Previously on Rebelde Way: Through a series of wacky contrivances, a third of the school knows that Feli’s pregnant, and another third thinks Pilar is. And then Lalo asked her to marry him, so now Feli will be both pregnant and married before the age of 18. I think this is supposed to be romantic?
Anyway, then Sol walked in on them and in exchange for her silence, Feli agreed to owe her an unspecified favor in the future. Because that always ends well. Lalo says as much but Feli’s like, “We only have like 30 episodes left, how much damage can she do?”
The next day, Feli hangs out in the occasionally-unisex bathroom, sticking her stomach out in the mirror. Way to be discreet about your pregnancy! Then Sol walks in and Feli asks her what sort of favor she needs, since she just wants to get out of Sol’s debt as soon as possible. Instead of stretching Feli’s servitude out like any good villain, Sol immediately tasks her with finding out about Mia’s new modelling career (since, as you’ll recall, she immediately jumped to assuming Mia has a modelling job, not Fernanda and Pilar). Feli makes up some BS about Mia getting a job with a perfume campaign, and they’re off shooting in Bali.
Marcos tries to talk to Lujan while she straightens her hair, and she keeps sniping at him not to interrupt her during her transformation into Let Go-era Avril Lavigne. Marcos manages to blurt out that he’s worried about her hanging out with Javier, to which Lujan says, “Javier is my friend.” “He isn’t a friend to anybody,” Marcos — correctly — points out. Lujan snaps at him that Javier has always supported her, and that’s why she’ll never hear a word against him. Dude, when? When have Javier and Lujan ever hung out? Marcos tries to offer to help her, too, but Lujan snaps that she doesn’t need him. God! How does Javier get these random girls to trust him while showing zero proof that he is a decent or trustworthy person? Does he have beer-flavored nipples?
(If you’ve been reading these recaps long enough — and tbh for your own sake I hope you haven’t — you may realize I already used that joke about Manuel in season 1. Shh.)
And then Lujan storms out — of her own room, I might add — while “Complicated” plays in the background. LOL. At least this show acknowledges from whence they rip off their characters’ looks.
Sonia comes to Elite Way to tell Hilda and Michi about her love problems. Oh, hey, finally this show remembers that Sonia and Michi are meant to be friends! Hilda’s like, “Papa C needs to put on his big boy pants and deal with your career choice!” and Michi’s like, “Amen, sister.” Feminism! They tell Sonia that if Papa C really loves her, he won’t try and stop her from doing the job that she loves. Then the phone rings, and Michi gets all annoyed that her job is interfering with their gossip session. Bless. The call is for Miranda, and apparently it’s urgent. She goes to pass the phone to him, and whatever the news is, it must not be good because emo music starts playing as he says “Thank you for telling me” to whoever was on the line.
Laura runs into Guido and Dunoff while they’re talking and tries to finagle her way into the conversation to keep Guido from spilling the beans. Guido and Dunoff are like, “Keep walking, woman,” because you’ll recall that Guido’s mad at Laura for not cleaning up his mess with Agustina’s dad for him. I hate him.
The rest of the kids go to class, where Carmen tells them that they’re going to start reading The Trickster of Seville. The director must have told the kids to act silly because they all cheer and make a bunch of over-the-top faces, unlike real students, who would’ve sat there stone-faced no matter what their teacher announced they were reading. (The only time my English class ever showed a flicker of enthusiasm was when our teacher announced we were going to watch Romeo and Juliet after reading the play, which quickly died when we realized she didn’t mean the Baz Luhrmann version.) (It was 2007, okay, and Leonardo DiCaprio was still mildly attractive.) Miranda comes in and calls Lujan out of class, where he presumably tells her that Blas has died, because she bursts into tears. Marcos and Javier both scramble to run into the hall to comfort her, but Carmen barks at them to sit down.
Agustina finds Lola in the cafeteria and asks why she’s cutting class. Lola starts ranting that she doesn’t care about her grades or school anymore now that Mari has disappeared. Weirdly, Agustina then suggests that Lola just go to Jujuy to talk to her, except…isn’t the issue that her mother isn’t there anymore? I don’t know. Lola is skeptical about how this plan will work, but the bell rings before Agustina can explain it further and she bails so that she doesn’t have to see Guido in the halls. Heh.
