Previously on Rebelde Way: Marcos has snuck into the judge’s office to try and find out where Lujan is, which he wouldn’t have to do if he had just spied properly the first time around.
Anyway, the judge catches him, and Marcos admits his real intentions. He says that he’s a friend of Lujan’s and just wants to make sure she’s okay. The judge is pretty reasonable about it: he tells Marcos that Lujan is fine, and he’ll pretend to have never caught him snooping through a bunch of confidential files. Marcos tries to press for more specific information about where Lujan is, and the judge is like, “…I literally just caught you trespassing, and you wanna ask for favors right now?”
Meanwhile, Papa B has kidnapped Pablo and has offered him a deal: if Pablo comes back into the fold and helps Papa B win reelection, Papa B will stop trying to ruin his life. He’ll even let Pablo play with Erreway! Tempting.
Marizza went to go see Papa B and found Pablo there. Now they’re talking over whether or not Pablo should help his father out with the election — naturally, Marizza thinks Pablo’s selling his integrity and his very soul and she can’t believe he would even consider helping his evil father. Pablo, on the other hand, is like, “I mean, it’d be nice to be able to graduate high school without my dad fucking up literally every attempt I make to be independent.”
The preposterousness of the whole kidnapping thing aside, I think this is a pretty well-drawn conflict. Pablo genuinely has a difficult decision to make — clearly the right choice is NOT to help Papa B, but in doing so, Pablo is going to suffer real, material consequences. You can see how hard it would be for him to make the morally right choice here, which makes the drama feel much more organic, not contrived the way telenovela conflicts usually are.
Papa B comes in and asks Pablo if he’s made his decision. Pablo cracks under the pressure of having his girlfriend and his dad in the same room, and he stalks off. Papa B and Marizza have a stare-off, and Papa B taunts her that she’s already lost: “Pablo’s going to accept my proposal. People don’t change, you know.” Marizza insists that Pablo HAS changed, and Papa B just chuckles. “If he’d really changed, he would have already told me no.” He adds that Marizza will always be a scrappy rebel, and Pablo will always be a child of power. Seriously, why is this show always pretending like Marizza’s not as rich and privileged as the rest of them? Her mother is famous! Marizza’s not at Elite Way on a scholarship! Whatever.
The next day, Mia apparently has already approached Rocco about putting out a personal ad to look for Mama C. Oh, I thought Vico had offered to talk to Rocco herself, but apparently not. Mia says that Rocco told her it might not work, but then they find a newspaper and see the ad there, so…clearly he helped her post the ad anyway? I don’t know.
Vico wants to know if Rocco said anything about her to Mia, and Mia says that he didn’t. Vico is crushed.
(Can I be #controversial for a second and say that I kind of ship Rocco and Mia? They don’t have much screentime together, but they seem to think well of one another and they trust each other enough to work together whenever their mutual friends are in trouble. Mia has always been pretty sweet and un-judgmental towards Rocco, and Rocco is the rebellious edgelord with a heart of gold that Manuel WISHES he were. There’s potential there, is all I’m saying!)
Lalo is still proofreading Miranda’s thesis or whatever the hell his job is. Feli comes in to see him and says that he needs to rest every now and then. Lalo says that reading Miranda’s work has got him super pumped about politics and justice for the working class or whatever, and he just can’t stop reading! Lalo is going to join the Marxists and start the February Revolution.
Miranda comes in and Feli leaves to get the menfolk coffee. Once she’s gone, Lalo tells Miranda that he really likes his writing. It’s all about honesty in politics and doing what’s best for the people, and Lalo’s like, “This shit hits me where I live, dude.” Miranda says that his father wrote it, but he tragically died a few years ago.
