Rebelde Season 2: Catching up with our faves at EWS
Rebelde Season 2 is finally here! Yes, folks! The Netflix series, inspired by the Mexican telenovela of the same name, is back with a new season bringing more music, more intrigue, and some new faces to the mix.
When we last saw the students of the Elite Way School (EWS for short), tensions were running high between the members of the “Sin Nombre” band (aka the Without Name band). MJ (Andrea Chaparro) had just walked out on her friends in the middle of the Battle of Bands contest to join Sebastián (Alejandro Puente) on stage and become the lead singer of his band.
The Sin Nombre folks had told the whole school the truth about the Lodge and Sebastián’s involvement with them, linking the secret organization to everything that had happened during the school year. With the bad guys out of the picture, Jana (Azul Guaita) had re-introduced the band as “Rebelde” and everyone had started singing a cover of the iconic title song.
And while it all seemed to wrap up nicely with the band finally finding its voice and the bad guys getting what they deserved (well, most of them anyway); at the end of the first season, we were left with more questions than answers, and with the fate of many of our favorite characters hanging in the air.
So join us as we discover what Rebelde Season 2 has in store for our faves!
Rebelde Season 2: Everything has changed
When we say that everything has changed this season, the statement is quite literal: things at EWS are definitely not the same for this new term. Not only are there new students stirring the pot to cause trouble for our faves, but the Musical Excellence Program (MEP) also has a new teacher: Mr. Gus Bauman (Flavio Medina). Mr. Bauman arrives at the school flashing his credentials as a successful music producer and giving the students the news that the Battle of the Bands contest (yeah, the one they fought so hard to win last season) is no longer a thing and that they will have to prove their worth individually.
For Mr. Bauman, bands are a thing of the past, so he asks all the students to go solo and compete against each other to prove who’s the best and deserves to be the first artist he signs with his newly established record label. At first, some of the members of Rebelde don’t want to dissolve the band, but with things changing so fast, they have no choice other than to adapt, and so the band splits up. Pandemonium ensues.
Esteban (Sergio Mayer Mori) becomes the new eye candy at school following his breakup with Jana and the news that he’s a Colucci. His newfound popularity quickly goes to his head and he turns into a complete asshole. Jana and MJ don’t seem to agree on anything and can’t be around each other without fighting over MJ’s betrayal and Jana’s superiority complex. Dixon (Jerónimo Cantillo) remains the heart and soul of this group, having everyone’s back 24/7, but staying true to himself costs him dearly and he ends up getting kicked out of the MEP.
Andi (Lizeth Selene) and Emilia (Giovanna Grigio) seem to be fine at first. Their relationship is public now and the girls seem to be more in love than ever, but things quickly take a nasty turn for the two and everything spirals out of control. Luka (Franco Masini) has to adjust to his new life with no privileges and working part-time at the school to pay for his scholarship (his dad’s punishment for the stunt he pulled on him last season), while he deals with his blossoming feelings for Okane (Joel Isaac) – the new MEP student. And Sebastián? Well… Sebastián misled us a bit this season, but he’s still the same asshole we love to hate.
Friendship, Love, and Betrayal
If there’s one thing that we think really improved in Rebelde Season 2, it’s the narrative when it comes to character development. We got to see some folks facing challenges we didn’t see coming, and others showing a side of them we didn’t know they had. And while we low-key hated the going-solo dynamic (we loved the bands), it did help make the characters shine individually.
One of the most shocking journeys we got to see this season was Andi’s. After Emilia steals her song and uses it to curry favor with Mr. Bauman (Emilia needs to find a way to extend her visa in order to stay in Mexico after graduation), Andi decides to speak out and rat on her girlfriend. This decision, obviously, not only has a huge impact on them as a couple (yes, they break up), but it also affects Emilia, since she’s expelled from EWS entirely.
Naturally, the aftermath of all this weighs heavily on Andi. She feels guilty and betrayed, and that leaves her in a VERY vulnerable state that some characters are quick to see as an opportunity to take advantage of her. No spoilers, but her whole arc this season truly broke our hearts and all we wanted to do was to hug her and tell her that everything was going to be okay.
Another character whose storyline really shone this season was Luka’s. Yes, our resident gay has some major development in this new installment of the show and we loved every bit of it, even if half the time we wanted to punch him and the other half we were worried sick about him. Luka was one of the characters that we weren’t sure would be back after the end of the last season, so when we saw him pop up on our screens we immediately smiled and thanked the queer gods for gifting us with his sassy presence once again.
In Rebelde Season 2 Luka has to learn to live with the consequences of his actions in more than one way. Now without any type of financial support from his millionaire father Marcelo Colucci (Leonardo de Lozanne), Luka quickly finds a way to make easy money with the help of Okane. Again, we’re not going to spoil anything, but we really wanted to punch him (and Okane) for this. Yes, the peculiar situation brought them closer, which helped with their relationship and all that, but come on! *inaudible groans of frustration*
But anygays, we have to confess that yes, despite everything, his storyline with Okane was our favorite this season. Sue us. We love a good romance and we love it even more when the characters have undeniable chemistry, and these two are on fire from the first moment their eyes meet.
To all the lovers of the “strangers to rivals to lovers” and “fell in love first/fell in love harder” tropes, this one is definitely for you. We won’t tell you what happens or how it happens, but for us, Luka and Okane’s romance was the best thing we got from this season. Really. It was just *chef’s kiss*
A True Villain at Last
Another thing worth noting is that unlike its first season, Rebelde Season 2 finally has an actual villain making the lives of all these teens a living hell. The whole Lodge/Sebastian storyline in the first season was okay, as it helped with the nostalgia factor (the Lodge was a secret organization that existed in the original telenovela), but it wasn’t impactful enough for an antagonistic plot, you know? It felt clumsy and at times even silly, so we’re really pleased with how things changed this season.
We agree that this darker tone made the departure from the original telenovela even more noticeable, but it was something the show needed to stand on its own. Yes, Netflix’s Rebelde is based on the 2004 Mexican phenomenon, but it’s aimed at a completely different generation. Television has changed a lot in the last eighteen years and like all teen shows, Rebelde needed to evolve to be more in tune with the current times.
Was that particular plot twist in the finale the biggest shock this season? No. We’ve seen it in just about every Netflix teen show we can think of (Élite, Control Z, to name a few), but it did help the show set a new course for its storytelling. How they handle that new trajectory remains to be seen, but we think this season lays a strong enough foundation for future seasons of the show.
Rebelde Season 2 remains an enjoyable teen show. This season brings a lot of changes for our group of ambitious teenagers, making them face new challenges that leave some of them shaken to their very core. Their loyalties are tested like never before, as they have to face the reality of how far they’re willing to go individually to achieve their dreams of becoming shining pop stars.
The show, while still in the same campy tone as its first season, takes a more serious tone when depicting some of the issues teenagers face when surrounded by a highly toxic environment, and we applaud that. The world needs more TV shows where young folks, especially LGBTQ+ ones, get to explore the ups and downs of adolescence and life in general without taking everything too seriously either.
Rebelde Season 2 is now streaming exclusively on Netflix. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram for all queer stuff!