Marcos and Javier go looking for Lujan all over the school, including in the girls’ showers, in Javier’s case. GROSS! Can anyone in this school please discipline Javier for his total lack of boundaries. Neither of them find her, though, because she’s hiding out in the basement. The basement where half the kids in the school hang out? This is embarrassing for Marcos and Javier’s detective skills.
Also, the music in the background is “White Flag” by Dido, which I actually didn’t recognize at first, but I realized it was Dido because it sounds just like the Roswell theme song.
Maxi comes to school, wanting to know if what Sol told him is true — if Feli really is back with Lalo. Sol repeats that they were locked up together all day in Sol’s bedroom. Maxi’s like, “How very dare! I must speak to her straightaway!” Sol’s like, “Right, but before you do that, did you talk to your dad about giving me a modelling job?” Heh. Maxi says that his dad does indeed have a job for Sol, which gets her all twitterpated. She starts kissing Maxi all over his face while he shrieks about the germs.
Sol runs off and Feli comes down the hall just then, so he confronts her about seeing Lalo. Feli wants to know how he found this out, and he says, “I find out everything that I want to.” Creepy. Feli says that she did indeed invite Lalo over, but only to break up with him. Maxi believes this and arranges for her bodyguards to let her go out, so that she and Maxi can go on a lunch date. Feli grimaces.
Dunoff approaches Pilar and Laura and tells Pilar that they have to talk. Pilar immediately starts bleating that Guido is a liar and Dunoff shouldn’t believe a word he says. Dunoff’s like, “So…you’re not working on the garden for him?” and Pilar realizes that Guido did indeed help cover for her and Laura. She’s like, “Oh, well, in that case nevermind.” What Dunoff actually wanted to talk to her about was the girls’ soccer tournament. He asks Pilar to keep an eye on the visiting girls’ team and to make sure that they don’t fall prey to the perversions of the Elite Way boys. Pilar agrees, looking more disturbed than the situation warrants? Honestly, given the kind of boys that are at Elite Way (G U I D O, oh and also Francisco and Manuel and sometimes Marcos), I think this is a perfectly reasonable request.
Someone finally finds Lujan in the basement, and it immediately cuts to a commercial to draw out the suspense of it all. Did Marcos or Javier find her?! JK, it’s neither of those clowns; Miranda finds her instead. He tells her that he’s arranging a funeral service for Blas on behalf of the school, and also Blas’s personal effects have been left to Lujan, so they can go to the hospital to pick them up.
Upstairs, Marcos is picking a fight with Javier. He shoves him while asking what exactly Javier wants with Lujan, which, I mean — Javier totally does have an ulterior motive for everything he does, so Marcos is not at all wrong here. Anyway, Miranda and Lujan walk in on them fighting, and Marcos and Javier are immediately all, “Look over here, Lujan!” Javier offers to go with Lujan to the hospital, and Marcos is all huffy over it. Miranda correctly asks if this is really the time for their dick-swinging contest, and Lujan pointedly asks Javier to come with her, not Marcos. On the one hand, yeah, Marcos’s timing is not great, but on the other — WHEN HAS JAVIER EVER DONE ANYTHING NICE FOR LUJAN??? The only reason she trusts him this fully is because telenovela characters love trusting the word of random strangers over that of people they’ve known for years.
Feli tells Pilar and Laura that she and Maxi are back together — or at least she has to pretend to be back together with him. Pilar and Laura are immediately like, “Lalo is going to flip out and try to crush your face again,” and Feli’s like, “He wouldn’t do that! Would he?” I hate to break it to you, Feli, but statistically, that is how he reacts to most bad news.
Tomás comes across Guido working in the school garden and needles him about how it’s good to see him doing some work. “Look, you missed a spot,” he adds. Hee. Laura comes walking by, and Tomás asks her where Pilar is. Laura says she and Fernanda hustled off to the cafeteria together, and Tomás goes to look for her. Laura takes the opportunity to ask Guido why he didn’t sell her out to Dunoff, and he snarks that he knows how to help his classmates. Laura feels guilty about not helping him — even though she shouldn’t, because nobody on this show owes Guido anything ever — and decides to give him a hand in the garden. Guido tries to boss her around and Laura snipes at him that they’re working together. Guido is all intrigued by her standing up to him.
