Previously on Rebelde Way: Francisco, Tomás, and Guido have dressed up as women in order to more easily perv on the visiting girls’ soccer team. They look ridiculous, but I suppose that the goal is not actually to get the girls to like them, it’s just to be able to sneak into their bedrooms and ogle them without consent because the boys in this series are all giant misogynists.
Anyway, the boys go to the girls’ dorm and claim to be the girls from another visiting school. How many teams are supposed to be coming to Elite Way? Whatever. The soccer girls open the door to them and somehow don’t notice that the “girls” are all way taller and broader-shouldered than them and are also acting like OTT drag stereotypes. It’s meant to be funny, but it’s actually super creepy when you think about it for longer than five seconds, like all the boys’ actions in this show. Like, their plan isn’t to throw off their disguises and start flirting once they’re in the room — their whole goal is to sneak in without the girls noticing that they’re actually dudes, and then engage in a bunch of boundary-violating voyeurism and panty-sniffing. It’s always so weird when the show wants us to think the boys are being wacky and funny when they’re actually like, this close to being the kind of dudes that make spycam footage of women in bathrooms.
On the slightly less misogynistic side of town, Papa C apologizes to Sonia for being a big jerkface. He’s like, “Wow, maybe I shouldn’t be possessive or controlling or judgmental about your job.” On the one hand, it’s nice that he apparently came to this realization mostly on his own. On the other hand, it would be funny if he changed his tune so quickly just because he realized that he and Sonia already bought an entire house together. He adds that he can’t promise he won’t always be a dick, but like, he’ll try. “It’s a first step, and I’m so grateful,” Sonia wibbles. Jeez, Sonia. He’s really putting in the minimal effort here.
Whilst they make up and make out, the phone rings. It’s Marizza, and we cut to the first shot of Camila Bordonaba that we’ve seen in a while. Hi, Marizza! I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I miss your antics! Without Marizza, we’ve had to sit through at least two Guido subplots. Guido!
Anyway, Sonia asks how the tour is going, and naturally Erreway has fans everywhere they go and they’re selling out stadiums all over the country despite not having any recorded music out and also never doing any promotion ever. W H A T E V E R. You know, when I first watched this show, I naively thought that we’d actually see the process of them bonding over music together and then showing off their singing at school concerts or something, instead of them just shooting to superstardom overnight for no reason. I was so wrong, guys.
Marizza adds that she doesn’t seem to be able to receive or send email, so she asks Sonia to help fix that. Sonia’s like, “But it’s 2003 and I don’t know how the Internet works!” so Marizza just tells her to call Hotmail support or something. Hee!
Sol confronts Fernanda and Pilar over their modelling job. She vows to make their lives hell, and Feli’s, too. Pilar tells her to back off Feli — aw, Pilar cares! — and Sol says that Feli misled her and made her think Mia was a model, so she has to go down, too. Fernanda and Pilar scurry over to Belen, Laura, and Feli and tell them about how they’ve gotten revenge on Sol via modelling. And they’re going to get even more revenge with this new bikini campaign! Feli and Laura note that Pilar doesn’t look happy, and she tells them that she has to be a secret model on account of Tomás and Dunoff, and everyone’s like, “Sure, that will work out.”
Then they see Lujan being emo in a corner and start speculating about what’s taken away her usual violent sparkle. They wonder if she’s missing Marizza, but then they dismiss the idea, which is weird because I thought it was an accepted fact on this show that Marizza’s friends revolve around her. Anyway, Lujan comes over to them and decides that now is the time to tell them about her relationship to Blas.
Or maybe she just tells them that he’s dead. I don’t know, because we instead cut over to watching the boys be gross some more. The soccer girls have offered to let them stay in the upstairs part of the Mia’s room, so the boys hang out up there and watch the girls undress without their knowing. I don’t understand how anyone involved thought this was cute. Like, I feel like we societally understand that a man in a trenchcoat spying on a woman through a window is a creepy incel, and she would feel violated by him watching her, but it’s…somehow funny when it’s Guido in a dress? WHY ARE WE SUPPOSED TO THINK THAT GUIDO IS ANYTHING MORE THAN A PATHETIC, RAPEY LOSER???
