(Edit: what’s up I also had to change the theme again because the images broke again. LMAO. why.)
I originally meant to post this in 2019, after I went on vacation and forgot to bring my laptop charger with me, so I couldn’t keep writing and posting Rebelde Way recaps. (To clarify, I was intending to write most of the recaps on the flight. I was not going to spend my whole vacation thinking about this telenovela). I think that was my first real bout of radio silence since starting to recap the show in earnest, and honestly I never managed to find the momentum after that, which was rough. Anyway, as penance, I meant to do a bonus post recapping some of the Brazilian remake. I wrote about half the recap then abandoned it because I am like that. But here it is!
I previously did a few episodes of the Mexican remake, which was not that hard because it is also in Spanish. While I have repeatedly provided evidence that my Spanish is not great, I have studied it and can, you know, somewhat understand it. (Also the Mexican version was on American Netflix at the time, and had English subtitles.) I do not understand more than about 5 words in Portuguese. I figure it’ll probably be just as funny for me to bumble through this recap without understanding anything, but like, if this post is even less coherent than usual, that’s why.
Just as with Rebelde Mexico, this recap will cover the first three episodes. And so, let us begin where we always begin: at a ceremony at Elite Way school, although in this version, it’s the school opening ceremony instead of the year-end one. I guess we’re skipping the whole Vacance Club plot, then. Anyway, you know how this goes: A blonde girl comes out onstage, starts doing a dance, and takes her shirt off in the middle of it, exposing her bra to God and everybody. In a twist, though, the event is crashed by some dude on a motorcycle. Then we freeze-frame, and Manuel’s like, “Yup, that’s me. You’re probably wondering how I got here.” Okay, not that last part.
The show backs up to show us how this all started, and we’re treated to a montage of sights in Rio de Janeiro, “some hours earlier.” Wow, Brazilian Manuel really came up with and executed this revenge plan fast. He rides his motorcycle around while wearing a helmet, so I guess he cares a little more about vehicular safety than Mexican Manuel does. He apparently is from an area called Saquarema in the state of Rio, while the school itself is in the capital.
Brazilian Manuel drives his motorcycle home and takes his helmet off to reveal the chiseled jawline of an actor who is definitely in his mid- to late-20s, in the grandest tradition of early-2010s teen CW shows. This remake aired in late 2011, otherwise known as that weird, unholy time between the debut of “Friday” by Rebecca Black and “Call Me Maybe” by Carly Rae Jepsen, wherein memes were suddenly mainstream and people constantly said things like “epic fail” and “winning” and also thought planking and rage comics were funny. It was a dark time. I must admit, I feel faintly uncomfortable with it all. It feels like Rebelde Way, in any incarnation, could only exist in the 2000s. I don’t know how to square its existence with things like Twitter and Hipster Ariel and Occupy protests.
Anyway, this just means that instead of looking like Degrassi threw up all over this show, it instead looks like Gossip Girl did. There are a lot of headbands and ruffly shirts.
Brazilian Manuel’s name is Pedro, and he has a brother named Raul who looks perpetually alarmed. RIP to his tiny lisping sister, I guess.
The camera lingers on a shot of Pedro and his dad, and Raul’s like, “Pedro, are you dramatically staring at photos of our dead father again?” Pedro’s like, “Yes, because we need to segue into explaining that he committed suicide, which I blame his ex-business partner Franco Colucci Albuquerque for.” Then he takes his shirt off for no real reason, also in the grand tradition of 2010s CW shows.
Our Mia analogue in this version is named Alice Albuquerque. She is blonde and preppy and wears giant bow headbands in her hair like Blair Waldorf. Since it’s 2011, I can only assume that instead of worshiping Britney Spears, this version of Mia worships Rihanna. (I’d say Lady Gaga, but I know Born This Way-era Gaga was far too ~edgy~ for Mia.) She has a friend named Vitoria, who will just be starting at Elite Way this year. I think she’s also meant to be a scholarship student, and it seems like Mia’s taken her under her wing, a la Cher and Tai from Clueless. I’m not sure how they’re meant to have met, though. Vitoria seems like a kind of mix of Luna and Feli (scholarship student, Mia’s new project, implied to be a little jealous of Mia), with Vico’s name, but she doesn’t directly map onto any of the original kids.
Elsewhere: Roberta (Marizza) watches her mom Eva (Sonia) get ready to go to a photoshoot. If you couldn’t tell by the names, this is technically a remake of the Mexican version, instead of being adapted directly from the Argentinian version. So basically, any changes that Rebelde Mexico already made are either still here or have been changed even further, which makes it hard to compare to the original. Anyway, Eva is too busy with her career to make any time for Roberta, so Roberta is all salty and rebelde and acts out to get attention.
