Previously on Rebelde Way: Pablo has joined the dark side. Marizza has been running around all day looking for him, and Javier tells her that Pablo went out with Papa B, to celebrate their reestablished relationship.
Marizza accuses Javier of lying — which is kind of true, I think? When we cut back to Pablo, we see that he’s visiting Manuel, so he hasn’t gone out with Papa B. That said, of course, he did choose to help Papa B with his campaign in exchange for his “freedom.” Anyway, Marizza asks Javier what we’re all thinking, which is what even is the point of his character anyway. Javier’s like, “You’re just being mean because you can’t handle my truth!”
Marizza gets in a dig about how everyone hates Javier at this point and he has no friends. Hee! Javier’s like, “Right, because everyone loves you so much. How’s your ex-best friend Lujan?” Marizza snaps that she hasn’t given up on Lujan, and Javier says that maybe she should worry about her boyfriend instead. “When he picks you up in his brand-new car, you’ll see that you should’ve believed me.” Marizza stalks off in a huff.
Dunoff calls Miranda in for a meeting. He hems and haws about how Papa B doesn’t really like Miranda, especially what with Miranda being such a good substitute principal and dealing with the school board and rifling around in Dunoff’s papers that have proof of Papa B’s shady dealings. Not that DUNOFF has a problem with Miranda, but…”Bustamante wants my head on a plate,” Miranda deadpans. Hee. He wants to know what Dunoff thinks about all this, and Dunoff’s like, “This whole thing with me and Papa B really works better if I don’t have an opinion.” He says he feels bad and all, but there’s nothing he can do.
Miranda’s like, “I mean, you absolutely could do something if you weren’t such a cowardly custard.” He floats the idea of Dunoff helping bring Papa B to justice, and Dunoff wibbles that he’ll lose his job. I mean…he’s been fired from Elite Way before. Can’t he just do whatever he was doing then? Anyway, Miranda tells him to just cross that bridge when he comes to it. “The important thing is to show your daughter that, despite all your mistakes and cowardly ways, you actually have some dignity when it comes down to it.” HEE! That was so hilariously backhanded. Dunoff’s like, “No, you’re wrong, I have no dignity.” Nevertheless, Miranda feeds him more platitudes about truth and great justice and all that, and Dunoff agrees to stand up to Papa B.
Mia goes to a cafe to meet Mama C. It’s a little awkward at first, but eventually they break the ice — Mia complains about having zits, and Mama C tells her that she used to hide for days in shame whenever she had one. They have a hearty chuckle and start bonding over skincare. Sonia watches them from afar. Then Papa C shows up, wanting to know why she just bailed on him earlier, and Sonia gestures to Mama C and Mia yucking it up together.
Mia tells Mama C that she’d like to see her again, and Mama C says they can have lunch together again tomorrow. She promises to call Mia to confirm it.
Pablo helps Manuel with his therapy, again, some more. I don’t know how many scenes of Manuel struggling to write the alphabet they expect us to watch.
Over at the Convenience Store Foster Home, Lujan is entertaining Mauro with stories about Elite Way and her friendship with Marizza. Mauro says it sounds like Lujan misses her. Lujan admits to it, but insists that she’s putting Marizza — and everything else about her old life — behind her. Mauro’s like, “That’s the spirit! If you never get close to anyone, you’ll never get hurt! That’s why I haven’t formed a human connection in years!” Lujan’s like, “Oh, that…actually sounds kind of depressing.” Then their foster mom comes in, and she tells Lujan that she’s all set to start at her new school as soon as possible.
Michi finds out that Dunoff refused to fire Miranda, and she’s all aflutter with joy. She’s all hugging Dunoff and shrieking about what a good person she always knew he was. I mean, let’s not go too far here, Michi. Dunoff thanks her for giving him the push to be less of a shit person. Then he picks up the phone and calls Papa B to tell him that he won’t be firing Miranda. “Are you drunk?” Papa B asks. HEE! Dunoff stands his ground, and Papa B ominously asks if this is Dunoff’s last word on the matter.
Marizza goes outside and sees Pablo pull up to the school in his car. It doesn’t look like an overly fancy car, but nevertheless, it’s a car of Pablo’s very own. Marizza realizes that he sold out, just like Javier said. Pablo comes bounding up and tries to tell Marizza about Manuel’s therapy session, but Marizza pushes him away. She snaps that he hasn’t changed at all and he’s just like his father.
Sorry, I couldn’t resist. ANYWAY.
