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100hearteyes · 1 year ago

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I watched Élite seasons 1 through 5 (I'm sooo late, I know) and boy do I have thoughts. Be warned: this is a really really long post.

First off: I loved the first three seasons. They're quite good for what they set out to do and they wrap up the overarching story in an overall satisfying manner. I was surprised by how invested I got in the two main straight couples and really liked the main queer one. The show itself and the mysteries were always gripping (it made me want to watch 'just one more' over and over again), and the storytelling and plot were honestly pretty neatly constructed, especially considering the kind of show we're talking about. Loved the additions in seasons 2 and 3, and who they decided to get rid of after 1. Lu (so problematic during her worst times but it was aldo so so pleasant to watch her grow up and become a better person), Nadia, Carla, Guzmán, Rebeka, and Omar are clear standouts for me (Danna, Mina, Claudia are quite possibly the three best actors of the first story).

Which brings me to seasons 4 and 5 (haven't watched 6 and don't know if I want to, which is telling when just a few seconds ago I was telling you I couldn't put down the first three seasons), where the exact fucking opposite happened.

-- brief intermission: Lu and Nadia's friendship is the very best thing about seasons 1 to 3; Danna Paola acted the hell out of every single line and scene she was given; Mina, Georgina, Ester, and Claudia were outstanding too --

Most characters had a clear pathway of development and their stories closed out on a firm note of either growth or regression (or something a bit more complex than that), instead of flip-flopping back and forth between points A, B, and C for three seasons.

-- brief intermission 2: it's important to keep in mind that season 4 had some positives (one very big one); season 5 is the really bad one --

Let me preface this by stating the obvious. High school/college shows that are directly bound to their HS/C setting have an evident handicap: they can't really ever leave that setting (which with enough skill you can turn into a strength imho). This gives you three options.

A - Keep your characters at the eternal age of 15/16/17/18, which ruins the characters and storytelling, because 1) it becomes absolutely nonsensical, and 2) it forces you to do that same flip-flopping where characters keep growing and regressing and growing and regressing ad eternum (see: Marvel's Iron Man);

B - Renew the cast every so often, which gives you the chance to tell new stories and refresh your show with each new cycle, therefore lending it a longevity that won't tire your viewers out, because it's basically like you're making a whole new show every three or for years. You have to do it well, though, so viewers don't feel like they're watching the same story over and over just with different faces.

C - A mix of options A and B. You renew the cast but keep some characters to give it a sense of continuity. This is what Élite does: some characters spill over from seasons 3 to 4, and then (I googled) some introduced in the second three-season arc stay for the handoff to season 7. And, sure, it makes sense continuity and familiarity wise, but it also demands careful writing so that the storylines of the characters that are going to stay over for the next overall arc don't feel closed and so that those characters have clear room to grow. So do you know who definitely should NOT be the ones you choose to keep, *most especially* in a high school setting? Your main characters aka the ones whose full story you just told. They're ready to graduate, my buddies. Let them!

And this is where the issues start (but definitely do not end) for Élite. The characters that stay over for season 4 - SPOILER - are (iirc) Samuel and Guzmán, the ~main characters~, plus Ander, Omar, Cayetana, and last but not least my baby Rebeka. The show comes up with mildly logical ploys and explanations for those six to remain, but right off the bat, it's way too many. Six characters??? That's OVER HALF of the main cast of seasons 2 and 3.

While it made sense to have Rebeka and Caye – additions in season 2 and whose stories you could feel hadn't reached their conclusion –, Samu, Guzmán, Ander, and Omar's character arcs were done. They had grown all they had to grow. What does that mean for the story? It means that we had to watch the slow and steady (not literal) assassination of all four characters. It was so painful to watch as the showrunners undid all the growth SGOA had done over the past three seasons and destroyed their characters for the sake of keeping them on the show. The way Guzmán and Samu went back to being assholes to each other made absolutely no fucking sense. And it was honestly fucking annoying seeing that after they became friends so organically in the first arc. That was a friendship you rooted for ffs. As for Omar and Ander, while it made sense on paper for them to still be in high school due to what happened in season 3, the writers could have easily written them off, because their arc WAS over. We'd done the closet. We'd done the back and forth. We'd done the cheating. We'd done the breaking up and making up and all 72 lines of Katy Perry's Hot N Cold. We'd done Omar's story with Nadia, the parents, and Lu (BEST friendship btw), and Ander's with Polo, Guzmán, and his mom. And then the writers decided to put them in a narrative vacuum with a third, endlessly annoying dude and redo all the gay drama parts but ten times worse 🙃

And that's just season 4, because Guzmán and Ander leave at the end of that and then in season 5 the writers decide to fuck up Omar and Samu's friendship too. Fuck you for putting my son Omar through the ringer tbh.

This is coming out way longer than I anticipated (as usual). ANYWAY, quality goes way down in seasons 4 and especially 5. The mysteries are boring and predictable, and – this is important – sex takes on that GOT quality of mattering for nothing other than to goad people to watch. With each season, sex becomes more and more graphic and less and less meaningful for plot and characterization. It's just softcore porn. There's a beautiful sex scene in S4 (I'm biased tho ngl lol) but everything in S5 is Not It.