Even more elsewhere, two dudes look at photos of boobs in a magazine. Some things about this show never change. These two guys are Diego (Pablo) and João (a weird mix of Guido and Tomás; he’s ashamed of his family like Guido, but is Pablo’s main bestie like Tomás and will eventually get with Pilar). Diego’s dad walks in and wants to know what they find so amusing. “João was talking about the girls from school!” Diego says. Heh. Way to throw your friend under the bus, Diego. Papa Diego lectures them about how school is serious and Diego’s job is to get good grades and bring honor to them all. After he leaves, Diego shows João that he has a flask in his pocket and suggests getting into some mischief that I cannot understand.
We then cut over to the school itself, which is a pretty neat set — it’s this kind of sprawling, ranchlike complex. As ever, it looks much more like a real school than Rebelde Way’s set, although that’s not saying much. The principal is leading around a woman who looks at least 25, but is actually meant to be one of the new students. I initially thought she was meant to be our Gloria counterpart, because she absolutely looks old enough to have a full-time job and a 401k. She also keeps eyeballing Not-Dunoff in a way that is super uncomfortable. I hope that’s just bad acting on her part. Also, I don’t know why Not-Dunoff is like, trying to sell the school to her and telling her what sounds like his life story. Where are her parents?
Anyway, this girl’s name is Carla, and she’ll be one of the band members as the show goes on. She’s super-skinny and implied to be anorexic. That way, they can do the plots about Feli’s weight issues without actually having any overweight girls in the main cast.
A car pulls up and a woman and her son get out. The son is Tomás, and he’s also going to be in the band. You can tell he’s a fuckboy because he’s rocking the International Fuckboy Signal of the Early 2010s, the messy Justin Bieber haircut. He and Carla make eyes at each other — or at least, Tomás makes eyes at Carla; as we’ve seen her give this same look to Not-Dunoff, “smoldering flirtatiously” might just be Carla’s default setting.
Over at Pedro’s house, Raul shows him an article, saying that Franco Albuquerque is definitely going to be at the Elite Way opening ceremony tonight, you know, should Pedro want to go and get a jump on that whole “revenge” thing. Pedro leans on his motorcycle and stares dramatically off into the distance. I think this is supposed to be his “hatching a plan” face.
On some street somewhere, some dude (“Genaro”) is looking at a parrot when another dude pulls up and starts ragging on him. The second guy is supposed to be Vicente, one of the teachers, except he looks the same age as all of the students — he might even look a little younger than Pedro — so how the hell is anyone supposed to tell the difference?
The two dudes chat and…I think Genaro wants to buy the parrot, but the owner of the shop won’t let him or something? Fascinating drama, to be sure. Vicente and Genaro chat a bit about whether they’re going to the opening ceremony or not, then Vicente bikes off. The pet shop owner tells Genaro to step away from the parrot, and Genaro’s like, “Farewell my sweet avian, he will rue the day he kept us apart!” I don’t even know.
Back at school, two cafeteria workers (“Teresa” and “Pingo”) are bantering over the catering or something. Alice and Vitoria roll up, and Alice introduces Vitoria to them. Then they leave so that Alice can show Vitoria the pool. Glad we spent time on that. A song that kind of sounds like “I’m With You” by Avril Lavigne but isn’t starts playing in the background. After much painstaking Googling, I found out that it’s “De Janeiro a Janeiro“, which is a song by this show’s in- and out-of-universe band, Rebeldes. Much like Erreway and RBD before them, Rebeldes also put out two actual albums and had some concerts, and they seemed somewhat successful, if Wikipedia is to be believed. No offense to the actors, who I’m sure are very talented, but…how? Like, how many times could a Latin American pop group attached to a remake of Rebelde Way debut before people got sick of it?
Anyway, we then cut over to the home of another freakishly-young teacher. This time it’s a dude named “Arturo”, who is apparently Vitoria’s half-brother. I guess that explains how she got a spot at Elite Way, although not really why she’s already friends with Alice. Arturo is either friends or roommates with Vicente, who’s hanging out at the apartment with him. (Edit from the future: they’re roommates.) Arturo’s fretting over what to wear to the ceremony (or maybe for the first day of school?) and Vicente tells him to quit being so uptight.
Alice shows Vitoria the swimming pool, and suggests that they go swimming. Vitoria’s like, “But we don’t have bathing suits!” and Alice is like, “In an edgy teen telenovela, we don’t need bathing suits!” She strips down to her underwear instead, and Vitoria clutches her pearls. I guess she’s not the promiscuous friend in this version. As ever, the scene is super weird and pervy — the camera pans over them taking off their skirts for wayyyyyy too long and Alice spends the whole time making eyes at either Vitoria or an imaginary audience. Eventually Tomás comes upon them and joins them in the pool, which causes Vitoria to clutch her pearls some more.