Anyway, there are far too many close-ups of the girls’ underwear and bras while Guido, Tomás, and Francisco spy(!!!) on them with their tongues hanging out of their mouths. Tomás leans over the railing for a better look, then tumbles down and hits the floor. All the girls start fussing over him and crawling all over him in their underwear, then they let him sleep in one of their beds. Ah, yes, that’s totally how girls react when we’re injured, and not at all some 40-year-old man’s softcore lesbian sleepover fantasy. I am disgusted.
Pilar and Fernanda walk and talk about how sad it is that Blas is dead. Is it, though? Fernanda’s like, “Let’s talk about something else because this show can’t hold an emotional thread for longer than 5 episodes.” She changes the subject to their swimwear campaign and asks how Pilar’s going to hide it from Tomás. Pilar says that she’s going to tell Tomás about it, which upsets Fernanda for some reason. I mean, I highly doubt it’s going to go well, but shouldn’t Fernanda be happy that Pilar is going to be honest about modelling? Like, it’s better than her lying constantly and shuffling around their shooting schedule so that she can avoid her boyfriend. I don’t know.
Laura confesses to Lujan that Lola’s gone off to Jujuy and Lujan’s all, “How could you let her go off! What will do you if she doesn’t come back!” I feel like they’re making an unusually big deal out of this? Everyone in this school runs off all the time like it’s no big deal. For some reason, though, Lujan is taking Lola’s disappearance seriously and Laura’s like, “Stop, your concern for my sister’s welfare is harshing my vibe.” She runs off to go to sleep.
Then Javier shows up and wants to know if Lujan has heard from Marizza, i.e. sow some more discord in her and Lujan’s relationship. Lujan says she hasn’t, but suggests that perhaps the hotel just doesn’t have the Internet. Javier suggests that Marizza could’ve gone to a cybercafe (hee!) if she really wanted to talk to Lujan, which she obviously doesn’t. Lujan’s like, “Well, maybe the band is just busy on their world tour and all,” and Javier’s like, “Hmm, you keep telling yourself that.” He suggests that Lujan should send the email to Marizza’s cell phone instead, and Lujan’s like, “Omg, you can do that?” and Javier’s like, “Totally! And if she doesn’t respond, then you definitely know she’s ignoring you.” I…can’t tell if he’s being dastardly here or not? We here in the year 2020 totally can send emails to cell phone numbers, but I can’t tell if Javier is just setting Lujan up for failure here. His smirk suggests that he is, though.
Sol writes a letter to Dunoff telling him about Pilar’s secret modelling career, although Belen interrupts her before she can send it. She’s all appalled that Sol would do this to Pilar. Belen, have you like…ever met Sol before? Sol threatens that she’ll murder Belen if Belen tells anyone about this. Honestly, this series would be so much better if Sol were actually a serial killer.
The school phone rings and Lujan picks it up, immediately assuming it’s Marizza even though it could be for literally anyone. And it is. It’s Lola, crying about her mother abandoning her, so Lujan goes to hand the phone off to Laura, completely crushed that a phone called placed to the school’s general telephone line wasn’t for her. Javier smirks evilly to himself in the background.
Meanwhile, Feli is panicking because her parents are sending her to the doctor, and she’s sure they’ll figure out she’s pregnant. Pilar says she has an idea, but we don’t find out what it is, because that would be convenient.
Night falls, and the boys are still creeping in the girls’ room. Tomás has had his fill of perving on the girls and wants to leave, to which Guido and Francisco reluctantly agree. Tomás checks that all the girls are asleep, but before they can sneak out, Pilar raps on the door and asks if everyone is OK. Tomás dives under the covers with another girl and pretends to be asleep, and Pilar goes away. The girl Tomás is groping in her sleep wakes up and asks what he’s doing, so Tomás fakes being afraid to sleep alone and all the boys are stuck in the room overnight. You can tell this some weird dude’s fantasy of what a girls’ sleepover is like, because if a girl tried something like that in reality, all the other girls would just make fun of her for being a baby and/or a lesbian (the latter especially in 2003).