Marizza storms off and Pablo chases after her. He insists that he did it “for [them]”, and that sometimes being rebellious isn’t the answer. Sometimes, in life, you have to make compromises. Marizza snipes that even if Pablo was left with nothing, he’d still be able to hold his head high. She sniffles that this is her fault for believing in Pablo because she’s an idiot in love with him. She’s like, “Javier told me the truth, but I didn’t listen! How could I have argued with him!” Marizza, just because Pablo is wrong, that doesn’t mean you need to start believing everything Javier says again. I swear.
Again: yes, fine Marizza is right in this case — there is definitely a catch to all this, and going along with Papa B is going to blow up in Pablo’s face in the end anyway, so he might as well have stuck with his morals to begin with. But still, it’s really rich of her to criticize Pablo when Marizza has NEVER had to make any of the hard decisions that he does. Marizza’s mother supports her in pretty much everything; Marizza has never had to worry about choosing between her morals and material comfort. It’s so, so easy for her to take this high ground without ever considering how it looks from Pablo’s point of view.
Also, like, big talk from a girl who wouldn’t even walk all the way down a staircase to find Lujan, so let’s maybe not get up on a high horse about making sacrifices.
Mia gushes to Vico and Feli that meeting her mom was awesome, and how could she have been so scared? Vico is encouraging, but Feli is skeptical. She’s like, “So…did you ask her why she abandoned you and your dad?” Mia blusters that she and her mom need to get to know each other a little more first. Feli’s like, “You’re just putting it off because you’re afraid of the answer.” Ooh. I must admit, though, it’s nice to see some practicality from Feli after the past few episodes.
Sol comes in and yells that she just KNOWS that Vico, Feli, and Mia are all talking about her humiliation at the fashion show. They’re like, “…we don’t care that much about your subplot,” but Sol doesn’t believe them.
We then cut back and forth between Marizza crying over Pablo to Laura, and Pablo crying about Marizza to Guido and Tomás. Laura, Guido, and Tomás are all like, “Why don’t you two just talk it out and explain how you feel?” and Marizza and Pablo are like, “No, then this would get resolved too quickly.” Pablo says, “This is just the price I pay. Destiny is calling me…open up my eager eyes…” Maybe not the last part.
Papa C is hanging around Casa Colucci, being emo. For some reason, Sonia has decided that chocolate fixes everything and tries to push some bonbons on him. Papa C’s like, “Weirdly, I’m not in the mood for chocolate right now.” Sonia reassures him that Mia will talk to him when she’s ready.
Then Hilda comes in and Sonia offers her a bonbon, too. What is going on? Anyway, after receiving an inspirational speech from Marizza last episode, Hilda decided to make a doctor appointment and now she’s all pumped about living again. Sure. Whatever.
After a successful day of therapy, Manuel falls asleep and has memories of his dad and friends in Mexico, taken from footage from the first couple of episodes of this show. Really digging into the archives there! He wakes up and calls for Angeles to tell her about his breakthrough. At first he’s happy, but then he gets emo about all he’s left behind: “I had friends, and I played football, and I had a motorcycle…” Yeah, well, you purposely sold the motorcycle to fund your revenge trip, Manuel, so that one is kind of on you. He tells Angeles that he needs to go back to his old life.
Sol calls Maxi to Elite Way. Wow, it’s been a while since we’ve seen him. She asks if his family knows anyone, anyone at all, on the Elite Way school board. Maxi says he’ll try to find out. Now, is Sol going to give him a kiss goodnight? Sol shoves him off of her and tells him to come back when he has more dirt for her.
Over at the convenience store, Mauro is still grilling Lujan about her ex-friends. She tells him that she and Marcos used to date, then they broke up, then she dated some other dude, but he was still hung up on Marizza so it didn’t work out. (If you don’t remember, that was Javier, although Lujan doesn’t say his name. I guess I don’t blame her for not wanting to admit that she dated Javier.) Mauro asks if one of her ex-boyfriends was a guy named Blas. Scare chord! Lujan asks how he knows that name, and Mauro says that he saw it in the emails that he deleted. The email that mentioned Blas was either from Marcos or Marizza. Lujan’s like, “Oh, shit, I gotta check my email before Hotmail auto-deletes my trash!”
Back at school, Pablo catches Javier alone in the library and confronts him. Javier snipes that all he said was that Pablo accepted the new car from Papa B — what was so wrong about that? Pablo loses his shit and starts beating the crap out of Javier.
Lujan and Mauro go to the cyber cafe, but tragically in 2003, email providers didn’t save your deleted emails. The message about Blas is gone. I mean…Lujan, you know Marcos and Marizza’s email addresses, you could just email them to ask about it yourself. But that would make sense, of course.