Meanwhile, Eva is at her photoshoot when Roberta crashes it. Oddly in this version, she’s not topless or anything — she’s wearing all-black and leather fingerless gloves because she’s ~rebelde~, but she’s really not dressed inappropriately at all. I guess Eva is more upset that Roberta showed up at all, rather than that she’s flashing underage nipple at God and everybody. Anyway, Roberta needles her mother about how fun it would be to do a mother-daughter shoot, and the photographer and Eva’s assistant peer-pressure her into agreeing.
Over at Casa Bustamante Maldonado, ominous music kicks in as Diego throws the world’s tiniest flask on his bed. He’s all tipsy from drinking 6 fl oz. of beer or whatever, and spins around while slurring that he’s king of the world. João exposits that he doesn’t like Diego’s drinking and thinks he has a problem. Diego’s like, “I can stop whenever I want to!” I bet he can’t. João leaves and Diego pulls out another flask, then we have a weird 5-second montage of Diego just grinning at it from a bunch of different angles for no reason.
Not-Dunoff has a meeting with Tomás’s mom, and she tells him that she wants Tomás to buckle down and be a diplomat like his father. Not-Dunoff’s like, “Well, if there’s one thing we’re good at here at Elite Way, it’s making kids study!” Of course, he chooses that exact moment to check the security cameras, and he’s shocked and appalled to see Tomás swimming with the girls. He comes to yell at them and tells them to come to the office. Vitoria panics that she’s going to get expelled before she even starts school, and Alice assures her that it won’t happen. Alice takes the fall for peer-pressuring Vitoria and Tomás into getting into the pool, and gets out of trouble by (I think) implying that she has lots of rich friends, and how can she refer them to Elite Way if she gets expelled? Not-Dunoff sees dollar signs (or, well, real signs, which are the same as dollar signs) and decides to let her shenanigans go.
Carla and some blonde woman (“Becky”) roll up to Vicente’s apartment. Becky is apparently Carla’s half-sister, and the two of them are…moving in with Vicente? And maybe Arturo, assuming he’s Vicente’s roommate? For some reason? Anyway, Becky is meant to be a quirky Manic Pixie Dream Girl (because it’s 2011), which is why Vicente spends their entire conversation making this face:
Obviously, Becky mostly exists so far to provide lots of fanservice and close-ups of her wearing sports bras and yoga pants. As this show does.
João goes home, where his parents are being adorable because Guido’s parents are always adorable. His mom is very cutely trying on a dress for the opening ceremony tonight and I love her already. João is all snippy and pissy with them, though, because he’s ashamed of his family for some reason I can’t really discern. Whatever. Guido is always the worst in all his incarnations.
Not-Dunoff’s daughter, Pilar, whines to him that she thinks they should serve caviar at the opening ceremony, not Teresa and Pingo’s shitty canapes. Not-Dunoff is like “Well maybe if this school wasn’t so horribly mismanaged we’d have money for caviar, but we don’t.”
I’m trying to figure out who looks older, Carla or Pilar. Pilar looks a little more babyfaced, but I don’t know, Carla can kind of pass as a 23-year-old at her first job who’s about to file her own taxes for the first time. Pilar just looks like a 29-year-old who was recently promoted to a managerial role at her job and secretly hates it but is going along with it since she doesn’t really know what she’s doing with her professional life. (Not that I would know what that’s like.)
Anyway, Pilar does not like this at all, so when Teresa and Pingo are distracted, she dumps hot sauce on the canapes. Not-Dunoff is disgusted when he tries them later, and Pilar’s like, “Ooh, I have a caviar place on speed dial!”, as you do. Teresa and Pingo seethe about how much they hate Pilar.
Over at Genaro the Parrot Guy’s house, he’s sitting around doing nothing, while his daughter cleans the house. His daughter (“Cilene”) is in her twenties (and will eventually be a teacher, I think?) and, you guessed it, barely looks older than the students. She’s all uptight and anal about keeping the house clean and Genaro’s like, “My parrot would never treat me this way!”
The big plot with Genaro, I guess, is that he has some Secret Thing that he keeps hidden in the closet in his apartment. We see him hiding out in the closet, looking at whatever it is, and then Cilene interrupts him. He’s like, “How dare you try to peek inside my Secret Closet! I bet you REALLY WANT TO KNOW what’s inside, but I’m not telling!” Cilene’s like, “Okay…didn’t really want to know until you made a big deal out of it, but okay.” Whatever. I bet it’s just, like, furry bird porn or something.
Pedro’s mom tries to convince him not to go to Elite Way, but she relents after about 30 seconds because she knows that the plot has to happen. And thus, a montage! Pedro flashbacks to his dad teaching him to play football (shirtless) and guitar (also shirtless) as he angstily motorcycles to Elite Way (not shirtless. I don’t think).
