79 more episodes! 79 episodes and a movie! WE CAN DO IT, GUYS!
Previously on Rebelde Way: Marizza got all ready to move in with Martavio, purely out of spite for Sonia. Martavio’s like, “I don’t know if this is such a good idea,” and Marizza’s like, “So are you saying you DON’T want me to move in?” “Yeah, I just think this is a bad decision for you to impulsively make while you’re emotionally fragile, and also I live in a one-bedroom apartment,” Martavio says.
Ha! Just kidding, that would be responsible of him. Instead, Martavio’s like, “Oh, no, I’m ready for you to move in anytime! There’s no way this could go badly!” He has one condition, though, which is that Marizza apologizes to Sonia before she leaves. Marizza’s like, “Never!” and Martavio’s like, “Well, you better, or I’ll make you!” So this custody thing is starting off great.
Meanwhile, Lola has apparently taken Marizza’s advice about not becoming bitter and salty for the rest of her life, and she comes to talk it out with Lola. She cries that she doesn’t understand why everyone lied to her, and two sisters hug it out. Aw.
The rest of the kids shuffle into the cafeteria to discuss what to do about Carmen. As they walk in, Francisco wants to know what’s up with Manuel and the girl with the prophetic emo hair, and Manuel gushes that she’s super hot. I hate him.
Anyway, Pablo calls the meeting to order. He’s all, “So since Javier’s plan failed miserably, and I’m not saying I told you so, but I kind of am, we need a new plan.” He suggests that they try something else, like breaking Carmen’s car so she can’t come to school and teach anymore. Javier snorts that that’s, like, so immature. I’m sure he thinks so because he’s secretly 30 years old. He thinks they should have a sit-in and refuse to let any teachers come into the classroom until the administration listens to them. Because that worked out so well last time? Half the class is for it and half is against, but they all get mad when Prophetic Emo Hair shows up and Manuel ditches them to hang out with her. Mia calls him out for leaving, and he’s a jerk to her, as usual. Since they don’t have any better ideas, everyone agrees to work on Javier’s plan.
In the office, Sol cries to Blas that everyone is SO MEAN to her. Blas is like, “Pilar just jumped you because she’s jealous!” and Sol sniffles and asks if he really means that. Does he really think that she’s smarter and more popular and prettier than all the girls in her class? Jesus, Sol, please love yourself. Blas smooths that of course she is. Thankfully, Lujan busts in on this disgustingness and tells Blas that she knows EVERYTHING and he is going DOWN. Not that we get find out what this “everything” that she knows is. Blas yells at her and shoves her out of the office, and Sol’s like, “You’re so hot when you’re abusing your power.” This girl is going to need a lot of therapy in her future.
Gloria calls Hilda to tell her that she’s ditching work to grab coffee with Antonio, so if Hilda could pass the message on to Dunoff, that would be great. Hilda’s like, “Wait, who’s Gloria?” Sigh. For some reason, Gloria still thinks that leaving the message with Hilda is going to work out just fine, and hangs up so she can work on getting with her ex-boyfriend who’s incapable of holding his head at a 90-degree angle.
Dunoff comes into the office, and he’s like, “Where’s Gloria?” Hilda’s like, “IDK.” Dunoff frets that he has a meeting today and he needs her to make coffee. He tasks Hilda with bringing him everything instead.
Pilar cries to her mom over Tomás, and her mom tells her to go apologize to him. If Tomás really loves her, he’ll forgive her. Again, people are not obligated to forgive you, depending on what you’ve done, but it’s a slightly better message than the whole “Love means never having to say you’re sorry” that this show usually pulls. Mama D sighs that it’s a good thing she didn’t move to the South — otherwise how would her daughter have known to apologize after getting into an argument? Such mysterious social conventions!
Outside, Rocco and Vico are still trying to talk out Rocco’s weird aversion to romantic interaction. He’s started rocking back and forth all nervously while Vico tries to extract information about any past romantic encounters from him — like, has he ever kissed a girl before? Has he ever managed to get within 10 cm of a girl’s mouth without freaking out? Rocco frets that he’s never talked about this with anyone before, and if it gets out, all the kids will beat him up even more — and they already hate him for not being a typical “macho Latino.” I mention this just because the show doesn’t really reference stereotypes about Latinos — obviously, being in Argentina where they’re not a minority — so it’s interesting to hear them bring it up. Vico promises not to tell or judge him, but he still won’t open up. She calls him out and tells him that what he did for her was nice and all, but if he was all obsessed getting up in her life and won’t let her in his, then he was just being selfish. Then she walks off.
