Jesus fucking Christ. I have actually made it to the end, dudes. I am actually having a hard time comprehending it? I was thinking, “Damn, I wish I had time to rewatch Veronica Mars next week” and then it dawned on me that I could in fact do that, because I am no longer in thrall to this telenovela. It’s pretty crazy! In some ways, I am incredibly relieved because I really did spend a good ten years of my life working on this. In other ways, you know, I’m actually sad! Because I’ve spent ten years of my life working on this, and it feels weird for it to be over! And yes, while it would be an exaggeration to say I devoted ten full years of my life to this project, I will say that it did occupy my mind from the minute I started. Even during all of my radio silences, I always had a window with my post drafts open, trying to muster up the energy to write a few more sentences. I never stopped thinking about updating or planning updates, even if it seemed like I didn’t.
I started recapping this show on a whim, which I think is evidenced in the fact that I started recapping it at all. Like, it was obviously, from the start, way too much for me to handle: 318 episodes! Even if I had managed to consistently post 1 episode a week, I would’ve still spent 6 years of my life on this telenovela. (At least I didn’t try recapping Casi Angeles.)
I don’t really know what I was imagining when I first started recapping Rebelde Way. I think part of me thought it would be easier, akin to recapping a bunch of Sweet Valley books (I started this blog because I really liked the 1bruce1 Sweet Valley recaps, along with Cleolinda’s Twilight recaps). I did not realize that TV shows demand way more of your attention than books — I had to both watch and listen at the same time! Oh and also, Spanish is not my native language. The first 25 episodes were subtitled in English on YouTube at the time, though, and…honestly, I think another part of me straight-up didn’t expect to actually get past those first 25. My posts on this site were sporadic to begin with, and I kind of figured I would just peter out and stop caring at some point, like after I finished school and became an adult, whatever that meant.
Obviously, that didn’t happen. Really, once I got started, I think part of me just felt like I had to finish it? Even though it was taking forever and it’s not like the world would end if I dropped it, I just felt like I had made a commitment to do this thing, and so I would. Besides, I was still watching Rebelde Way, because I did genuinely like the show and wanted to see the end, so it was like…what was the point of not finishing the recaps, too?
So yeah. It took a while, but here we are! Let us see where we stand in comparison to last quarter. My opinions on Season 1 vs. Season 2 are mostly the same — objectively, Season 1 is probably better. As repetitive as it could be, it still clipped along better than the sheer, endless tedium of Season 2. On paper, mutual pining sounds fun, in actual practice, it is incredibly boring to watch the characters snipe at each other and date a bunch of romantic false leads until they get back together at the literal, actual last minute. Also, it sounds completely wild to say, but it probably had slightly better continuity? The amount of secondary characters who were introduced and then dropped in Season 2 with no real explanation was wild. And then, of course, there was the sheer amount of rapey behavior, which I’ve ranted about multiple times so I won’t repeat myself here.
On the other hand, the (main) female characters were a lot more watchable in Season 2 — Marizza was far, far less annoying, and she and Mia were finally getting along, which was way more enjoyable than watching Marizza try to fuck Mia’s life up for no reason. There was also less antagonism from Sonia, Pilar, and Vico (not Belen, though. Belen remained an agent of chaos to the very end). I also just have some recency bias towards Season 2 — it still feels familiar to me; I can’t imagine the show without characters like Laura and Rocco, while Season 1 characters like Luna, Nico, and Pepa almost feel like they belong to a different show now.
Let’s see how my predictions turned out, shall we?
- Despite his actual abusive behavior this season, Mia and Manuel will get back together, and Mia will eventually lose her virginity to him — Having seen the entire season, I guess there just straight up wasn’t any time after their reunion for them to have sex. I guess if you count 4 Caminos, they’re definitely sleeping together, but 1) that movie is not canon and 2) there’s no dramatic first-time-fade-to-black, so I won’t count it.
- Feli will shuffle through four (4) more boys who will ignominiously dump her for no real reason, before she finally finds a permanent boyfriend at the very end. — Aw jeez, I really should’ve kept track of how many boys Feli dated in Season 2. I want to say she at least had a couple more dates or dudes she was interested in, pre-Lalo — I know Francisco used her one last time to get to Mia, although I’m not sure I should count that, since Feli’s crush on Francisco stretches back to the first half of Season 2. There was also Maxi, although he didn’t break up with her. And…I think that was it. So half of this was right!