Then Michi comes in and asks Lalo if Feli’s decided what she’s going to do about getting pulled out of Elite Way and all. Miranda’s like, “Say what?” Lalo says that Feli’s planning to just drop out of school entirely, and Michi’s like, “Oh, HELL no, that girl is finishing her education even if I have to DRAG HER INTO SCHOOL BY THE HAIR, I’ll THROTTLE HER MYSELF if she doesn’t show up to school next year.” I mean, I appreciate the enthusiasm, but dial it back Michi, Jesus. Miranda says he’d rather talk to Feli himself.
Dunoff comes into work and finds a letter from Hilda, saying that she’s resigning.
Marcos meets up with Marizza and tells him that his spying mission was a total failure. Marizza is all emo about Pablo’s failure to fight The Man, and she sighs that at least Marcos tried. Maybe some things can’t be changed after all, and they should just give up. “…are you still talking about Lujan?” Marcos asks. “Her, too,” Marizza says.
Pablo decides to talk his decision over with Tomás and Guido. Jesus. He’d get better advice just flipping a coin. Naturally, Guido thinks that Pablo should snap Papa B’s deal up so that Guido can go back to mooching off him. “We’ll have money again!” he chirps. Guido, this isn’t about YOU.
In class, Marizza tells Pablo that Manuel wants him to come back and help with his therapy. Pablo is thrilled. Then he tries to talk to her some more about his dad’s proposal, but Marizza is snippy with him. She’s like, “Unless you’re going to cut your father out of your life forever, there’s nothing to talk about!”
I mean…yes, in this case, the right thing for Pablo to do would be to extricate himself from his abusive, corrupt father’s grasp. But of course it’s not that easy for Pablo to A) cut himself off from the only family he has left, B) give up literally all of the comforts and advantages he’s had from birth, and C) open himself up to Papa B ruining all of his attempts to work or even have a hobby, presumably for the rest of his life. Like! You could be a little sympathetic, Marizza! Also, I’m sure that abandoning him to make this decision alone will sway him to your side. We are 9 episodes from the end, and Marizza has learned nothing about not making snap judgments or black-and-white thinking.
Dunoff comes in and tells the kids he has two announcements for them. One is that Lujan has disappeared into the labyrinth of the foster care system and will no longer be coming to school. Hope you guys didn’t want to say goodbye or anything! Sweetly, Mia asks where she is and if they can visit, but Dunoff’s like, “Eh, didn’t bother asking, don’t really care, either.”
His second bit of news is that Hilda has resigned. All the kids are upset, seeing as that leaves them with literally only one (1) teacher who teaches them an actual subject (Carmen and literature).
I don’t know why Dunoff took it upon himself to tell them all of this personally, when he was happy to just let Pablo and Marizza tell everyone that Manuel was having brain surgery. Whatever.
At some cafe somewhere, Mia’s mother reads the newspaper and sees the ad that Mia took out. Characters in this show read the personal ads with way more attention than anyone I know IRL.
Meanwhile, Papa C is trying to get one of his friends who works at a bank to tell him when Mama C uses her card. Then Sonia comes in and shows him the ad Mia took out. Weirdly, she says that hopefully Mama C doesn’t see it (too late, Sonia!), but then Papa C says, “At last, Mia will meet her mother” and Sonia’s like, “Well, maybe it’s for the best, and she’ll get closure.” Weren’t you JUST saying you hoped Mama C didn’t see the ad?
Sol leaves school to go to Francis Util’s show. Her dad arrives and tries to stop her, but Sol’s like, “Papa don’t preach!” and shoves past him.
Papa C goes to see Manuel. Manuel is super excited to finally see his mom and tiny lisping sister again. He’s like, “The idea of seeing my only living relatives after two years is all that’s keeping me going! If something were to keep us apart, I would fall into a crushing depression!” So naturally, Papa C gets a phone call from Manuel’s mom, telling him that she’s sick. The doctors don’t want her to travel, but she still wants to come see her son, obviously. She’s asked Papa C to send her a plane ticket anyway. “What do I do?” Papa C asks Manuel. Sure, put it on Manuel’s conscience if his mother gets sick and dies. That won’t fuck him up at all.