Then, weirdly, Agustina and Lola sneak out past the garden, then they start panicking that Guido and Laura will catch them. First of all: like either of them would tattle? Even Laura is pretty lax about rule-breaking. Secondly, THEY’RE NOT EVEN LOOKING UP. Nevertheless, Lola insists that Guido needs to be distracted, so Agustina takes one for the team and goes to talk to him while Lola slips past. Agustina apologizes to him for her dad’s behavior and asks how he is, and then Guido’s like, “Are you trying to get back together with me? Because we are never ever getting back together!” and Agustina’s like, “No, you’re gross, I would never date you again!” and then they yell at each other for a bit before Agustina runs off. Again, I really don’t see why Lola and Agustina couldn’t have just walked past.
At Casa Colucci, Sonia approaches Papa C and asks if they can talk about their argument like adults. Papa C’s like, “This is a telenovela, so no.” Sonia gives him a big impassioned speech about how she might dance half-naked for strangers, but she only cares about Papa C, and he has to accept her job if he wants to be together. Papa C emos that he doesn’t know if he can and Sonia says that if he can’t, then they can’t be together. They really should’ve discussed this before they bought and furnished a house together, imo.
Pilar and Fernanda meet with the photographer, who wants to keep working with them. Pilar frets that Tomás won’t like it, but Fernanda’s like, “Who cares! If Erreway can be a secret band, you can definitely be a secret model!” The photographer says that their next job is going to be modelling bikinis. He shows them the outfits and Pilar immediately gets nervous about how revealing they are. In a darker show, this would definitely be going to a bad place, but Pilar is just nervous that Tomás won’t like her showing so much skin to God and everybody. Do you see the parallels here with Sonia and Papa C’s story? This show is so subtle.
Speaking of, Tomás rocks up just then. He’s all, “Holy shit, Pilar, that is a tiny-ass bikini. If I ever saw you walking around in a bikini like that, I would definitely break up with you on the spot.” Charming! He drags Pilar off and Fernanda wonders if, maybe, she can just do the campaign alone. The photographer’s like, “No, for plot purposes, there has to be two of you and if Pilar drops out, my immediate backup will definitely be Sol and not literally any other girl that I could audition.” Fernanda assures him that he can count on her and Pilar.
Lujan and Javier go to the hospital, where Lujan cries some more over losing Blas. Javier comforts her and Lujan’s like, “If only Marizza were here!” Javier snarks that he doesn’t know if that would help much. HEE! I hate him but he’s not wrong. When you think about it, Lujan’s entire story arc is just her latching on to the first people who are nice to her and excusing their behavior for the rest of the show.
Feli visits Lalo at his kiosk and tells him that she has to pretend to be back together with Maxi. I guess this time they didn’t need to come up with an elaborate plan to sneak her out and she just waltzed out past her bodyguards. Lalo is predictably not happy about this and wants to know why they don’t just be honest about their love. You know, like they’ve been talking about doing for the past 20 episodes. Feli gives him the same spiel about how her parents will force her to do something drastic to save face if they find out the full extent of Feli and Lalo’s relationship, and Lalo grudgingly agrees. Besides, Feli adds, Maxi’s such a germaphobe that there’s no way their relationship is getting anywhere near physical, so Lalo has nothing to worry about on that front. Heh.
Marcos goes to Blas’s apartment complex and bribes the janitor to let him in. Bless. He goes through Blas’s papers — including the blue folder in which Lujan discovered Blas’s childhood sexual abuse secret, but apparently Marcos doesn’t see it, because he just throws the folder to the side and keeps looking. Eventually he finds a folder with a photo of Lujan inside and zeroes in on its papers. Then he goes back to school and does not bring up any of this to Lujan.
Dunoff lines the kids up and tells them that the girls from the opposing soccer team will be here soon, and he expects everyone to be on their best behavior. The Elite Way girls will show them around and make them feel welcome. “What are we guys supposed to do?” Guido asks. “Try to stay at least two kilometers away from them,” Dunoff says. HA! Dunoff threatens to expel any boy that disobeys this command, which…seems a little excessive, funny as it would be. The boys start snarking that Dunoff shouldn’t worry, since girls who play soccer must all be unfeminine and ugly, so there’s no way the boys will be interested in them. Even though Guido spent the entirety of that soccer match subplot hitting on all the girls he met at the soccer club? I don’t know.