- Everyone will clutch their pearls over Vico’s dad, but what actually happens to her home life will be left vague and weird. We’ll never find out if she ends up homeless or living by herself or what. — Surprisingly resolved!
- Guido and Tomás’s adorable moms will appear together again (I WANT TO BELIEVE). — RIP, this did not happen 🙁
- Everyone in fourth year will lose their virginity by the end of the season. — Also didn’t happen. Jesus Christ, I am not doing well here. TBH, though, the extreme horniness of the first half of the season was toned down a bit by the second half.
- Marcos’s affection for horseback riding will never be mentioned ever again. — Yup! After a brief shot of him riding a horse in Season 1, and after it was used as a plot device to get him and Fernanda together (in the first half of Season 2), we never hear about it ever again.
- Belen and Fernanda will run away together. — Okay, this was mostly a joke, but whatever. They both stayed weirdly attached to Sol till the very end, despite clearly not liking her very much.
- They will go the next 90 episodes without even saying Nico, Luna, or anyone else from season 1’s name ever again. — I expect too much from this telenovela, don’t I?
Anyway, let’s reflect one last time on all the dumbass (complimentary) characters we’ve spent the last ten years with. Here are my definitive rankings, by category, of the Rebelde Way characters. Thank you to this Pinterest for providing the photos of characters that I couldn’t be fucked to find screencaps for:
BOTTOM FIVE REBELDE WAY CHARACTERS OF ALL TIME
05. Javier
It pains me to rank Javier so comparatively high, but you know what? He’s not a rapist or an attempted rapist! The bar is so low! He is, however, still a total creep and general pain in the ass. Having now finished the series, I can confidently say I still have no idea what his end game was. Initially, he seemed to be trying to get into Marizza’s pants, but even after he’d successfully won her over, he…kept trying to fuck with Pablo for no real reason. He constantly set up situations that made Pablo look bad, for which Pablo would get into trouble, then Papa B would bail him out, then Pablo would suffer no lasting consequences, and Javier would cackle and be like “All according to keikaku!” anyway. Like, what was the keikaku??? And why did they let him hang around the school when he is clearly 35 years old???
04. Lalo
POV: you’re a 21-year-old about to have sex with your naive, inexperienced 16-year-old girlfriend. Which one of you do you think is responsible for remembering to put on a condom? Seriously, Lalo sucks. He spends all his time negging Feli for being rich, then he yells at her and grabs her face every time she does something he doesn’t like, then he knocks her up and throws her entire life off-kilter. Can you believe we’re supposed to be happy that Feli’s now tied to him for at least 18 years?
03. Francisco
Congrats to Francisco, by virtue of only appearing in the second season, he has quantitatively less rapey behavior than Guido. Qualitatively, however, he’s just as bad. When we first meet him, he seems like a semi-decent person. After about ten episodes, though…well, see Guido’s entry. I kept forgetting that he was meant to be a country boy because after his introduction, he literally starts acting like every other dude on this show.
02. Guido
Did you know that extensive porn use leads to increased violence and decreased empathy for women from men? That explains so much about Guido. The only reason he is not in last place is because he is not a grown-ass adult preying on teenagers. He is, however, a teenage boy preying on teenage girls, which is only marginally better.
Seriously, what an awful person. He spends the entire show objectifying girls, cheating on every girl who has the misfortune to cross his path, then whining whenever it blows up in his face (I’m still disappointed that Agustina’s dad never followed through on beating him up). He rudely rejects every girl that he doesn’t think is hot, while simultaneously expecting every girl he likes to be willing to fuck him.
Oh, and he’s also a major cowardly custard, willing to help the Society fuck over his fellow working-class classmates just because he wants to be one of the rich kids. He also has zero respect for his adorable parents and never actually apologizes to them for all the shit he pulls over the show. Literally, Guido does not have a single redeeming quality. Fuck this dude forever, I wish he could’ve gotten in a head-on collision with a mack truck too.
01. Blas
Fuck this guy, I hate him so much. The competition for the title of “Most Garbage Man to Grace this Show” is STACKED, but he manages to come out on top with a decisive victory. He comes to Elite Way to watch over the orphan girl in his care, and decides the best way to do this is to physically and emotionally abuse her, and then while he’s there, he’s like, “I can also take advantage of some of her underage classmates, so why not.” And then you’re supposed to feel bad when he dies! Like, he didn’t even pull a Snape and die fighting for Lujan’s life or anything — he was literally running away from having to talk to her! This show was gaslighting us with Blas’s redemption arc and I will not stand for it. Blas was the fucking worst, spread the word.
