like, “Oh yeah, I knew about Mia and Blas, but I figured I’d let him prey on her because she really likes someone else.” Jesus Christ, Sonia. She tells Papa C that Mia really has a thing for Manuel, and they all have to work together to get the Mia/Manuel ship sailing. That’ll keep Mia away from Blas for sure! Or — and I’m just speculating here — they could get Blas fired, instead of letting him hang around for a million years while their madcap schemes go awry. Papa C’s not 100% convinced that Mia likes Manuel, and Sonia’s like, “Fine! Don’t believe me!” and storms off. Papa C tries to follow her, and twists his ankle on an acorn or some shit. I guess it’s meant to be wacky.
Back at school, Guido turns in his cafeteria worker uniform. Sandra and Cata cry over how they’re going to miss him, like they still won’t see him every damn day. Guido leaves and walks right into Vico, whose brought him his notes. She’s like, “You missed like a month of school, but good luck.” It’s not like they do any learning here anyway. Vico’s still a little snippy with him, so Guido gets up on one of the cafeteria tables and announces to everyone that he’s in love with her, and they make out. Lujan, of all people, leads the rest of the class in cheering for them. Although that could be a nice nod to her and Vico being crime-solving buddies, I would hope she thinks Vico can do better than Guido.
Manuel and Nico are in his room, discussing Blas. Nico thinks Blas’s story — borrowing money to pay for Mia’s party — is credible. Manuel obviously disagrees — if Blas lied about his name, he could be lying about anything! Fair enough, although…pot, kettle, Manuel? Nico snaps and is like, “Seriously, when are you going to stop being so obsessed with Mia? I’m getting sick of it.” HEE! Manuel’s like, “Well…now that you mention it, right now! I’m going back to my original goal of revenge on Colucci!” Is that not still being obsessed with Mia? Anyway, Manuel says he’s going to finish his revenge by the end of the school year, and go back to Mexico to be with his family. I think this is the first time he’s mentioned them in like a hundred episodes! “You’re not going to be here next year?” Nico gasps. I don’t know, Nico, ~something~ tells me he just might be! (Ironically, next year, Manuel will still be here and Nico will be off on a beach somewhere, married at the age of 16.)
We then suddenly jump to Hilario’s music class, without seeing Manuel or Nico go there at all. Mia is also randomly sitting in a completely different seat. He starts an impromptu jam session, the whole point of which is apparently that anything can be an instrument, and anything can be expressed with music. Tomás raises his hand: “You can even use music to break up with people?” Is Tomás going to break up with Pilar via mixtape? Anyway, after class, Mansilla comes in and is like, “They had fun and learned nothing! Excellent teaching skills!” He does however have one criticism: Hilario doesn’t practice what he preaches; he talks about winning people over (or dumping them) via music, and yet he stands by and lets Hilda live her own life! Hilario’s like, “Yeah, she told me she didn’t like me,” and Mansilla’s like, “Pfft, that doesn’t matter! Force your way into her heart!”
Vico drags Guido off to the gym to look at their quince plans. She tries to bring Feli, too, but Feli’s still all salty over Chiche and won’t go. Manuel notices her and asks what’s wrong, and she bitters about not having a partner for the dance. Manuel offers to go with her, and Feli’s all happy. I bet Mia won’t be, though. Still, Feli and Manuel are really quite cute now that Feli’s not all crazy-eyed over him.
Back at Sonia’s ranch retreat for sad teenage girls, Pepa muses that it’s weird that Simon came all this way to see Marizza. She also thinks it’s weird that Sonia seems to be ignoring how weird it is. Man, when Pepa’s more insightful than you, something is deeply wrong. Marizza grumbles that she just wants him to leave, and speaking of weirdos, what’s Papa C doing here? Just then he calls Pepa, asking her to come find him, as he can’t walk. Like her employer, Pepa is really petty and immature about it and pretends not to hear him until he agrees to take Sonia’s advice on all things regarding Mia and life in general. My God, the man’s stranded in the woods, Pepa!
On the upside, her hair’s looking good.