Anyway, immediately after saying that, the opposing team walks in and naturally they’re all hot. Who could have seen that coming!
Sol calls Maxi and wails that she’s just so nervous about meeting with some modelling agent or another. She asks him to come wait with her, but he tells her that he’s planning to spend the day with Feli, to which Sol seethes. She cheers up, though, when her(?) agent arrives and tells her that she got the modelling job through Maxi’s dad’s company. She starts fussing over whether or not her hair looks nice, and the agent tells her to calm down, since the photos will only be from “the waist down.” If you’re starting to think this sounds sketch, don’t worry, it has a comedic punchline: the campaign is for hemorrhoid cream! Oh my God, this is going to be Sol’s future:
(I was actually looking for mielmonster’s “Life After Hemorrhoids” video about being recognized as the hemorrhoid girl, but apparently she’s taken it down. Also, this paragraph has taught me that I am not capable of spelling “hemorrhoid” correctly on the first try.)
Naturally, because Guido can’t leave well enough alone, he’s plotting with the rest of the boys to find a way to get close to the soccer girls. Tomás wibbles that he doesn’t want to get mixed up in this and Guido needles him for being too whipped to enjoy “all this extraordinary Argentinian meat.” GROSS! I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’d let Blas live in exchange for Guido’s death.
The boys go to the girls’ dorm, where Pilar is directing the opposing team to their rooms. The boys try the door and find out that Dunoff’s put a padlock on it (lol). Belen and Pilar tell them that they’re forbidden from getting within six feet of the girls from the other school. Honestly, he should just ban the boys from getting within six feet of any girls at all.
Belen gets a call from Sol, who’s panicking over the modelling job and asking Belen to come support her. Pilar and Fernanda are like, “That’s so sad! You should take her shopping at Maxi’s aunt’s store to cheer her up!” Belen thinks that’s a great idea and zooms off.
In the not-library, Javier strokes Lujan’s hair (gross) and drops unsubtle hints about what a bad friend Marizza is. Ah, it has finally clicked that this is his master plan, re: Lujan. It was unclear since Marizza is, in all honesty, not that good of a friend so I was confused about how Javier mostly seemed to just be stating the obvious. Also, I fail to see how this plan would have worked if Blas hadn’t died. Anyway, Javier apparently hasn’t counted on Lujan’s ability to be undyingly loyal to people who treat her badly (even though he just watched her bawl over a man who HAS TRIED TO STRANGLE HER MULTIPLE TIMES). Lujan snipes at him that she doesn’t want to argue about Marizza, and changes the subject to Dunoff. She’s like, “I guess eventually we gotta explain that Blas is dead, right?” I feel like that should be Miranda’s responsibility at this point, but I guess he thought that would be too much effort. Javier says that they can put off telling Dunoff until tomorrow. He offers to help Lujan go through Blas’s things, but Lujan grabs the bag from him and storms off, saying she’s going to see if Marizza’s sent her an email. Javier scowls that his plan to sow discord between them isn’t working, and he calls a friend (“Gonzalo” — maybe that’s Eyebrow Friend?) and asks if there’s a way to stop an email from arriving at its destination.
Feli and Lalo are still making out at his kiosk — again, I guess her bodyguards and Elite Way security just don’t care that she’s gone? — when her phone rings. Lalo acts more annoyed than the situation warrants, which frankly is pretty creepy, but Feli doesn’t notice. Maxi turns out to be on the other end, wanting to know where Feli is. She lies that she’s not feeling very well and can’t make it to their lunch date. Lalo laughs in the background, presumably because he thinks it’s funny to baldly lie to another person, string them along, and waste their time. I mean, Maxi is a dick, but it would be nice if our supposed protagonists could act at least a little like the bigger people here.