Honorable Mentions:
- Font (a literal pedophile and yet another clear failure of the Elite Way hiring process; however, not enough screentime to be worth a ranking)
- Manuel (saved by being comparatively less dickish in Season 1, but only barely. I REMEMBER ALL YOUR PRE-BRAIN TRAUMA BULLSHIT, MANUEL)
- Marcos (see Manuel)
- Papa B (literally abusive, but actually designed to be a villain, so I don’t feel the need to express my hate for him so clearly)
- Simon (this dude has a whole child and baby mama at home, and he spends his time hitting on high school girls)
- Sandra (the way she was willing to fuck with a bunch of teenagers over her niece’s school drama was kind of messed up. Like Nico was kind of a wishy-washy fuckboy but you’re the adult here, Sandra. You should have more perspective than this)
FIVE MOST TRAGIC REBELDE WAY CHARACTERS OF ALL TIME
05. Tatiana
A flight from Tel Aviv to Buenos Aires is, at minimum, at least 20 hours. Imagine traveling all that way just to get fucked over by Nico. I feel kind of bad for Tatiana, who was a little clingy, but otherwise a perfectly nice girl.
04. Consuelo
When she actively offered to be Pablo’s side piece, I was super embarrassed for her. What even happened to her after her usefulness as a pawn for Papa B expired? I bet she got set up with a pair of cement boots 🙁
03. Agustina
The lengths she went to in order to keep Guido by her side were just…so sad. Agustina depresses me. She was also the least interesting of the 3 new third-year girls, and somehow managed to stick it out to the end? I don’t understand.
02. Gloria
I grudgingly relate to the experience of being an extremely stressed-out receptionist, having to keep your coworkers’ lives and schedules together for them, while they send you on bullshit errands and you start slowly having a mental breakdown and end up with chronic jaw pain because you can’t stop clenching it. However, I cannot respect anyone who wants Dunoff’s body that bad. How embarrassing.
01. Feli
Her storyline is so crushingly depressing. She just chases one boy after another, desperately needing validation because of her low self-esteem, and all the boys either reject her mercilessly or use her to get to her hotter friends. She never learns to stand on her own, either — she just transfers her thirst for validation to Lalo and he happens to reciprocate her feelings. If he were to ever lose interest, she would absolutely collapse and be right back where she started. A tragedy.
Honorable Mentions:
- Sabrina (too villainous to engender much sympathy but like, it is pretty sad that she survives leukemia just to become a simp for Manuel)
- Javier’s Friend With the Really Thick Eyebrows (imagine being a pawn in Javier’s schemes. How embarrassing)
- Mauro 2 (Lujan’s foster brother, not the dude Marizza had a crush on way back during the beach episodes. The indignity of hooking up with Lujan for 1 episode before getting dumped for Marcos, truly)
- Luna (this show really loves the idea that starting a nuclear family at the age of 16 will somehow solve all of your problems, doesn’t it?)
FIVE MOST FORGETTABLE CHARACTERS WHO I ONLY JUST REMEMBERED WHILE TRYING TO MAKE THESE LISTS
05. Agusto
He is so bland that I don’t know what to say about him. He was kind of a dick and he looked like my high school physics teacher. That’s all I got.
04. Sebastian
What a fascinatingly superfluous character. Did he have a single line in this entire show? You could remove him from every single scene he’s in and I don’t think anything would be changed (apart from the iconic ending where he and Belen are apparently together).
03. Facundo
I don’t remember anything about him except that he owned leather pants and had a crush on Marizza, both of which evidence severely poor judgment on his part.
02. Luz
Remember her? I know, me either. Her schtick of coming up with nonstop zany schemes for the sole purpose of getting into Manuel’s pants was done better — or at least more hilariously — by Sabrina later on.
01. Lulu
A teacher who doesn’t reciprocate her students’ inappropriate advances! Your boundaries were too healthy for you to be at this school, Lulu. That said, I legitimately cannot remember anything about her except we were supposed to care about her dream of being a dancer or some shit.