In the cafeteria, Michi comforts Sonia and assures her that Marizza will still talk to her before running off with Martavio forever: “Any moment now, she’s going to show up.” And she does, because Michi is always right, God love her. Marizza snipes that she GUESSES that she’s going to say goodbye to Sonia, because she HAS to. Martavio and Michi leave them alone, and Marizza snipes at her some more about sending Papa C to yell at her. Sonia’s like, “Say what?” They start arguing, until Sonia finally asks if she really wants their final goodbye to be like this. Marizza relents and they hug. Marizza tears up as she flashbacks to all the times that Sonia defended her shitty behavior at school. What if Martavio actually disciplines her! (Just kidding, we’ve already seen that he’s just as bad at that as Sonia.)
The hug and flashback both end, and Marizza walks out of the cafeteria. Sonia dramatically stretches out her arm after her and I start laughing even though I know I’m not supposed to.
Dunoff’s meeting starts and Hilda brings coffee in for everyone. The coffee is cold and Etchamendi’s like, “How very dare you bring us cold coffee!” Hilda’s like, “What’s wrong with it?” and sticks her finger in the cup to test it, knocking coffee everywhere. Whatever. This can’t be the worst thing Etchamendi’s ever seen at this school anyway. Remember the time he watched Dunoff drink brown water or whatever that was?
Sol gushes to Belen and Fernanda that Blas is super into her. Fernanda and Belen groan that they’ve already been there with Blas’s predatory ass — he was all over Mia last year. Sol’s all appalled that Blas has a history of manipulating young girls and yet is somehow still employed at a high school. Just kidding, she’s only appalled that Mia got to him first. SIGH.
Speaking of Blas, he gets Dunoff to sign a paper suspending a student without Dunoff even looking at it. He’s like, “Excellent, thanks for enabling me in all the illegal things I do!” and runs off. Dunoff’s like, “Wait, who are you suspending?” but Blas is already gone. It’s the one student he’s been harassing from the start, Dunoff! Keep up!
In Pablo’s room, the boys are working on tearing up sheets to make banners. Pablo whines that he doesn’t think this will work — Tomás is like, “Dude, do you WANT Carmen to stay?” and Pablo blusters that he totally thinks they should get rid of Carmen, they should just do it by using any idea that’s not stupid Javier’s. Javier snipes that the only stupid thing here is Pablo sitting around complaining but not contributing anything. Yikes. I hate to agree with Javier, but he’s not wrong. Diego’s like, “Calm down, guys, we’re all in this together!” I love that Diego is apparently the voice of reason among them now.
Pablo points out that there’s no “all of them” here anyway, since half of the boys are gone: Guido’s off hunting with his ex-girlfriend’s psycho dad, Marcos is off comforting Laura or wherever, Rocco’s also off doing whatever, and Manuel’s off manipulating more girls with low self-esteem. Francisco defends Manuel’s absence: he’s going through a lot right now, he doesn’t have time to be making banners! Francisco, literally every single issue Manuel is experiencing is of his own making. Seriously, there is not a single thing happening to him right now that isn’t his fault.
Speaking of, Manuel waltzes in and tells him that Prophetic Emo Hair wants to have a party with her girlfriends tonight, but gosh, Manuel just doesn’t have any male friends free to balance it out…unless, say, the rest of the boys want to ditch Javier and party tonight? All the boys are like, “Oh, for sure,” and leave Javier with all the work. Everything about this is terrible. All the boys are jerks. Manuel continues to be the worst. And most heinous of all, I am forced to sympathize with Javier.
Martavio brings Marizza to his apartment. You know, I didn’t bring this up earlier because it’s not nearly the dumbest thing about all of this, but it’s still pretty dumb: why does Marizza have to “move” anywhere, anyway? SHE GOES TO A BOARDING SCHOOL. Surely she could’ve just stayed at school while Martavio found a better housing situation for them. Whatever. They shuffle around awkwardly trying to figure out where Marizza’s going to sleep and who’s going to make dinner, since neither of them can cook, but Marizza chirps that all she really wants from Martavio is a father figure, and the rest is just details.