In the gym, everyone’s practicing their waltzing skillz — Vico with Guido, Feli with Manuel, and Mia with Blas, ick. Blas is not putting any effort into the dancing at all, and Mia gets pissed at him. Chiche’s like, “You need a better partner” (hee!) and Mia defensively says Blas is her boyfriend. “Please, boyfriends come and go. This party is a memory you’ll have forever,” Chiche tells her. I’m starting to like Chiche. He pulls Manuel away from Feli to show Blas how it’s done. Manuel swoops Mia around the room for a bit until Blas gets mad and shuts the music off. He’s such a baby.
Tomás has decided to break up with Pilar…in the cafeteria. You know, the most crowded room in the school. Oh, Tomás. He gives her the letter he wrote her, but then she tells him that she asked Dunoff to give him extra points for his behavior in class (“nota de concepto“) to help raise his grades. Tomás is like, “On second thought, let’s not break up.” Over at another table, the tertiary girls are spying on them, and they bitter that there’s no way Tomás can really like Pilar. Then Guido swings by and offers to help Tomás out with his love woes. I mean…he is doing better on that front than Tomás, but mostly through pure dumb luck.
Sonia comes by in a horse-driven carriage to pick up Papa C. Blah blah she needles him some more before agreeing to help him blah, then she like…gives him a foot massage? Did he break his ankle or not? How is that helping? Anyway, Mercedes calls and freaks out when Sonia answers, and freaks out even more when she hears Papa C making groaning noises in the background. Contrived misunderstandings away!
Mia is pissed with Manuel for making Blas unhappy, and Manuel’s like, “It’s not my fault your boyfriend is a creeper who feels threatened by teenagers.” He muses that maybe, perhaps, there’s still something between them. “Sure,” Mia says. “Disgust.” She doesn’t object to Manuel getting all up in her face, though. Then Blas walks in and reminds Manuel that he warned him to stay away from Mia. He gives Manuel more chores, and suggests that Manuel will have to repeat third year since he’ll have no time to study. Manuel’s all upset about this, even though he’s repeating third year anyway.
Meanwhile, Mansilla is roping the rest of the class into his mission to get Hilda and Hilario together. When was the last time they had an actual ethics class? He wants them to come up with a serenade for Hilda, and get Hilda and Hilario together to listen to it. Everyone’s like, “So romantic!” Man, if someone had asked me and my classmates to do extra work for our teachers’ love lives, we would’ve peaced right on out of there. Vico doesn’t want to do it because she thinks it’ll be embarrassing (and it probably will be), and everyone’s like, “But you’re our best singer!” Vico still refuses. And yet, she’ll probably end up doing it anyway. Hilario comes in and tells them that Hilda’s favorite love song is “Bésame mucho.” Literally the only thing I can ever think of when that song comes up is Fez singing it on That ’70s Show.
Marizza listens to Papa B’s press conference, and at the end when they ask for a comment from Pablo, he says he wants to say hi to his girlfriend, wherever she might be. “Trash,” Marizza sniffles at the radio. Aw. She cries some more over Pablo, while Simon creeps on her from the bushes. He decides that the best thing to do in this circumstance is go over and yell at her some more about his motorcycle. He drags her off and tells her that he’s going to teach her how to drive it. Marizza refuses, and he needles her about being scared until she gives in. Oh, Marizza. She really has to stop falling for that.
In the cafeteria, Guido’s come up with a plan to save Tomás. Then Vico comes in and tries to look at his notes, but he says it’s a surprise. She gets all twitterpated and when Feli comes in, she asks her to find out what he’s writing. Feli agrees to do it, in exchange for Vico participating in Hilda’s serenade. She tries to butter Guido up, and failing that, just walks behind him to look over his shoulder. Hee. He’s writing what looks like a breakup poem for Tomás, but Feli thinks it’s a love poem. She runs back to Vico and tells her, and Vico is all twitterpated.
Renata keeps walking by the classroom where Mansilla’s working on the serenade, and eventually he’s like, “Okay, this is getting weird.” She’s like, “You think it’s weird because you’re hiding something!” She tries to get him to admit to whatever he’s up to, but he’s like, “Idk what you’re talking about, and you’re wasting time I could be spending meddling in Hilda’s love life. See ya.”
Simon zips Marizza all over the Argentinian countryside, or wherever the hell they are. Once they’re done, he asks when she’s going back to school, and she’s like, “Never!” Simon tells her he knows Pablo broke her heart — wait, how? Then why he is bugging her to tell him? — but this is just a test that life throws at you, and she can’t run away from it. Decent advice that I wish were coming from a less douchey character! He hands over his roll of film and tells her the rest of the photos are in his bag. Whatever. I still hate him.