The next morning, the visiting girls — I forgot to mention this, but they’re from Rio Negro — wake up and apparently don’t find anything amiss about this whole business. Pilar comes in to check on them, and the Rio Negro girls tell her to keep it down, as the girls from San Nicolas arrived in the night and are still asleep. Pilar is weirded out by this, although it’s not like it’s that weird for security to totally fail to notice people waltzing in and out of this school at all hours. Pilar says that she’ll tell Michi the girls are here, and then they all hustle out to go to breakfast.
Sol distracts Michi by saying that the first years are wreaking havoc, causing Michi to hustle off into the hallway. Sol takes the opportunity to try and slide a letter under Dunoff’s door, snitching Pilar out, but Michi comes back and says that she knows Sol is lying, because the first years are on a camping trip. “Next time you lie, lie a bit better.” Hee. Michi says that Dunoff is on vacation, so in fact, Michi is handling all his mail anyway. She confiscates Sol’s letter and muses about whether or not to open it: “Should I keep it? Should I put it where it belongs? I think I’ll put it where it belongs.” Then she throws it into the trash. I mean, wacky as this whole scene is, it’s pretty irresponsible of Michi to disregard whatever Sol wanted to say just because she doesn’t like her. Then again, “pretty irresponsible” is a truly vast understatement when it comes to the adults at this school.
Tomás, Francisco, and Guido manage to escape from the girls’ room with none the wiser, although Tomás loses his shoes in the process. This will come up again, I’m sure.
Pilar puts her master plan to help Feli into motion: she calls Feli’s mom, pretending to be the doctor’s secretary, and reschedules Feli’s appointment for two weeks later. I mean…that’s nice and all, but all they’ve really done is kick the can further down the road? And in fact, Feli will be farther along and her pregnancy will be more obvious in another few weeks? They didn’t think this through. Feli kind of points this out, and Pilar says that they’ll just keep coming up with excuses to put off the doctor’s appointment, presumably hoping that Feli’s mom doesn’t just…take her to another doctor at some point?
In class, Sol is all upset and Belen’s like, “Do you wanna do something fun? You wanna go to Taco Bell?” Just kidding. She asks if Sol is thinking about Blas, and Sol sniffles that she’s shaken by the thought that she was dating a dead man walking. Oh, dramatize. I wouldn’t have bothered to write out this conversation at all, except I want to point out that Sol has a zig-zag part in this scene. It’s so 2003 it hurts.
Meanwhile, Francisco and Tomás — now out of drag — want to know why Marcos didn’t tell anyone when he knew about Blas’s death all along. Marcos says that Lujan didn’t want it spread around, and he respected her decision. Francisco and Tomás are baffled by the concept of respecting girls.
Nevertheless, Marcos’s feminism has gotten him nowhere, as Lujan is still not talking to him. She and Javier sit together while Javier needles her some more about whether or not she heard from Marizza. But then Marizza does call — she rings Tomás’s phone, since I guess Javier got Lujan to block her number or something — and asks to speak to Lujan. Javier snipes that it seems like Marizza’s finally remembered Lujan, which makes Lujan salty enough to hang up on Marizza instead of talking to her. Okay, Lujan, you’re just making problems for yourself at this point.
(In the background, Tomás is just like, “O…kay then.” Poor dumb Tomás.)
Pilar tells Michi about the “girls” from San Nicolas showing up in the dead of night, so Michi calls the school and yells at them for sending the girls over with zero notice. Her yelling brings Miranda out of his office to check if everything is alright, and Michi’s like, “Fine! Everything is fine!” An excellent time for Laura to show up and announce that Lola is missing! She’s actually kind of hilariously casual about the whole thing: she cheerfully tells Michi that Lola’s gone off to Jujuy by herself, and she’s going to miss a ton of school, and their parents don’t know anything about it. Everything’s fine! Miranda’s like, “Wow, no, everything is not fine.” He tells her that, you know, since Lola is a minor and the school is responsible for her, he has to inform Laura’s parents that Lola’s gone. Laura’s like, “Really? You can’t let this slide like all the other teachers do?”