Lalo brings Pablo a copy of Miranda’s dad’s writings. He tells Pablo that Papa B and Papa Miranda used to work together in the same political party. Did Pablo know that? Pablo did not, and he is quite intrigued. He asks Miranda about it, but Miranda refuses to answer. “Fine, I’ll just ask my dad,” Pablo says. Miranda: “Is that a threat?” Pablo says he just wants to know the truth.
Then there’s an aside where Dunoff whines at Michi that he TOLD her not to throw away the newspaper before he reads it, not knowing that Mia and Vico actually stole it to look for Mia’s personal ad. Suffer, Dunoff.
Sonia comes to school to see Marizza. Marizza accuses her of keeping Hilda’s resignation a secret, and Sonia insists she knew nothing about it. Apparently Hilda told her that she was meeting with Dunoff today just to sort out her return to school. “So someone is lying,” Marizza muses. Sonia and Marizza decide that the liar must be Dunoff. Heh. In fairness, that’s usually a safe guess, but not this time! Sonia and Marizza confront Dunoff and accuse him of firing Hilda, and he shows them her resignation letter. They’re like, “Oh.”
We cut back to Pablo and Miranda. “So what you’re saying is that my father spread lies about your father and ruined his reputation?” Pablo asks. “Yes, that is what I just told you in a scene that this show was too lazy to actually write,” Miranda doesn’t say. He tells Pablo that Papa Miranda was the most honest and transparent person that Miranda’s ever known, and he trusted Papa B when he shouldn’t have. After Papa Miranda died, Papa B swooped in, smeared Papa Miranda’s name and took credit for his political work to further his own career.
Huh. I mean, yeah, maybe Papa Miranda really was the most pure and guileless politician in the world — which, in fairness, would explain how he got exploited by someone like Papa B. (Maybe the reason Papa Miranda isn’t around is because he got beheaded, Ned Stark-style.) On the other hand, like…not to be a cynic, but…all politicians are a little corrupt, or at least have to compromise their ideals in order to secure votes and funding. Sure, some politicians are better than others — and I do believe that some politicians have good INTENTIONS — but there’s really no such thing as a politician who is completely transparent and remains true to every promise and ideal they hold when they’re running for office. Don’t put your dad on such a pedestal, Miranda!
Anyway. When Miranda found out that Papa B had gotten his sticky paws on Elite Way’s school board, he decided to infiltrate the school to…dick around and get overly involved in a bunch of teenagers’ lives, I guess? He tells Pablo that having Argentina’s young minds be educated and developed by a corrupt leader is the worst thing that can happen to the country, but he’s not going to say how he plans to stop it. Pablo threatens to tell Papa B about this conversation unless Miranda reveals his plans, but Miranda still refuses.
Back at Casa Colucci, Hilda has donned a headwrap and an apron, and is apparently settling into life as the Colucci-Rey housemaid. Sonia and Marizza come back and are like, “Dude, what the hell!” Marizza begs Hilda to come back and says that she’ll publicly apologize in front of the class, in front of Dunoff, in front of whoever Hilda wants if she just comes back. “No, sweetie, this isn’t your or Pablo’s fault,” Hilda says. I mean…it kind of is, though? Plagiarism is still a bad thing??? HILDA??
Anyway, the “Hilda is possibly senile” plot FINALLY comes to a head: she admits that her memory and cognition aren’t what they used to be, and her failure to catch Pablo’s cheating was just the final nail in the coffin that convinced her to retire. Marizza and Sonia try to convince her to see a doctor, but Hilda doesn’t want to get sucked into a life of taking medication and getting her blood drawn and needing youths to help her cross the street or whatever. In fairness, this is a genuine concern of elderly people: lots of them would rather be independent for as long as possible, understandably so. A nice bit of realism from this show.