Guido, Diego, Francisco, Tomás, and some fifth guy who hasn’t been important enough to be involved in a subplot before — I think he might be Sebastian? — spy on the girls’ practice from across the street. Tomás continues to fret that ogling other girls isn’t good for his relationship with Pilar, not that that stops him. Francisco is also getting all twitterpated, despite the fact that he has finally gotten together with Mia after like twenty episodes of pining for her. The way the boys’ fidelity hinges on whether or not they are actively being watched by their girlfriends is so very gross. Anyway, they come up with a plan to bring the girls water as an excuse to talk to them, but get busted by Dunoff. He banishes them to the fifth year dorms to sleep for the next few nights as punishment. All the boys panic, presumably because the fifth years exist in some kind of alternate dimension that’s never been fully explored by man.
Belen and Sol walk through the mall while Sol rants about Maxi getting her a job for hemorrhoid cream, of all things. They pass by his aunt’s store, and Sol flips out upon seeing Pilar and Fernanda in the ads in the window. (The ads really aren’t that big, actually, so maybe Pilar’s secret will be safe after all.) She yells at Maxi’s aunt for very daring to pick Pilar and Fernanda over her, and Maxi’s aunt reminds her that actually, this is her clothing brand and she can pick whoever she wants to model her clothes. Sol seethes that Pilar and Fernanda must have become models on purpose, just to spite her. Hee. It sounds insane, but to be fair, that’s actually what happened. Sol vows revenge on the two of them plus Feli, since Feli let her believe that Mia was the school’s resident model. Belen just kind of awkwardly stands there like, “Please stop embarrassing us in public.”
Dunoff huffs his way back into the school. Pilar tells him that his plan is working out great — all the girls are staying in her room (and are presumably just too polite to point out that they’re packed in like sardines) and the door Dunoff installed is keeping the boys out. Dunoff says that they didn’t think this through, since the boys are just perving on the new girls outside of the dorms now. Pilar’s like, “Well, as least we don’t have to worry about Tomás!” and Dunoff’s like, “Uh, no, we definitely do.” Pilar wants to immediately go kick Tomás’s ass (heh) but Dunoff tells her not to draw any attention to the boys’ shenanigans. He’s also worried about how to keep the boys away from the girls on the field, since he can’t ban them from watching the match. What? As funny as it would be to essentially ban the boys from participating in school because they can’t behave themselves — which tbh is what happens to girls already! — it makes no sense to actually prevent them from watching the match itself. (On the other hand, I originally typed, “What, does he think they’re going to storm the field to hit on the girls while the match is happening?” and…I wouldn’t put that past Guido, really.)
Anyway, Pilar suggests that while they can’t ban the boys, Dunoff could give them extra work of some kind to keep them from making it to the match. So…who’s going to be watching this game, then? Lola and Agustina are the only other schoolmates these kids have!
Javier and Eyebrow Friend — who I guess is Gonzalo after all, but I shan’t be using his real name — discuss their master plan: Javier has told him some vague undefined details about Marizza’s email account, and Eyebrow Friend will use those to stop her from sending and receiving email. I love how in the 2000s, you could get away with just being like, “Ah yes, you told me their username and I can now use that information to totally destroy their computer, somehow” because we had no fucking idea how computers worked back then.
Eyebrow Friend leaves and Javier catches up with Lujan. He asks after Marizza and Lujan admits that she hasn’t received any emails from her. Javier’s like, “How sad and totally unusual!” He suggests that Lujan check again and maybe write to Marizza first. Then Marcos rocks up and tries to talk to Lujan, and she snaps at him to go away. “Why are you treating me like this?” Marcos bleats. This would actually be a good opportunity for Lujan to point out that he spent the last few months of their relationship constantly putting her down and emotionally cheating on her with Fernanda, but she doesn’t. Instead, she just storms off, and Javier snarks that it sucks to be Marcos.
Laura finds out from Michi that Lola has left school without warning. Laura thinks Lola’s gone off with Mrs. Arregui, but when she calls home, her mom says that Lola isn’t there. I guess Laura has just forgotten that Lola has spent the last few episodes talking about visiting her bio mom in Jujuy.
Feli’s mom comes to visit her at school, since she heard that Feli wasn’t feeling well. Feli immediately flips out that Maxi ratted her out about her supposed stomach problems, but Mama Feli defends him and says that it’s only because he cares about her. Feli snipes that she’s not an animal being put up for sale and her health isn’t anyone’s business. I mean, as gross as Maxi is, he seems to genuinely like Feli. It’s annoying to watch Feli be all self-righteous while simultaneously interpreting everyone’s actions with as little generosity as possible. Even if Feli’s family were totally villainous, if they want us to think Feli is a good person, she should, as I’ve said before, be the bigger person every now and then.