Honorable Mentions:
- Mercedes (the main villain of Season 1, bar the Society, but I can’t tell you much about what she actually got up to)
- Julieta (remember when they were pretending there were other kids in other grades for the protagonists to date? Simpler times)
- Vero (see Julieta)
- Joaquin (had a multi-episode villain arc and I only just remembered him now. That said, that orange headband is burned into my brain, so he’s not totally forgettable)
- Lucia (aka Random Amanda. So obscure that she isn’t in any cast list that I can find, but obviously so iconic that she managed to worm her way into at least 5 seconds of every Season 1 episode)
TEACHERS THAT MOST RESEMBLED ONES THAT TAUGHT AT MY HIGH SCHOOL
03. Hilda
Season 1 Hilda was just like every cranky teacher I had that hated me. Season 2 Hilda was just like every teacher I had who flagrantly played favorites among the class.
02. Miranda
Possibly more suited to the university level than high school, but I too had a bunch of teachers who quoted Paulo Freire in class.
01. Carmen
My high school English (literature) teacher also hated children and really had no business being in non-tertiary education. Carmen’s scenes were basically a BIOGRAPHY OF MY LIFE. Also, shout-out to her for being the last teacher standing in the Elite Way Thunderdome.
TOP FIVE CHARACTERS OF ALL TIME
05. Rocco
I actually struggled a lot with this last spot because…I cannot in good conscience say that most of these characters are a “favorite” in the traditional sense — I have beef with at least half of this main cast; characters who I actually mostly like felt too minor to make an appearance. (Full disclosure: I briefly considered Marcos for this spot despite his fuckboy ways, because I am absolute trash for his interactions with Lujan). That said, I’ll suck up all my vocal criticism of Rocco’s early appearances and say that on the whole, he’s one of my faves. Yeah, he could be pushy and stalky, but that’s all men on this show, so let’s just grade on a curve. Once he stopped slicking down the front of his hair, he turned into a mostly sweet dude and had a lot of genuinely enjoyable connections to other characters, which made him fun to watch in most scenarios. (I still think he and Bianca should’ve had a thing, tbh.)
04. Pablo
Pablo’s character growth was incomparable and a joy to watch. He went from being a spoiled, selfish dick to being a genuinely good person, with a lot of realistic struggle in between. Pablo’s growth actually felt earned, unlike most of the random plot developments in this show.
03. Vico
I didn’t have a strong opinion on Vico when I first started watching this show, but she really developed into being one of my favorite characters? She’s so delightfully practical and cynical; love her for always calling out the bullshit the boys on this show were trying to pull. Also, as someone who was super angry and bitter in high school because my family was awful, I find her really realistic, surprisingly so for a teen telenovela. Glad she gets to frolic off at the end of this show to fuck around on a beach with her goth bf <3
02. Lujan
Sometimes I wanted to punch the characters on this show, and Lujan and her fists of fury were there to channel the feeling for me. I realize her proximity to Marizza should disqualify her, but as with Vico, teenage girls with severe anger and neediness issues stemming from a messed-up childhood will always be something I overidentify with.
01. Mia
This show is anti-Mia propaganda and I am here to spread the truth. Mia Colucci did nothing wrong, or at least she did much less wrong than everyone else on this show. Sure, she could be a little thoughtless sometimes, but she always meant well and rarely judged anyone the way her classmates did. It’s BS that the show tried to make us think that she was a shallow person who needed to learn how to be good from Marizza and Manuel. For that matter, the way Manuel treated her was awful, and I’ll always be offended that we were supposed to root for them getting back together. Justice for Mia!
Honorable Mentions:
- Tomás (ILU poor dumb Tomás)
- Miranda (get you a man who manages to gain the respect of a bunch of teenagers while simultaneously not enabling all of their petty bullshit)
- Sonia (the growth from an immature, attention-seeking flake to a good mother with a caring relationship with her children, we love to see it)
- Papa C (see Sonia)
- Pilar (lacks consistency, actually doesn’t do much apart from hang around Fernanda and Belen for no reason, but always enjoy her and Tomás together)
- Nico (too milquetoast and bland to truly appreciate, but he had some solid boy detective moments and wasn’t as heinously antagonistic as most of the other kids on this show)
- Lola (what Marizza could’ve been if she’d been written with any kind of self-awareness)
And…we’re done! Thank you so much to everyone who stuck with these posts over the years. I’m so glad we made it to the end, and I would probably still not be done if it weren’t for the occasional comment reminding me that people were indeed reading this, giving me the motivation to push on. You guys are the coolest. May you all go forth and not end up trapped in a limbo of fourth year, never to graduate to fifth <3
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