Guido and Francisco are so (perversely) thrilled by their success last night that they want to make this “dressing up as women and sneaking into the girls’ rooms” thing a regular event. Gross! So gross! Tomás, at least, has reservations about this whole thing, but he doesn’t get to protest because he sees Pilar across the courtyard and runs away like a cowardly custard.
Meanwhile, Pilar and Feli’s plan has fallen apart, because Mama Feli has just found another doctor for them to go to. Who could have seen that coming? She says that they’re going to Maxi’s doctor, which means that Maxi is coming with them. Feli tells Pilar to call Lalo, who shows up and…runs in front of Maxi’s car and pretends to be hit? I feel like this is banking way too much on Feli’s mom giving a shit about Lalo and taking him to the hospital instead of just leaving him for dead because he’s poor. But whatever, Feli’s mom falls for it, and she takes him to the doctor in Feli’s place. They couldn’t just take him to the ER?
Michi goes into the girls’ room, presumably to check on the girls from San Nicolas. She gets all in a tizzy when she sees that they’re not there, and then she finds Tomás’s shoe in one of the girls’ beds. Ew, he was wearing shoes to bed? That might be the most disturbing part of all of this.
Lujan emos in a corner over Marizza, even though she was the one who hung up on her, so…this is really Lujan’s own fault. Javier passive-aggressives that Marizza’s not a bad person, but she’s thoughtless and selfish and fair weather. “If you agree with her, everything is good. If you don’t, she cuts you off.” I mean…we’re meant to think that Javier is just badmouthing Marizza to stir shit with Lujan, but like…he’s not wrong.
Nevertheless, Lujan insists that Marizza is actually a good friend, but Pablo has changed her. If…if that makes you feel better, Lujan.
Marizza calls Marcos and is relieved to finally get through to someone who won’t hang up on her. She wants to know why the hell Lujan’s ignoring her, and Marcos is like, “Well, she’s real messed up about what happened, if you get my drift.” Ah, to be in Erreway and manage to have avoided the entire plot of the past 20 episodes.
I guess the entire school officially knows about Blas’s death, because the teachers (all 5 of them) have gathered in the office to discuss it. Michi muses over how undignified it is to be “flattened like a mosquito.” HEE! The rest of the teachers are wondering how to bring it up to their students. Gosh, it’s too bad this school doesn’t have, like, counselors or anything for the students to talk to. Carmen snipes that the students are so thoughtless and self-centered, nothing affects them, not even death. Hee. Admittedly, her lack of faith in the children is pretty justified; on the other hand, the kids are within their rights not to give a shit about Blas’s death, what with the constant abuse he was inflicting on them.
Hilda muses that if the kids are that heartless, then they as teachers have a duty to try and help the kids process their emotions. Carmen snarks that she doesn’t get paid enough for that, and stomps off to give her class. Miranda stops her and says that he’d like her to give an assignment related to death and have the kids write about it. Carmen doesn’t want to, and Miranda tells her that, in Dunoff’s absence, he’s in charge. He is? I mean, fair enough, he’s the most responsible adult here, but he also just got hired like two months ago. Is it because he’s the only dude on the faculty? This feels sexist.
After several episodes, we finally cut back to Erreway. They’re hanging out and having breakfast or something; Sabrina is bugging Manuel to take his pills while Mia seethes. Pablo marvels at how much money the tour has made and says that they’ve earned so much that he’ll be able to cover his bills for a few months and not rely on his dad anymore. Manuel adds that he’ll be able to pay for his medication, too. Isn’t it convenient how they’ve been on tour for like a week and are splitting the money five ways, yet are totally making enough to be financially independent? Mia says that they have to go back to school soon, and Sabrina, Pablo, and Manuel all laugh at her. They’re dicks but like, if they’re making this much money off of touring (with no album out, how very Nicki Minaj of them), I don’t know why they should go back to their farce of a high school.