The next day. Even though they’re not good friends, Laura is sitting at Mia and Feli’s cafeteria table so that Pablo can ask the three of them at once where Marizza is. Mia starts to answer, but Laura cuts her off and says that NO, none of them have ANY idea where Marizza could POSSIBLY be. Pablo is about to press the issue, but then Michi comes in and says that Javier tattled about getting beaten up (as is his MO). Pablo gets sent to the office.
(By the way, whoever edits this show apparently just figured out how to do a wipe that’s cut around an object or character in the previous scene, and they’ve started using this effect with absolutely zero self-restraint.)
We wipe to Mauro escorting Lujan to her first day of school. She whines that she doesn’t want to gooo and school is haaaard. Mauro tells her to just suck it up and get it over with — but in a nice, tough-love kind of way. He gives her a hug before he leaves and Lujan is all twitterpated. Then she turns and stares judgmentally at the school. It looks like pretty much any average public school in an urban neighborhood, but I guess we’re supposed to be sad that it’s not Elite Way. I mean, you’d think that would be a relief.
Then we go back to Elite Way. Dunoff reads Pablo the riot act for fighting in school, but then Papa B shows up and is like, “How dare you punish my son!” Dunoff tries to explain that Pablo was, like, holding Javier down and punching him in the face repeatedly in a state of semi-psychosis, and suspending him is kind of the least they can do. Papa B’s like, “Hmm, but how about this: no.” He sends Pablo out of the room and Dunoff blusters that Papa B can’t just refuse to let Pablo be suspended. He’s like, “I feel like between this and the whole Miranda thing, you’re not a very nice person!” Papa B gets up in his face and asks if Dunoff REALLY wants to be developing opinions right now. Then he kicks Dunoff out of his own office so that Papa B can meet with Etchamendi.
We then cut back and forth between Pablo and Lujan, who are sadly leaning against a column and sadly sitting on the sidewalk, respectively. Sad Erreway music plays in the background. They’re so alone, you guys! This is what happens when you break up with Marizza!
Over at Casa Colucci, Marizza returns from accompanying Hilda to the doctor. Sonia has apparently gotten over her obsession with bonbons and offers them normal breakfast instead. Marizza gets a call on her phone, and Sonia chirps that she should go take it, since it’s surely Pablo! “Yeah, surely,” Marizza mumbles before wandering off all emo. Hilda has to point out to Sonia that Marizza is unhappy and Sonia’s like, “Gosh, do you think?”
It turns out to be Mia on the phone; she chirps on about meeting her mom for a few minutes before realizing that Marizza is mostly responding in monosyllables. She asks if Marizza’s okay, but Marizza insists that she’s fine, because that’s what sad teenagers do. Mia doesn’t buy this — aw, she knows Marizza so well — and asks Laura if Marizza’s okay. “Why are you asking me?!” Laura bleats. “Because you literally share a room with her,” Mia doesn’t say. Laura cracks and admits that Marizza and Pablo are having problems.
Maxi comes to see Sol (does this dude go to school at all?), and he tells her that his father does indeed know someone on the school board. Sol asks for their number, and Maxi derps that he didn’t ask for it. Sol starts flipping out that Maxi is the STUPIDEST FOUR-EYED IDIOT DUMBASS that she has EVER had the DISPLEASURE OF SHARING OXYGEN WITH and he will RUE THE DAY HE DIDN’T ASK FOR THAT PHONE NUMBER. Maxi’s like, “Jesus Christ”, and Sol manages to reign herself in. She tells Maxi that she has to make a very, very important complaint to the school board, and it’s got her all worked up. Maxi’s like, “Do tell!” Sol tells him that Feli is pregnant. Luckily for Feli, though, Maxi is disgusted by the very thought of exchanging bodily fluids and refuses to believe that Feli would ever do something so unsanitary. Heh.
Pablo goes to visit Manuel. He doesn’t have to sneak past the doctors anymore, and he brags to Manuel that he has special permission from the mayor/governor/whatever Papa B is to waltz in whenever he pleases. Manuel is far too impressed to find out that the governmayor is Pablo’s dad. It’s not like he’s the president, Manuel. Pablo mumblegrumbles that his dad isn’t really that great, what with the abuse and all. Manuel derps that Papa B must be an okay guy, since he helped Pablo sneak in to see Manuel.
AND THEN Pablo says that he envies Manuel — he wishes he were amnesiac so that he doesn’t have to remember how shit his dad is! That is SO fucked up that I legitimately started laughing. Pablo, your life sucks, but Manuel has brain damage and is stranded in a foreign country, thousands of miles from his family. READ THE ROOM. Then Manuel tells Pablo that he was able to remember his (Manuel’s) dad, and starts telling Pablo how awesome Papa Aguirre was. Pablo, I swear, if you tell Manuel to his face that he’s lucky to have a dead dad, I’m dropping this show now and never looking back.