Back at school, Pablo comes up to Mia, looking for Marizza. Mia’s phone rings and Pablo’s like, “Is that her?? Let me talk to her!! Give me the phone!!” and Mia’s like, “It’s an unknown number, you weirdo!” Pablo makes Mia promise to tell him if Marizza calls, then runs off. Mia answers the phone, and it’s Mama C on the other end. She accepts Mia’s invitation to meet up.
Papa B comes to see Dunoff. He yells at him for not getting rid of Miranda yet and Dunoff’s like, “But, but, he hasn’t done anything wrong!” Papa B rolls his eyes and tells Dunoff to just MAKE UP a reason to fire him, then. He’s like, “Are you new to this whole corruption thing?” Luckily for Dunoff, Michi comes in and tells him that there are some parents who have appointments to meet with him, and he simply CANNOT keep them waiting any longer. Dunoff leaves his office, and Papa B takes a binder off of his shelf.
In the cafeteria, Marcos wails that he hasn’t studied for their chemistry test and he doesn’t know shit. Guido’s like, “Ooh, I’m ready for the test! I actually studied!” All the boys laugh at the idea of Guido, like, knowing things. Hee.
Rocco asks Marcos if he’s okay, and Marcos says that he’s been preoccupied worrying about Lujan. Rocco’s like, “That’s rough buddy” and offers to talk to him later. For now, he has to go do…something that gives him an excuse to leave the boys’ table. Vico approaches him and tries to talk to him, inviting him to come help Feli and Lalo settle in to their new house this weekend. Rocco shoots her down and Vico is crushed, again, some more.
Mia is fretting over what to wear to see her mother. (She also has a super cute Powerpuff Girls purse on her closet door, which I don’t recall seeing before? Either way, what a cute detail. Mia was definitely a Bubbles girl.) Feli correctly susses out that Mia’s outfit isn’t that important; Mia is just feeling a ton of anxiety over seeing Mama C and needs to direct it somewhere. Feli tries to comfort her, but they’re interrupted by Miranda, who demands to speak to Feli.
Sol arrives at Francis Util’s show and chirps that she’s ready for her runway debut! His assistant laughs at her and says that Sol’s job is actually to help dress the models. Humiliatingly for Sol, she told Belen to watch the fashion show to see her debut, so it’s on the TV in the lounge and all the kids have gathered round. They see Sol backstage, getting shoved around and having clothes piled into her arms, and they all laugh at her misfortune. I guess the show is being broadcast after the fact, because Sol has already arrived back at school. She walks into the lounge and sees everyone mocking her, then storms off in a huff.
Some time later, Marizza approaches Hilda alone, and tries to get her to go to the doctor again. Hilda says she’s not afraid of death. I was like, “Oh, is it because she wants to be together with Hilario again?” You remember Hilario, right, the teacher from season 1 who used to be Hilda’s boyfriend, and then the kids spent the entire season getting them together, and then he and Hilda got married, only for him to die off-screen between seasons 1 and 2?
Well, anyway, of course the show doesn’t remember that. Instead, Hilda just says that she’s afraid of becoming sick and wasting away in pain. I mean…again, totally fair enough, but how is refusing treatment going to help her? I mean, dementia usually isn’t terminal. If Hilda is anything like my grandparents, she could live like this for 10-15 years before dying of something totally unrelated, and she’ll need help with her daily functions ANYWAY because her cognitive skills are failing, so like…what is the point of these dramatics?
Papa B runs into Pablo at school again. Pablo agrees to help him with his campaign. Papa B cackles evilly and tells him he made the right decision.
Miranda takes Feli into the teachers’ lounge and tells her that, if nothing else, she REALLY needs to tell her parents that she’s pregnant. She huffs at him that she’ll think about it, is that good enough?! Miranda’s like, “Well, you better make a decision within the next two minutes, because I already arranged a meeting with your dad.” Heh. And for the first time, we see Papa Feli! He tells Feli that her teenage rebellion (he does not actually use the word “rebeldía”, tragically) forced her mother to go to the spa to recover. Not the spa! Being rich is so hard 🙁 Papa Feli says that he wants to talk to Lalo.