Over at Casa Colucci Albuquerque, Alice and Vitoria get ready for the opening ceremony. They have a vague discussion about Alice’s dad or something. Probably about how she’s relying on him to show up tonight and if he doesn’t, she’s going to have to resort to something drastic like doing a striptease in front of the entire school.
Blah blah transition shots of Rio de Janeiro, blah blah excessive shots of various beaches and palm trees. This feels like a tourism ad. (Insert “come to Brazil” joke here.)
Over at Roberta’s house, she stomps into the living room looking like every girl who went to go see MGMT at Glastonbury in 2010. Her mom whose name I’ve already forgotten (edit: scrolled back up to check and it’s Eva) tells her that they need to talk. In classic Rebelde Way fashion, we skip the scene were Eva actually tells her that she’s going to Elite Way, and simply come back to see Roberta ranting that she doesn’t want to go to school, she just wants to break the rules. There’s some more back-and-forth in this episode and also the next one — I think — but I’ll just skip it all because as we know, the plot dictates that Roberta must end up at Elite Way.
Arturo and Not-Dunoff walk around before the ceremony, and Arturo sucks up to Not-Dunoff about how the ceremony is going to be awesome because Not-Dunoff’s taste in music and canapes is awesome and Elite Way is awesome because Not-Dunoff is the principal. Not-Dunoff reminds Arturo that his sister (Vitoria, you’ll recall) is on thin ice, with the whole swimming-in-her-underwear thing, and he hopes Vitoria won’t ruin Elite Way’s awesome name. Arturo sweatdrops.
Everyone gathers at the ceremony and our cast all mingles. Pilar needles Vitora about thinking that she and Alice are real friends (“Alice loves to collect new friends”), Diego spikes his orange juice with whatever’s in his flask, and Carla stands around rolling her eyes and making commentary that I can’t understand.
Blah blah Alice gets up on stage, blah blah striptease blah. I will say, her underwear isn’t nearly as revealing as in the other versions? I’m trying to figure out if Brazilian TV is genuinely more conservative than the other countries Rebelde Way has aired in, or if it’s just because this version came out in 2011, when clothing trends had swung towards less-revealing, hipster-y and vintage-influenced styles.
Meanwhile, Pedro has finally made it to Elite Way. Security stops him from driving up to the school, but he just says fuck it and zooms past them, driving his motorcycle right into the ceremony. He nearly crashes into the stage, but he manages to brake, although that doesn’t stop him from falling off the bike and onto the stage. He and Alice stare at each other. A meet cute! What a twist!
The next episode picks up immediately after these shenanigans. For some reason, Alice’s bra is like…falling off now, even though in just the shot before, it looked perfectly fine. Anyway, all the adults run to get Pedro offstage, but Tomás hustles him off before anyone catches him. Pilar is creeping around backstage for some reason and offers to help Pedro retrieve his motorcycle…also for some reason. She and Tomás dress Pedro up as a waiter and he manages to get his bike back.
Not-Dunoff tells Alice that he has never seen such a thing in the history of Elite Way school, and her father, the inventor of the toaster strudel, will be hearing about this! Alice snipes that her dad didn’t bother to show up and see her, so he’ll never know. Naturally, Papa Albuquerque has chosen this exact moment to become an involved father and announces his presence. He drags Alice off to Not-Dunoff’s office to yell at her about not bringing honor to them all. He also cancels…something…which I can only assume is their vacation together, like in the original? I don’t know for sure, though.
Tomás and Diego walk Pedro out. Diego offers to hook Pedro up with his family’s fancy mechanic, because as you know, the Bustamantes Maldonados are very important with lots of mahogany furniture. That doesn’t impress Pedro much, and he flexes about how he’s his own mechanic, because he’s all tough and self-sufficient, unlike all these rich kids.
Diego and Tomás wander off, and Pilar shows up. She and Pedro have an exchange that I didn’t really follow, then Pedro’s like, “Welp, I guess I have to give you back the waiter outfit you lent me.” Pilar’s like, “Not really, I don’t think anyone will miss it” and Pedro’s like, “Nope, time for another shirtless scene!” Okay, I was trying to keep the jokes about Pedro’s shirtlessness to a minimum because anywhere that’s warm enough to have palm trees also has a ton of dudes just wandering around shirtless, so it was actually kind of justified the first five times he did it, but this is just gratuitous now. Then Pedro gets back on his motorcycle, literally just in his underwear — dude’s not even wearing shoes — and drives off like that. This seems unsafe. I hope he’s not driving on the freeway like that.
Speaking of Pilar, Teresa leaves the ceremony all indignant over The Canape Incident, and she runs into João’s parents. She tells them that Pilar fucked up her canapes, and everyone nods about what a dick that Pilar girl is. Glad we spent time on this.