Of course, their hand is forced by Marizza, who shows up and tells them that Blas has died, and they have to go back to Elite Way now so that she can emotionally support Lujan. Yeah, fuck all the fans who are still waiting to see a show and the tour sponsors!
Miranda goes hunting around Dunoff’s office and finds a folder full of sketchy financial transactions hidden in one of the cabinets. He doesn’t look at it very long, though, because Michi pops in and tells him that Mrs. Arregui is here to see him. Mama Arregui’s all, “So you’re telling me that Lola’s snuck out and gone to Jujuy?” and Miranda’s like, yes, for everyone that managed to miss that episode, that is where we are in the plot. Mrs. Arregui wails that Lola’s been kidnapped; Laura protests that Lola left voluntarily. Miranda snaps at them to stop arguing, because they’ll never get anything done that way. I mean…get what done? They’re not exactly chomping at the bit to bring Lola back.
Carmen grudgingly gives her lesson about death; she dramatically reads out the beginning of “Adios” by Alfonsina Storni, which basically goes, “Death is forever and in the end we’re all just tiny pieces of dust and nothing more.” Yeah, that makes Lujan feel a lot better. Carmen tells them to use the piece as inspiration and write her an essay about how Blas’s death is making them feel. All the kids protest that they don’t want to write down their most intimate feelings for a teacher, which is fair enough. Carmen huffs that she’s just giving them the assignment because Miranda told her to, so she doesn’t really give a shit about how they feel. The kids start whispering amongst themselves about how to sabotage the assignment.
Marizza cries to Pablo that she just knows Lujan is in trouble, and Marizza can’t do anything to help her. Pablo says that they’ll cancel the tour just like Marizza suggested, and they’ll use their earnings to pay the fees for terminating their contracts early. Marizza sniffles that Pablo and Manuel need the money, and Pablo’s like, “Well, the plot dictates that you have to get your way at all times and that I’m still going to have drama with my dad anyway, so we might as well kill two birds with one stone.” Manuel and Mia come out and say that Sabrina is pissed — not entirely wrongly — but Vico and Rocco are trying to calm her down. Manuel and Pablo wander off, and Mia hugs Marizza. Aw.
Sweet as Erreway supporting each other is, I gotta say: not to be #controversial, but may I suggest that this would’ve been a good place to introduce the life lesson that, as you grow older, you can’t always be physically there for your friends as your adult responsibilities get in the way? And that it’s not an easy choice, but cancelling a tour that dozens of people are relying on for income — not to mention disappointing Erreway’s inexplicably large fanbase — for one person is completely irresponsible? Like, why is helping Lujan more important than helping Pablo and Vico — who need this tour to escape their abusive parents — or helping Manuel, who needs it to pay for his medication?
Whatever. After class, the rest of the kids gather and cackle over how they’re going to totally pwn Carmen by turning in blank homework. One kid is like, “I don’t know, I do feel kind of affected by the sudden death of someone I saw every day” and everyone tells him to quit being a baby. Then Michi waltzes in and presents Tomás’s shoe to everyone, demanding to know whose it is. What, did Tomás only leave one shoe in the room, like a sex offender version of Cinderella? Anyway, Pilar immediately recognizes it as Tomás’s and wants to know where Michi found it. Suspense!
And then we have a commercial break of Jazmin Beccar Varela advertising hair straighteners all like, “You could leave your naturally curly hair the way it is and look pretty on-trend ten years from now, or you could flatten your hair and completely date your look to 2002! Choose wisely!”
Back to the suspense of Michi finding Tomás’s shoe, except there’s no suspense, because she just covers for Tomás and says she found it outside. What was the point of dramatically announcing it, then? Pilar still wants to know what it was doing outside, and Guido starts BSing that they were just horsing around. “Did I ask you? No,” Pilar says. HEE. Nevertheless, she doesn’t find anything suspicious about this situation and goes back to making out with Tomás. Michi drags Tomás away to have a talk in Dunoff’s office.