Mia sits around thinking of Manuel putting his face way too close to hers a few scenes ago. Could they still like each other? Could their hatred for each other merely be standard telenovela sexual tension? It totally could. Luna rocks up and asks Mia about the whole Manuel and Blas thing; Manuel told Nico that Blas is punishing him for dancing with Mia. Mia mumbles that Manuel will have to repeat the year, and it’s not fair, but she’s super dickmatized so what can she do? Luna shrugs that Manuel doesn’t care, since he’s going back to Mexico anyway. Mia: “WHAT?!”
Don’t worry, Mia. Manuel is never going back to Mexico. He’s literally going to repeat the next three years of high school just to get into your pants.
In the classroom, all the tertiary characters are getting to show off and sing “Bésame mucho.” Hilario’s like, “That was amazing! It’s like every single person in this school can sing and dance!” Then Feli comes in and chirps that she convinced Vico to sing. Upstaged by a secondary character, guys! They all go off to find Hilda. Renata comes in and she’s like, “…this is my class time,” and Mansilla’s like, “Is your class called ethics or music? No? Then don’t care, bye.” You know, the show makes a big deal of Mansilla being a good teacher, but I think a better teacher would let his students go to class, just saying.
Night falls. Pilar goes to see Dunoff, and he mentions the excellent results of Mama D’s English test to her. Pilar tells him that ~someone~ got a hold of the test and spread it around the class, so their good grades have nothing to do with Mama D’s teaching skills. They get all excited that they have an excuse to fire Mama D. For…not catching her students cheating? That doesn’t seem like a fireable offense to me. But whatever.
Pablo asks Luna and Lujan if they’ve heard from Marizza; they have not. Lujan snarks that if Pablo, her boyfriend, doesn’t know where she is, then her lowly friends definitely don’t. “Well, thank God Pablo’s not her boyfriend anymore!” Tomás announces. Ha! He has no grasp on this situation at all. Lujan gets up in Pablo’s face and says that if Marizza left because of Pablo, she’ll kill him. Ah, I’ve missed Lujan and her threats of violence. Tomás and Guido note that Pablo doesn’t seem entirely happy, and he admits that he misses Marizza. Tomás and Guido exchange glances: “Wow, I’ve never seen him like this,” Guido derps. He likes Marizza, you fools! Man, Pablo needs smarter friends.
Papa C’s still at Sonia’s bungalow or wherever the hell they are. He says he can’t drive back with his leg, and she offers to take him back. At first they’re gonna take her truck, but then Pepa says someone has to stay with Marizza, so Sonia chirps that she’ll just drive Papa C’s car. Papa C’s like, “Never!” So they just…don’t drive anywhere, and fall asleep in the car together all sleep cute.
The class brings Hilario to Hilda’s house, and he’s all like, “Golly, what are we doing here?” Uh…didn’t they explain that the plan was to serenade Hilda? Like, right at the beginning when they started planning it? Maybe Hilario is senile. Anyway, Victoria Maurette gets to show off her voice, with everyone else harmonizing in the background — the secondary characters really are the better singers on this show; it’s much nicer than Erreway lipsyncing at the club. Despite the above-average singing, Hilda is unmoved and dumps water on Hilario. It’s almost like when she said she didn’t want to be involved with him anymore, she actually meant it.
Guido leaves his notebook unattended in the library, and Vico and Feli happen across it. They’re all excited to read what he wrote, but quickly see that it’s not a love poem. Vico gets all mad, and slaps Guido when he rolls up to them. I usually enjoy bad things happening to Guido but holy God, they just got back together at the very beginning of this episode! This has to be some kind of record. (I think Feli corpses a little here, she sounds like she’s laughing as she runs off after Vico.)
Mia comes to see Manuel. She offers to help him, since she feels bad about Blas punishing him. Manuel’s like, “Thanks, that definitely makes up for having to repeat sophomore year.” I knew a girl who repeated sophomore year, but only because she got mono and missed like two months of school. She should’ve gone to Elite Way, that’s like a regular vacation for them. Anyway, he snaps that he doesn’t want her help and tells her to get out of his room, so she grabs him and makes out with him. Dang, now Manuel knows how it feels.
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