João and Diego leave the party, and Diego is completely off his face. They run into Carla, who’s all snarky and aggressive about how she can tell Diego is drunk. I don’t really know what to make of Carla — as the third female member of the band, that makes her the Luna/Lupita analogue, but she’s really not like Luna or Lupita in any way at all*, nor does she have a mysteriously ill sister…unless Becky is supposed to be Flor, which is actually kind of hilarious. I admire this show’s commitment to taking any female character who isn’t a conventionally attractive young woman and forcing her into that box. Anyway, Diego’s father shows up and nearly catches Diego drinking but then he doesn’t. (He also has no idea who João is and João’s like, “I was literally at your house all day, but okay.” Heh. Rough life.)
*Speaking of Luna/Lupita, Nico appears to have been removed from this adaptation entirely. Not sure about the optics of getting rid of the only Jewish character in the entire cast, but okay.
The next day, Pedro returns home, and he and his family have a conversation that I don’t really understand. Based on the subsequent events, he and his family have to move out of their home anyway, for some reason, so his mom decides to just move them all to Rio so that Pedro can enroll in Elite Way and get revenge.
Teresa and Pingo go shopping and stop to coo over the parrot in the pet shop. Why is everyone so obsessed with this parrot? Are they in a parrot-related cult? Is there subliminal parrot subtext that I’ve been missing?
Not-Dunoff, Arturo, and Pilar have a conversation that I don’t really understand. I vaguely caught that they’re talking about the party last night, and how Alice fucked it up with her striptease. They talk a bit about how they need her to refer more rich kids to the school, so I’m assuming they were considering expelling her but decide not to. Also, who the fuck was that dude on the motorcycle? Pilar’s like, “IDK, and I certainly never talked to him!”
Roberta and Eva have a conversation that I don’t really understand. Nothing Roberta really does is that important until she shows up at Elite Way, though, so it doesn’t matter much. Anyway, Roberta is cutting holes into her clothes because she’s edgy and rebelde.
Alice and Vitoria have a conversation that I don’t really understand. Alice is packing for school, I think? Vitoria picks up something that I think is Alice’s diary and Alice says that no one is allowed to read it. Bets on someone stealing it at some point?
João comes down to breakfast and he and his family — including a little sister who I guess they left at home during the ceremony — have a conversation that I don’t really understand. It sounds kind of like he told his parents that he wasn’t going to the ceremony last night, and yet, his parents saw him there. They’re like, “Why didn’t you want to come with us? Are you ashamed of us?” and João’s like, “I’m not ashamed of you, I just don’t want anyone to know you exist, is that so wrong?”
João storms out of his house and sees Arturo just outside, taking some shopping bags out of his car. Why does everyone in this school seem to live on the same street? Anyway, he hides, I guess because he doesn’t want to deal with the weirdness of interacting with his teacher outside of school. It’s like seeing a dog walk on its hind legs!
Vicente and Arturo return home to find Becky and Carla working out. Lots of awkward fumbling and trying not to look at the girls in their sports bras ensues. Yeah…I feel like, in light of the general perviness of the teachers at Elite Way across all its incarnations, Carla should not be living with two of them? This feels uncomfortable at best. (I turned auto-translate on, and actually, Arturo says something to this effect. I feel like we’re supposed to hate him because he has a big embarrassing crush on Not-Dunoff, but really, why are we booing him? He’s right.)
Pedro and Raul are moving all their stuff into their new house, which is apparently on the same street where everyone else lives. Pedro walks outside, where Alice and Vitoria just so happen to be passing by. Pedro and Alice make eyes at each other, except it’s not romantic at all because Pedro’s jaw is like, trying to escape his face. He looks like the dude from Cute is What We Aim For.
Diego’s dad finds all of his flasks and wants to know where they came from. Diego lies that they belong to a friend(?). Papa Diego calls him out for lying and says that he’s taking away all of Diego’s video games. Diego’s like, “No, Dad! Don’t take away FIFA 11!” Papa Diego snarls that Diego doesn’t actually own anything in this house; everything here was bought by Papa Diego. I mean…he’s being super harsh about it, but like…he’s not wrong.
Pedro’s mom, Teresa, and Pingo have a conversation that I don’t really understand. I guess Pedro’s mom knows Teresa, and…that’s all I really got from this. Is Pedro’s mom going to work in the Elite Way cafeteria?
Oh thank God, the next bit is a montage of all the kids packing, shopping, and getting ready for the school year. Let me enjoy these 30 seconds of not having to try and understand what’s happening.
Vicente and Becky have a conversation that I don’t really understand.
Roberta makes her debut at Elite Way, stomping onto the campus wearing all black and with a pink streak in her hair. Edgy! Alice and Vitoria gasp that she’s soooo weird and in dire need of a makeover. What? It’s 2011, have you two never seen a scene queen before?