Thankfully, he doesn’t. Manuel just keeps going on about how awesome his life in Mexico was and how he needs to go back. He’s like, “My family is there, all my friends are there, and I had a motorcycle!” Manuel, if you are going back for the motorcycle, you are going to be SORELY disappointed.
Papa B goes back to Casa Bustamante. Javier is there for some reason, lying on the couch and nursing his jaw, where Pablo punched him. Hee. He starts wibbling, “Papa, what am I going to do, Pablo is so mean to me :(” Papa B snaps at him to quit calling him “Papa” — “I’m not your dad!” HEE! That is cold, but also, suffer, Javier. He yells at Javier for daring to hit Papa B’s son and Javier’s like, “But, but, I thought you wanted me to!” and Papa B’s like, “I moved the goalposts so that it’s impossible for you to earn my approval! What now!” Then he cackles that Pablo is SO much better than Javier — look at the shiner he left on Javier’s face! “Which you probably deserved,” he adds. Javier is shocked, shocked that his attempts to manipulate everyone around him have backfired. Javier thought he was Littlefinger, but he’s actually that gif of Dan Humphrey pretending to type on his laptop.
Mia comes back to Casa Colucci and finds Marizza. She says she heard about Marizza and Pablo, and Marizza snipes that she’s not going to talk about it. She and Pablo are over, never ever getting back together, and Marizza’s just going to put him behind her and never think about him ever again. Mia shows a shocking amount of self-awareness and says that that won’t happen: they’ll break up, but Marizza will never be able to forget Pablo; no matter how many romantic false leads she dates, she’ll never love them like she does Pablo. “It’s just like me and Manuel,” Mia says. Whoa, it’s almost like the four of them are the protagonists of a telenovela!
Anyway, Marizza cries and we cut to Erreway performing “Sera de Dios.” When we cut back, Marizza changes the subject to Mia’s lunch with her mom. Mia says her mom should be calling her soon to let her know that she’s coming by. Marizza’s like, “…not to be a killjoy, but are you SURE she’s going to call?” Mia blusters that she totally will.
Marizza asks Mia if she’s told her father about seeing Mama C again. Mia hasn’t, since she’s still giving him the cold shoulder. Marizza says that Papa C fucked up, but he’s not actually a bad father, and Mia should think about forgiving him. She points out that in the end, Mia’s mom was the one who left, and Papa C was the one who stayed. Mia does not like that at all.
Anyway, blah blah suspense over whether Mama C has skipped town again blah. Mama C does call — after taking her sweet time to do it — and confirms that they’re still on for lunch. Mia’s like, “My mom loves me after all, take that, Marizza!” She adds that she’s thinking of asking Mama C to take Mia with her, when she leaves to travel the world again.
Over on Lujan’s side of town, apparently school STILL hasn’t started, because she’s still sitting outside while the other kids chill by the doorway. (Also, dig her shirt: collar, puffed sleeves, and the number “3” stitched to the chest. The 2000s were a TIME.) The bell finally rings, but instead of going inside, Lujan runs off. Presumably, she is terrified to go to chemistry class after two straight years of no science or math.
Etchamendi meets with Dunoff. He’s like, “I know we’ve been friends for many years, but you know, I don’t actually like you enough not to throw you under the bus.” He gives Dunoff a letter of resignation that they’ve written for him, and tells Dunoff that all he has to do is sign it. Dunoff manages to find his spine and tells Etchamendi that he won’t willingly resign; if Papa B wants him gone, they can fire him properly. “And until then, I think I should get back to my work.” Etchamendi’s like, “Wow. Did not think you were going to say that.” Hee.
Jokes aside, I think this is a nice scene! There’s no mic drop moment for Dunoff, he just kind of awkwardly, hesitantly refuses to do what Etchamendi is telling him to. It’s actually kind of affecting in its realism, which as we know, is a rarity for this show.
Mauro goes to Lujan’s new school, and I guess…figures out that she ran off? He somehow figures out that she used to go to Elite Way, and goes there to look for her. He waltzes right in through the front door — love Elite Way’s security! — and conveniently happens to find Marcos in the main hall. Mauro asks if he is indeed Marcos, and Marcos is like, “Who are you?”
Mia meets up for lunch with her mom. She asks Mama C if it’s true that Mama C left the family for another man. Mama C denies it. Ooh, then what is the truth?
Leave a Reply