In her room, Lujan rants that she won’t let Blas win, no matter what. “Why are you looking at me like that?” she asks, and the camera pulls back to reveal that she’s talking to Marizza’s stuffed animals. “I know you miss Marizza. We’ll miss her together!” Lujan wails, hugging the animals to her. Jesus Christ, Lujan, get help. Laura comes in and tells Lujan that she and Lola have made up: “And it’s all thanks to Marizza.” Of course it is. They should just erect a statue of her in the courtyard, I swear. Lujan’s like, “And Marcos?” and Laura’s like, “Oh, yeah, him too. He’s real worried over you and Blas, by the way.” Lujan’s all shocked, but then Blas knocks on the door and interrupts them. He hands Lujan the form Dunoff signed, and chirps that she’s been indefinitely suspended from the school for hurting Blas’s feelings earlier. She has to be out of the school in five minutes. Lujan’s like, “It’s the middle of the night,” and Blas is like, “So it is! That’s too bad, huh?”
Since the boys are all off being jerks, Javier enlists the girls to help make the banners. Mia demands to know where the boys are and Feli backs her up, adding that they’ll stop working unless Javier tells them why the boys aren’t pulling their weight. Because men traditionally have foisted off the vast majority of unpaid labor onto women, that’s why. The girls in this room need to read some Gerda Lerner so badly.
Laura asks to borrow Marcos’s cell phone, since she needs to call Marizza and ask what to do about Lujan, since nobody at this school can take a shit without Marizza there to help them. Marcos hands it over and Laura pulls out the antenna to make the call. HA!
Marcos asks what’s going on, and Laura tells him that Blas has suspended Lujan and kicked her out onto the streets. Marcos is like, “Not the streets!” and runs off to find her. Whatever! Lujan lived there for like ten years, which she tells people like every five minutes!
We cut to Lujan wandering the streets while ominous music plays. Someone finds her, and you’d think it would be Marcos, what with him just running off to look for her, but of course it isn’t. That would make sense, and we can’t be having that. Instead, Hilda finds her, and she’s apparently in full control of her faculties again. She’s all, “Schools can’t kick out a student who doesn’t have a house!” “Well, this school does,” Lujan sniffles. Hee. This school does a lot of things that normal schools don’t, Lujan! Hilda says that she’ll take Lujan somewhere she can stay.
The girls go out looking for the boys, and find them having a dance party in the lounge with the fifth-year girls. They’re all distressed to see their various love interests dancing up on other girls. Why do the fifth-year girls want to hang with the fourth-year boys anyway? When I was a senior in high school, there were like three juniors I could stand, and I didn’t want to date any of them. Anyway, the girls panic that they have to break up the party, but don’t know how. If only Marizza were here to tell them what to do! OH MY GOD, YOU GUYS. Mia huffs that they don’t need Marizza, and storms in to unplug the music. The boys and fifth-year girls roundly mock her — how dare she try to get the boys in her class to contribute equally! — and then go back to partying. Mia’s like, “Okay, I guess we need to call Marizza after all.”
At Sonia’s house, she yells at Papa C for meddling with her relationship with Marizza. I think it’s hilarious that Sonia’s been interfering with Papa C’s parenting with Mia from day one, but can’t take it when it comes to her and Marizza. Sonia’s too distraught to really ream him out, though, and she eventually starts crying and Papa C comforts her. Then Hilda comes by with Lujan in tow and says that Lujan will be staying there. Sonia says of course she can stay, and all the ladies hug. Aw! This is like the janky telenovela version of a deep movie about three generations of women.
At Martavio’s apartment, Marizza picks up a call from the girls. She tells them that she has a plan, and they should go get the “explosives” from her room. Martavio’s all, “Say WHAT?” but then his outrage never comes up again, so whatever. The girls set off a bunch of firecrackers and make the boys think that there are burglars in the school (shooting guns, I guess?). The whole party scatters and that’s the end of that. It’s very anti-climactic, as most things in this show are. Francisco stops to “save” Feli from the burglars, and she’s all twitterpated. No, Feli!
Meanwhile, Blas stands around in the dark office being emo. He has a flashback to some man’s voice telling him to be a man — “Learn from Lujan! She’s just a girl, and she’s braver than you!” To be fair, Lujan also has deep-seated rage issues that not even Blas can match. Do you think that maybe…perhaps…Lujan and Blas have a shared history? :O Anyway, his emoing over his past is interrupted by Sol, who comes in to hit on him and also tattle to him that the fourth-year is planning to have a protest. She tells him that the whole thing is Mia’s idea. Blas is like, “How very dare!” even though anyone who’s ever spent five minutes with Mia should know that she doesn’t give a shit about politics. The most attention she’s probably ever paid to politics is watching Evita.