Meanwhile, Not-Dunoff is ogling Eva, as he does. It just occurred to me that actually, the whole Dunoff-and-Sonia-used-to-date thing never really went anywhere in the original Rebelde Way series. It was so unimportant that I completely forgot about it until now. Anyway, Not-Dunoff invites Eva back to his office to sign some papers, if she’s picking up what he’s putting down. They wander off, leaving Roberta standing near Alice and Vitoria.
The two of them approach Roberta and coo that she must have been really desperate to leave the house looking like THAT this morning, but not to worry! They’d be happy to lend her some new clothes and fix that awful pink streak in her hair! Roberta just rolls her eyes and dumps her soda on their heads. The girls nearly fight but Arturo shows up and pulls them apart. He tells Vitoria to quit embarrassing him.
Roberta goes to find her room — because I guess Elite Way is still a boarding school, despite half the students living on the same street like two blocks away? — and accidentally ends up in the boys’ dorms. She runs into Diego who smarms at her and hits on her. Roberta stomps off all pissy again, some more.
The students all show up to their dorms: Vitoria and Carla are rooming together, along with “Marcia Luz”, who is our Lujan analogue. Marcia Luz is actually kind of mousy and unintimidating; she dresses like every shy, bookish girl in 2011 did, in a cardigan over a T-shirt — not particularly tough or tomboyish at all. The most she does is shove Vitoria’s suitcase off her bed. Is she not going to grab a fly out of midair? 🙁 (Sidebar: I did grab a fly out of midair like a month ago and I felt extremely powerful ngl.) Pedro and Diego are rooming together, as are Roberta and Alice. I’m pretty sure Marizza and Mia start out rooming together in the first episodes before they each throw a fit and get moved, but I’m not sure Pablo and Manuel ever did.
By the way, I haven’t been talking about the set much since there isn’t a ton to say, but much like Rebelde Mexico, it looks much more school-like than Rebelde Way’s set. The whole show — or at least these first three episodes — is very sunny and bright and colorful, and it feels energetic and engaging on those merits alone. Also, props to Elite Way Brazil for having decent-sized dorms and not cramming 4 kids into a closet.
Marcia Luz goes to visit Teresa and Pingo in the kitchen. They talk about the new students, and Marcia Luz alludes to having a different “situation” than the other kids. You know, in that she’s an orphan whose only support is from a mysterious guardian who is one of the jerky teachers at the school who spends all his time abusing her only to reveal that he’s a good guy just because he’s been paying her tuition this whole time. Something like that.
Roberta comes out into the courtyard to see Eva signing autographs. She gets all cranky and snarky about how Eva is abandoning her to go be famous, and Eva insists that she’s not happy about leaving Roberta here. She flounces off and Roberta watches her, grimacing. I will say that this is probably the first time I ever got the sense that Marizza/Roberta was sad about her mom, instead of being bratty and rebelde for the hell of it. Honestly, the Brazilian adaptation is a lot more bearable for the sheer reason that Roberta isn’t a giant pain in the ass to watch.
Then the show transitions HORRENDOUSLY away from this scene, by having the entire scene disappear but leaving a cut-out of Roberta’s face overlaying the next scene. Why on earth did they do this? It looks terrible.
Anyway, over in Not-Dunoff’s office, he’s Googling photos of Eva when Alice storms in. She wants Roberta to be moved to a different room, and Not-Dunoff’s like, “I thought you got along with all the unpopular girls? Just give a makeover or something.” Alice wails that a makeover will never work on someone as wild as Roberta. Jesus Christ, Alice, she’s just an edgy emo girl, she’s not feral. Anyway, Not-Dunoff gets sick of Alice’s whining and tells her to deal with living with Roberta. “Next time, knock on the door,” he snaps as he hustles her out so that he can go back to wanking over Eva. Gross.
Pedro and Diego also instantly hate each other for…no real reason I can see? I think Pedro makes some digs at Diego for being a spoiled rich kid, and Diego’s all offended at sharing air with one of the poors. Anyway, they also whine to a teacher (Vicente, in this case) about not wanting to room together, and he tells them to deal with it. Pedro snipes that he and Diego will just pretend that the other doesn’t exist.
Diego pulls out his Sidekick (hee!) and texts his dad to complain some more. Papa Diego is in the middle of being interviewed. He ignores Diego’s message to continue the interview/hit on the reporter some more. (If the subtitles are Google translating correctly, in this version, Mama Diego is dead? I mean, fair enough, it’s not like she ever did anything in the original version, either.) After the interview is over, Papa Diego invites the hot reporter to stay for lunch. When he leaves to get the food, she steals a bottle of his booze for…whatever reason.
Eva frets about leaving Roberta at Elite Way to her assistant whose name I didn’t catch. Not-Pepa exposits that Roberta is ~rebelde~ and needs to have some boundaries set for her. Well, that’s surprisingly sensible. If only original flavor Pepa was this reasonable and not a weird thirsty sycophant who did whatever Sonia and Marizza asked of her. Eva says that her parents used to try and put boundaries on her, and she completely ignored them, and she turned out fine! Yeah, let’s just…leave that line there.