Rebeka and Caye are two of the best three/four things of seasons 4 and 5. Nevertheless, they ruined Omar, Ander, Samu, and Guzmán, like I said, and the additions to the cast are no better.

Patrick, Ari, and Benjamín (introduced in S4) are frankly bad characters; Philippe (S4) is a missed opportunity; Isadora (S5) is just there to suffer (1 - I say this despite Isa being a good character with lots of potential and Valentina Zenere doing excellent work with her; 2 - I suspect she will have a bigger role in S6, which would be good); and Cruz (1 - I've never met Portuguese person called Cruz (mas também nunca tinha visto ninguém chamado Carloto, por isso o que sei eu lol), 2 - Carloto Cotta's acting is Not Good At All) and Iván (both S5) serve possibly the worst plotline of all five seasons. The only super welcome addition is... Mencía ❤️ even so, her turnaround in season 5 is soooo poorly done and with it the show ruined the best thing about season 4, because if one thing's for sure with Élite is that no one can ever have a happy ending. The writers made that crystal clear when they brought Guzmán, Omar, and Ander back for the second overall arc of the show.

That brings me to the two good things about season 4, all of which season 5 destroyed. Caye is given room to grow into her better self after her fuck-ups in the first arc and she shines in season 4. Then in 5 they decide she should actually be in love with her abuser 👍

Rebe and Menci *whimsical sigh*. I fell in love with them. Their push and pull was the heart of s4, which firmly paved the way for reconciliation in 5. It happened. And then it didn't. Then it happened again. And then it didn't. Again. It's so fucking frustrating, because they built one of the best love stories in the show – by far the best of the second arc – and poofed it away like it meant nothing. Fuck it hurt. Honestly for me Rebe/Menci is up there with Nadia/Guzmán, Samu/Carla, and Omar/Ander seasons 1-3. The epic love story the show had been unable to repeat with anyone else. It also gave Rebe her due spotlight and agency and the sensational Claudia Salas a chance to shine. Her chemistry with Mencía/Martina Cariddi was off the fucking charts. I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say they had the most explosive chemistry of all of Élite along with Carla/Samuel. And if they were going to destroy it, I'd rather they would have done it in season 4 when Rebeka made a choice that she herself said meant losing Mencía forever than what they did in 5. Because FUUUUCCKKK they really made me believe that reconciliation was possible in s5.

Rebeka was wonderful throughout all five seasons and my only criticism is that I would have given her even more screen time while she was on the show. I miss her already 🥲

This takes me to *drumroll* Mencía. Gosh I love my baby Menci, who has the nicest, most radiant smile. They had her make some stupid choices in season 4 but I guess they had to feed the Armando storyline for all eight episodes. Also, it allowed for some badass Rebe scenes as well as some great hurt/comfort. Season 5 is a garbage fire and she gets dragged along. Mencía is a /wonderful/ character throughout though, it's just a shame that the writers continually chose to cause her pain and to put her between a rock and a hard place.

Which brings me to my last but not least talking point: women and queer people get the short end of the stick over and over and over again.

Just to be clear, racial diversity is worse than bad – we have three (?) black people in five seasons, all with minor roles – but this is Spain we're talking about, so unfortunately my expectations on that front were below zero (the same goes for Portuguese content btw). We have Nadia and Omar in the first three seasons. I'm hesitant to include Lu, Iván, Valerio, Isa as Latinos, because I don't know exactly how it works in Spain, but we don't make that distinction in Portugal. First time I heard of Latinos was in a US media context. I don't want to be ignorant/dismissive though so I'm at least making a reference to the four of them.

-- TW sexual assault --

Four women who are victims of sexual violence in the first five seasons (I'm choosing to include Carla's dad pimping her out to Yeray in this too – Yeray was all too happy to go with it until Carla made it clear that she hated it so much she needed drugs to withstand pretending to be in love with him), three of them in seasons 4 and 5. You see what I'm talking about when I mention how bad those two seasons are? As for the queer characters (some overlap): cancer, prostitution, constant cheating, two instances of borderline p*dophilia (as in, a fully grown adult and a teenager), homophobia, family abandonment, transphobia (in season 6, according to a review I read), racism, religious intolerance, sexual assault, drug dealing – seriously, all the kids who dabble in it one time or another for whatever reason (Omar, Rebe, Valerio, Patrick) are queer – etc etc etc.

And while mistakes were learning opportunities in the first overall arc – e.g. Rebe and Valerio's drug dealing in season 3, however brief, and the damage it caused – in seasons 4 and especially 5 they're just something that happens for drama and pain and to push characters back on their growth, not that they will ever learn from them. Remember when we talked about how seasons 1-3 mostly managed to avoid the Tony Stark Syndrome? Well 4 and 5 revel in it. Character development is but a mirage.

I think this is it. Anyway, Rebe x Menci forever, and Lu, Nadia, and Carla are my babies ❤️

#élite #elite netflix #menbeka #my thoughts

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