Mia calls Sonia, freaking out about seeing Mama C. Papa C walks in, so Sonia has to hang up, but she promises not to tell Papa C what Mia’s up to. Sonia pretends that she was talking to Sammy (you know, her show director) and Papa C gets all huffy that she’s still working in the theater. He’s like, “Now that my factory’s reopened, you can quit your job and never shame me by appearing on the stage again!” Oh. We’re still doing this plot? Also, seeing as Papa C’s business is at the whims of whatever corrupt politician is running Buenos Aires, maybe it’s a good thing that they have a backup source of income? Whatever.
Anyway, Sonia is in a hurry to go see Mia. Papa C tries to talk to her about Manuel and his mother not being able to visit, but Sonia BSes that she has to get to the theater and runs away.
Dunoff asks Michi why she made up that excuse about parents having appointments, so that he could get away from Dunoff. Michi sighs that she can help him escape from Papa B, but she can’t save him from himself. Dunoff says that he doesn’t WANT to help Papa B with his evil machinations, but how can he say no? Michi gives him a speech about how that just makes him complicit in said evil machinations, and how can he possibly justify firing Miranda, who is a great teacher? I mean…is he? He’s certainly a much better guidance counselor to the kids than anyone else who’s held the position but like…does he actually teach a subject? I don’t even remember. Anyway, she snipes at him for caring more about his job security than about doing the Right Thing.
Sonia gives Mia a pep talk before Mia leaves to meet her mother. Mia tells Sonia that she’s afraid she’ll find out that her father has lied to her about Mama C’s reason for leaving. Sonia reassures her that Papa C is a good man, and “the most dedicated father [she knows].” Hee! Burn, Martavio! Sonia promises that she’ll be waiting outside in the car if Mia needs anything.
Pablo sneaks into the hospital to see Manuel. He puts on a fat suit and a fake mustache and it’s supposed to be funny but I don’t really care that much. Manuel emos that his mom isn’t coming to see him after all, and this is why you should never have any hopes or dreams, because life will just crush you. So…did he tell Papa C not to send her the plane ticket? Why did we end on that cliffhanger?
Pablo looks Manuel in the eye and is like: “Your life sucks right now. But if you work hard at your physical therapy, you’ll recover.” For some reason, Manuel takes that as like…a deeply inspiring speech. I mean, it’s true, but is that not what EVERYONE’S been telling him for the past month?
Papa Feli comes back from his talk with Lalo and surprises Feli by saying that he actually likes the guy. Still, he doesn’t think he’s a good match for Feli. Feli’s all, “But Daddy I love him!” Papa Feli grudgingly says that he won’t stop her if she wants to date Lalo — he trusts her and if the relationship turns out to be a mistake, then it’s Feli’s mistake to make. “The only thing I ask is that you not lie to me anymore,” he adds. “Don’t do something silly like drop out of school to mess around with a guy.” Gosh, I bet he sure won’t like finding out that Feli is, in fact, planning to drop out and live with Lalo because she’s already pregnant.
He also says he’ll handle Feli’s mom for her, and Feli hugs him in gratitude. Her dad’s like, “What have I told you about public displays of affection?” Aw, poor Feli.
After the meeting with Feli and her dad is over, Dunoff approaches Miranda and says they have to talk.
Marizza is running all over school, looking for Pablo. Javier comes out of NOWHERE and asks, “Are you looking for my hermanito?” Aha! Javier, are you using the diminutive because you’re admitting that you are 30 years old while Pablo is still a teenager? Anyway, he tells Marizza that Pablo left with Papa B, to celebrate his joining of the dark side.
Mia goes to meet with her mom, and the episode ends as they come face-to-face. Suspense!
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