All the kids go swimming. Alice walks by and Pedro ogles her for the 80th time. Wait, does he even know that Alice is the daughter of the man he’s trying to get revenge against? Even original flavor Manuel had the foresight to Google that Papa C had a kid before he went on his revenge trip. I’m embarrassed for you, Pedro.
Aaand we’re back with the parrot again. God, this is like when the Nancy Drew games decided that instead of rendering another human character, they would just have you talk to a parrot for half the game instead and it would be just as fun. (Spoiler: it was not as fun.) It’s in Genaro’s apartment for some reason, but then Cilene picks it up and carries it…somewhere. I hate that I have to write about this. I DON’T CARE ABOUT THAT DAMN PARROT.
School starts and all the kids gather in the cafeteria, which actually looks like a real cafeteria. With a lunch line and everything! These kids don’t have to line up and order a single pack of gum, to be delivered to one of like 5 tables by a single waiter! I’m shocked and impressed.
João and Diego do some drive-by bullying of a guy with glasses, who’s sitting with Marcia Luz. I’m going to go out on a limb and says that this is our Marcos analogue — although he’s named Teo, after the Mexican version. He and Marcia Luz seem to already be friends, and just as before, Marcia Luz isn’t as straightforward or aggressive as Lujan — she spends a lot of time making eyes at Teo, which he’s oblivious to. Later, Marcia Luz asks Teo to poke around in the school’s computers and find out who pays her tuition, but he doesn’t find anything.
Carla skips breakfast to go for a run. Vicente catches her, but Carla blows him off with an excuse. Vicente shrugs it off because Carla’s eating disorder probably won’t be a plot point for another 100 episodes or something.
Pedro and Alice crash into each other and stare at each other again, some more. Pilar rocks up and tries to hit on Pedro but he blows her off.
Another interlude with the parrot. OH MY GOD, I DO NOT CARE.
That night, Tomás joins Carla in the school lounge. They bond a bit over liking music, and Tomás impresses her with his mad harmonica skillz. As you do. Then Vitoria offers Carla some chocolate, which Carla scarfs down. Then she panics over eating sweets and immediately goes out for another run to work off the calories. Vitoria’s like, “Oookay.”
This is paralleled with some scenes back at Vicente’s apartment, where he comes across Becky exercising. Becky makes a bunch of commentary about how no one hires fat girls for modeling jobs, so she needs to stay in shape. Then she like, forces Vicente to eat some chocolate cake for her and she makes a bunch of weird moaning noises while he does, then he offers her some of the cake and she snarfles it down. Vicente is also like, “Oookay.”
The hot journalist goes home and shows her daughter(?) the bottle of booze she stole from Papa Diego. She reveals that she’s not really a journalist, but I don’t really care what her actual deal is because this is the last episode I’m going to recap and I don’t have time for any of these extraneous characters.
Pedro and Alice finally have a real conversation. He comes up to her while she’s watching a movie in the lounge and they chat a bit about the kind of movies that they like. They’re starting to bond, but then Pilar comes in and snarks that Pedro’s already gotten in with the fancy fashion mogul’s daughter. Pedro’s like, “Say what?” and Alice says that her dad is Franco Albuquerque. Pedro gets all pissy with her for like, daring to be related to him. He’s like, “Did you know that your father is the most EVIL PERSON to ever WALK THIS PLANET and you have BLOOD ON YOUR HANDS by your MERE RELATION TO HIM?” Alice is just like, “Dude, what the fuck.” Pilar cuts in to add that Alice loves giving away her clothes and giving people free makeovers so that everyone can look like her. Pedro nearly gags at the inhumanity of it all. I mean…it’s shallow of Alice to expect everyone at school to dress the same, but it’s not like she actively hurts or discriminates against anyone. I don’t know why Pedro’s over here dry heaving like, “Makeovers??? Perish the thought!!!”
Anyway, Alice storms out and Pedro gets mad at Pilar for being a shit-stirrer. “What am I doing here?” he wonders to himself. I mean…you tell me, Pedro. I’m still not totally sure why he’s here to begin with — it kind of seems like he was already planning to come to Elite Way and just happened to see that Franco Albuquerque was coming to the opening ceremony, or something. There was a lot less drama about him taking the scholarship test and everything, so I don’t totally know how he ended up here.
João and Diego sneak out, in the classic “Pablo and Tomás go joyriding with those women who are way older than them” scene. In this version, though, Roberta catches them and wants in on their mischief — kind of weirdly, since she didn’t seem to like Diego that much when they first met. Anyway, Diego offers her a swig from his flask and Roberta clutches her pearls all, “I may be rebelde, but I draw the line at underage drinking!” She doesn’t oppose it enough to not get in the car with Diego at the wheel, though, so whatever, Roberta. They end up hitting a cyclist and crashing into a pole. The second part is the exact same thing that happened to a dude I went to elementary school with, incidentally (obviously later, when he was in high school). Diego and João want to flee the scene, but Roberta insists on staying.