Sol and Belen have broken into the office to try and get Sol’s snitch letter to Dunoff, but are interrupted once again by Michi. She’s dragging Tomás into the office to yell at him, so Sol and Belen hide. Naturally, this leads to Sol overhearing Michi going off about how she found TOMÁS’S SHOE in the BED of the GIRLS FROM RIO NEGRO and she doesn’t even want to think about WHAT TOMÁS WAS DOING in THE BED OF ANOTHER GIRL, but she knows it’s not anything good! Her rant is cut off by a phone call, and Tomás takes the opportunity to run while Sol cackles to herself.
Laura goes to see Miranda after Mama Arregui leaves. She tells him that at first she was really mad that he wasn’t going to help her cover up Lola’s disappearance, but now she sees that he was right to tell Mama Arregui and generally be a responsible adult. Miranda seems pleased that at least one of his students isn’t a full-on egomaniac.
Laura leaves, and Carmen comes in. She shows Miranda the blank sheets of paper that the kids all turned in for their English assignment, and smugly tells him that she knew those little demons didn’t have any real feelings. Miranda is perturbed.
In the cafeteria, Laura finds Pilar, who is fretting over Feli. She tells Laura that Feli went off to the doctor’s and she didn’t answer when Pilar called, so now Pilar is worried that Feli’s mom found out about her pregnancy. “Well, maybe honesty is the best policy,” Laura says, newly converted from her meeting with Miranda. Pilar’s like, “Do you even go to this school?”
In light of Carmen’s assignment, Miranda calls all the kids into the art room to lecture them. Before the meeting starts, Sol pulls Pilar aside and says that she has something important to tell her. “Nothing you have to say is important to me,” Pilar snipes, and Sol’s like, “Not even your boyfriend cheating on you?” Pilar does not like that at all and they almost get into a rumble, but then Michi runs up and drags Pilar off. Sol goes into the classroom and I guess Miranda doesn’t care that the kids are basically playing musical chairs with attendance. You’d think he would’ve bothered to do a headcount before giving them a dramatic speech, at least. Anyway, Miranda launches into a lecture about how the kids don’t seem to want to grow (true) or compromise with the authority figures in their lives (also true). The kids are shamefaced enough to admit that they don’t really know what to say, especially since nobody really liked Blas. Miranda says that instead of writing a paper, they can make a collage together expressing how they feel about Blas — whether what they’re feeling is positive or negative. Because…an art project worked out so well the last time they tried it?
Michi’s issue with Pilar actually has nothing to do with Tomás, and instead she wants to know where the girls from San Nicolas are. She already spoke with the school, who said that they were on their way — and yet, they’re not here. I mean, would we be suprised to find out that Elite Way sits on a Hellmouth that sucks unsuspecting visitors into it all the time? Nevertheless, Pilar mentions that she saw the San Nicolas girls sleeping in the room with the Rio Negro girls, which seems to turn a lightbulb on in Michi’s head. It also rings a bell for Pilar — God bless — who asks Michi if she found Tomás’s shoe in the girls’ room. Michi admits that she did, and Pilar storms off, hopefully to kick Tomás’s ass.
Meanwhile, this show’s go-to sad song, “Perder un amigo”, plays over a montage of the kids working on their art pieces and putting them up on the wall. Lujan cries while she puts hers up, and Javier hugs her. I gag.
Feli’s mom brings her back to school. The two of them sit down to have a talk, and Feli’s mom tells her that she knows her better than she thinks: “Do you think I wouldn’t notice what was happening?” Feli’s like, “Well…what do you think is happening?” and Feli’s mom is like, “You tell me, and I HOPE it’s not what I think it is!” and Feli’s like, “Well, what do you think it is?” and Feli’s mom is like, “What do you think I think it is?” Presumably they could’ve gone on like this forever, but we end on this cliffhanger instead. Whatever. I bet Feli’s mom has noticed her weight gain and thinks that Feli is eating junk food again. I’m putting money on it, that’s the exact kind of BS twist this show would do.
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