Anyway, Feli gets all ready to storm off in a huff, but she has a bout of nausea and has to sit back down. So, you know, way to prove Maxi’s point.
Laura corners Agustina and asks her where Lola is. Agustina resists for about 0.5 seconds before giving in and admitting that she’s in Jujuy. Wow, Agustina would not make a good spy. Laura starts bleating that she can’t believe Lola ran off to Jujuy, like the kids in this school aren’t constantly running away and taking cross-country road trips all the time. Remember when Pablo and Marizza fucked off to Rosario without anyone noticing? Anyway, Laura also asks Agustina why she went, and Agustina explains that Mari was in Buenos Aires, but then left and Lola assumed she went back to Jujuy. Glad we cleared that up. Laura yells at Agustina for giving Lola the idea and storms off.
Lola arrives in Jujuy — that was quick — and has found the place where she assumes Mari is staying. No word on how she figured out any of this, or if she got a hotel in Jujuy or what. Lola monologues for a minute about how she doesn’t know if she should knock on the door or what, and I was thinking that maybe the dude chilling on the stoop would tell her to make up her mind already, but he doesn’t. Instead, she just pulls herself together and knocks. She asks the woman who answers where Mari is, the woman looks all horrified and asks if Lola’s heard what happened.
Lujan checks her emails and despairs that Marizza hasn’t written her back. Marcos overhears her (“without meaning to,” he says, like he hasn’t been stalking her all episode) and offers to help once more. Manuel gave him a list of hotels that Erreway is planning to stay at along with their phone numbers, so Marcos calls up the hotel that they should currently be at. He asks to be connected with “one of the Erreway members” (Lujan gets mad that he doesn’t specify Marizza lmao) and the hotel connects him right away. I didn’t know you could just ring up a hotel and ask to talk to a famous guest, and they’ll connect you without asking who you are! Anyway, Manuel tells Marcos that Marizza isn’t there, as she’s taken the day off to hang out with Pablo. Lujan is all bummed out to hear this, like she can’t just take the number and call later? I don’t know.
Anyway, Marcos tells Lujan that he wants to help her deal with Blas’s death, and Lujan snarkily reminds him that he pushed her away (and emotionally cheated on her with Fernanda) when she tried to help him with his mom. Oh wow, I was not expecting them to directly contradict what I said earlier about Lujan not bringing that up. Very nice. Marcos says that he was a dumbass and Lujan helped him realize that he had to talk about it, but Lujan snipes at him that she’s realized that bottling things up is way better. Then she storms off, like so many people in this episode are wont to do.
In the courtyard, Francisco, Guido, and Tomás despair that Dunoff cockblocked them from talking to the soccer girls. FRANCISCO, YOU HAVE A GIRLFRIEND. A girlfriend whom you pined over for like twenty episodes, at that. I expect nothing, and yet these boys still let me down. Anyway, Pilar rocks up and tells them that Dunoff wants them to clean up the dressing rooms in the auditorium. What? Since when does this school have a) an auditorium and b) dressing rooms? The boys are just as shocked as I am, although not for the same reasons. They whine that they’ll miss the game if they have to do it now — because of course the soccer game is starting right now with no preamble — and Pilar says that if they don’t do it right away, they won’t be allowed to watch the game. You’d think the boys would pick up on the fact that they won’t be able to watch the game either way, but they don’t.
The boys go to the dressing room, which we have never seen before and probably will never see again. It’s full of women’s costumes, and Francisco gets the idea that Dunoff might be watching out for boys sneaking into the girls’ soccer game, but he surely won’t recognize three more girls sneaking in! Ah yes, because with some wigs and lipstick, Dunoff suddenly won’t recognize the faces of three kids he sees every single day. Anyway, I suppose we have to tune in next time to see if their farcical plan works, since the episode merely closes out in an image of the Francisco, Guido, and Tomás in drag. It would be funny if this lead to an aesop about sexism, a la that Boy Meets World episode, but these boys are no Shawn Hunter.
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