Anyway, all the kids are stampeding out of the party, and Blas comes in to see them everywhere. Then Marcos comes back from wherever he was — probably looking for Lujan for like five minutes — and sees Blas in the hall. He’s all, “How dare you besmirch Lujan’s honor!” and punches Blas. Hee! It’s been ages since we’ve seen Blas get punched!
After all that drama, everyone goes to bed. Francisco comes by to check on Feli, and she’s all twitterpated (again, some more). NO, FELI!
In the bathroom, Sol and Fernanda are getting ready for bed when Belen comes in. She tells them that they have to get up early to finish the banners for the protest, and Sol cackles that there’s no point, since it’s all over anyway. Belen’s like, “Say what?” and Sol chirps that she ratted them all out to Blas while she was hitting on him. Belen gets mad, because she supports the protest, and Sol snarks that Carmen only messes with the attractive students, so Belen doesn’t have anything worry about! Yeah, but…doesn’t Sol think that she’s pretty? So isn’t Carmen messing with her? So shouldn’t Sol want her gone, too? Oh my God, whatever. Belen storms out. Fernanda’s like, “Seriously, why would you do that,” and Sol says that by tattling on the class, she’s shown Blas that she’s more mature than Mia. Pretty sure that’s a turn off for him, Sol.
The next day, the boys wake up. Francisco immediately gets to berating Marcos for punching Blas. “I was worried about Lujan,” Marcos says. “Worry about yourself,” Francisco says. “Women don’t matter!” he doesn’t add, but is probably thinking. “They’re not gonna expel him,” Manuel says, which is true because Elite Way never expels anybody. He says that they’ll just say that Blas hit Marcos first — Sol will back Blas up, but it’ll be two words against four.
Marcos and Diego head out to help with the protest, and Francisco tells Manuel that he knows Manuel’s trying to act like an asshole, but he’s willing to help Marcos, which proves that he’s a good person. He’s…he’s really not, Francisco.
Vico is in the basement getting supplies for the banners. Rocco finds her and finally opens up about his dark past. He shows her a picture of him as a kid, which I actually thought was really of baby Piru Saez until it goes into a flashback and we see the same kid acting. They really found someone that looks just like Rocco. Anyway, Rocco tells Vico that when he was little — like seriously little; he looks eight or nine at the oldest — his dad took him to see a prostitute to lose his virginity. Dude, that is FUCKED UP. Like, that is actual child sexual abuse. What the FUCK. The prostitute didn’t sleep with Rocco (thank God, also take notes, PAULA), and when his dad found out, he hit her right in front of baby Rocco. So Rocco is understandably traumatized from that experience and intimacy freaks him out. Even Vico’s like, “Damn, that’s fucked up.”
In the art room, all the kids work on the banners. Tomás adorably stares at Pilar as they paint, and Pablo has to drag him away. Let my OTP get back together, Pablo! As they work, Belen tells Pilar that Sol snitched on them to Blas. Pilar tells the rest of the class, but it’s too late: when they try to leave the classroom, Blas has already locked them in. I mean…to be fair, isn’t that what they wanted? They could theoretically still finagle a protest out of this whole thing, but they probably won’t because Marizza’s not there to tell them how to do it.
Mia and Manuel run into each other in the cafeteria. He asks why she busted them at the party, and she tells him that she was pissed that while she and all the girls were making banners, the boys were having a party. Manuel’s like, “Unpossible, girls love doing unpaid labor for boys, there’s no way you could be upset over that.” AND THEN! He snipes at her that he, like, HAD to have a party and hook up with Prophetic Emo Hair girl, because “[he needs] to survive in this place.” LOL WHAT? His dumbass graduated high school before the show even started! He doesn’t need to be in this school, this city, or even this country for that matter. And how exactly does partying help him survive here? I don’t even know. I hate him.
Mia’s like, “Why are you being such a jerk? You used to be slightly less of a jerk,” and Manuel snipes at her that since SOMEONE wouldn’t forgive him for his mistake, he figured there’s no point in trying not to be an asshole! Way to blame her for your own damn actions, you misogynistic waste of space. “Thanks for teaching me that,” he snaps, walking out. Sadly, he does not drop dead upon leaving the room. It’s so bad that Francisco comes in and has to comfort Mia. Francisco is so fucking two-faced. He keeps egging Manuel on in acting like an asshole, and then he turns around and comforts Mia whenever it upsets her. Don’t trust him, Mia! He is a fugly sl*t!
Over at the classroom, Pablo yells through the door that they have a right to protest. Blas snarks at him that maybe he should reserve this energy for Papa B, who’s on his way to the school right now. Pablo sweatdrops.
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