For some reason, Diego calls his dad for help. I can’t imagine why he thought this was a good idea. Papa Diego shows up and, as expected, gets all quietly scary about how Diego has shamed the family and consequences will never be the same. Roberta picks up on Diego’s fear of his father and is weirded out by it, which I think is a kind of interesting way to play their early relationship. Diego is a little more sympathetic here than Pablo/Mexican Diego was at the start, and Roberta is more sensitive to his home situation straightaway. I dig it! I like that Roberta is a bit snotty and edgy, but she’s not nearly as needlessly antagonistic as Marizza was.
Now that she’s had one (1) slice of chocolate cake, Becky has lost control of her life and is scarfing down half the contents of the fridge. She and Vicente continue to have a conversation that I don’t really understand, then Arturo comes home and they have another conversation that I don’t really understand.
Pedro stares at a photo of his dad, then lapses into a dream sequence wherein he’s playing guitar with his dad…but then Alice walks into his daydream! What could this mean!
In her room, Alice emos and soon lapses into a dream sequence of her singing. We see her with a guitar, singing the Avril Lavigne-esque song we’ve heard over the past few episodes “De Janeiro a Janeiro”. But then Pedro walks into her daydream, interrupting her sad acoustic song with his electric guitar! What could this mean!
Roberta ends up calling her mom to bail out her and João. Her mom brings them both to Casa Spirito Messi, and João starts acting all weird about how they DEFINITELY shouldn’t call his parents because they’re DEFINITELY not home and NO, they can’t be reached wherever they are. Everyone’s like “Oookay”, but they offer to let João stay over instead. Roberta immediately calls João out for acting weird about his family, but João blusters over explaining.
Meanwhile, over at Diego’s house, his dad reads him the riot act and also lectures him about the company he was keeping. Diego tepidly defends Roberta, saying she only dresses like that because she’s Eva Messi’s daughter. I mean, I wouldn’t call that a defense exactly, but again, it makes Diego and Roberta’s relationship more overtly romantic to have them be less aggressively judgmental to each other from the start. Anyway, Papa Diego shuts down Diego’s attempt to explain and storms off. We end with Diego staring at the liquor on the table. Well, damn, I just can’t imagine what happens next. And I guess we won’t find out, either, because that’s the end of episode three and I will not be recapping this any further, because there are 410 episodes and we don’t have time for that.
Horrendous graphic design and unrealistic wardrobe aside (I’m including both “teenage girls wear high heels all the time” and “it’s safe to motorcycle 70 km barefoot in your underwear” in that category), I like this version, mostly! I’m glad that there’s at least one version where Marizza/Roberta is actually kind of likeable at the start. The characters are generally less heinously aggressive to each other — so far — so watching them interact isn’t nearly as frustrating. I think I also liked the casting best of all the adaptations I’ve seen so far — I mean, it’s true that all these kids are obviously at least college-aged, but with a few exceptions (cough, Carla, Pedro, and Pilar), they’re all cute and fresh-faced in a way that makes them seem younger. Also, you know, maybe it’s just because the 2010s are closer to my teen years than the early 2000s, but seeing all the giant headbands and ruffly skirts really made me feel all sappy and nostalgic.
As for the bad: I am crushingly disappointed by how boring and nonviolent Brazilian Lujan is. Lujan’s completely unnecessary aggression is part of her charm! Broadly speaking, as I mentioned above, the optics of turning nearly all the young female characters — including tomboyish Lujan, overweight Feli, and possibly Flor the sick child — into skinny coeds is, uh, not great. It’s also generally hard to do a comparison between this and the original since so much has been changed — as mentioned, this is more of an adaptation of the Mexican version than a straight remake of the original.
Also, holy God is this version repetitive and sprawling — I ended up smashing a bunch of scenes together to keep the paragraphs from jumping all over the place, and I cut out several more scenes because they were just some variation on “Becky runs around in athleisure and a dude stares at her/Pilar does something sus and everyone talks about how much they hate her/Roberta argues with her mom/Arturo sucks up to Not-Dunoff and occasionally hints that he’s up to something.” There’s also about twenty more side characters and each of them get a scene or two every five minutes, which got super tedious after about half an episode. Like, from a storytelling perspective, what is the point of having two characters with the same eating disorder? Do we actually have to follow Teresa and Pingo around half the day? Why is Genaro’s daughter here? What is even the point of Genaro and his quest to be together forever with that parrot?
All that said, however, I will forgive this show everything because at some point this show goes full Twilight and has Pedro carry Alice out of biology class after she passes out, and that is absolutely the shit I watch telenovelas for.
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