Elite: Almost, Not Quite

hello the following is going to include a [ __ ] ton of spoilers for the netflix original series elite so if by some token you've clicked on this video about a show you have never seen that's an hour long and you're somehow not expecting spoilers i don't know what to tell you except that there are spoilers in that pigeonholes of teen idoldom not a word video i expressed a little animosity about the 2006 film material girls and although in the video this disdain seems to have more to do with it not being a very good movie there's a little more to it you see material girls is a film about two wealthy young women who have to take it upon themselves to regain control of their father's company which was taken from them after they very nearly ran it into the ground the idea alone isn't bad i mean it's sense and sensibility it's damn near perfect what i had more of a problem with was how the movie goes about framing certain social things it's a story about class that is meant to have traces of anti-classism but is itself very classist and i promise i'm not the kind of person who looks too deeply into media made for children although my track record is arguing the opposite it's just one of those things that's kind of hard to ignore when it's right there in front of you it's not simply that the movie chooses to frame these things in this way it is specifically that the movie ends up saying the very things it's trying its hardest to speak against with all that said cue the intro [Music] elite is a massively popular show when it came out on netflix in october of 2018 it took about a month for it to be viewed by over 20 million accounts and since then the show has become so popular that it's already been renewed for both a fourth and a fifth season so i really wouldn't be surprised if portions of this video ruffle some feathers it is a beloved show and for good reason i mean it's entertaining and fun and each season has a mystery and the story is constructed with these little flash boards starting with for example someone turning up dead and then going back to before it all happened to give us puzzle pieces it makes for really exciting and engaging television and i have to be honest i was very entertained by the show before the most recent season i would have gone as far as to call myself a fan i appreciated storytelling some of its characters and all the like promo videos are amazing in fact i liked it so much that when someone suggested i make a video about it i told them i didn't think i ever would because i wouldn't have a lot to talk about jokes on me i guess hell if you look up the trailer for the second season you're probably gonna come across a comment i left back when the only thing i saw was season one see back then i thought ander was a person so what changed do i make a video about it now what happened it's pretty simple actually the third season happened i don't know what it is with the third seasons of netflix shows i previously enjoyed but it's getting weird there's so much about the structure of the third season that doesn't work the way that it once did and while i'd love to just dive right in i'm gonna take my own advice and not assume you already know what elite is [Music] elite is a teen thriller slash weekend drama slash murder mystery about rich people getting away with crimes is that basically it that's basically it in season one we are primarily focused on three students from the lower class community christian nadia and samwell who is the closest thing we have to a main character which is unfortunate because bless his heart he is so boring these three students get the opportunity of a lifetime to attend the most elite private school in all of spain this is the school that all the children of the sickeningly wealthy attend their experiences are of course entirely based on their interactions with the wealthier students and each of them splinter off creating different storylines nadia for instance is probably the only person who wants to attend the school and sees it as an opportunity to better her life she's really studious and aims to be the top student at the end of the year because the top student gets an ugly trophy but more importantly they get the chance to study at this incredible school in florida so nadia is really smart and has no problem getting close to the top spot which gets the attention of another straight a student lou who is quite easily the character with the most character wanting to keep the top spot to herself lou bribes their teacher to keep nadia's marks lower all the while guzman lou's on and off boyfriend has a real hard-on for disrespecting poor people and at first he's cool to nadia too but after nadia spots them having sex in the showers at school he starts acting really nice mainly with the intent to take her virginity and then humiliate her i don't know that's their plan that's that's their plan but then he starts to actually fall for her because of course he does christian attends the school without a care about academics he kind of just wants to have a good time and make connections nadia and christian are very different for instance nadia is muslim and christian is like a bigoted islamophobe they both see the school as a chance for them to get out of poverty only christian's plan is to make connections by being the party guy the drug connection someone who could effectively infiltrate the wealthy until he becomes one of them he does this by courting carla who everyone calls the only thing is that carla is already dating a guy called polo he wears suspenders but they decide she should start sleeping with christian as a way to spice up their relationship and they end up becoming something of a throuple a dynamic that is changed when polo has sex with christian without carla yeah samwell is the most neutral if nadia is all work and no play and christian is all play and no work then samwell is boring his whole storyline is kind of dependent on his attraction to marina guzman's younger sister he's immediately smitten with her and will do anything for her and well that's mostly it his other purpose is to be in a half-assed love triangle with his brother nano that sounded so weird the way i just ordered it let me explain samwell's brother nano recently got out of jail and after he gets attacked by some stock characters he reveals that he has a debt to pay off and that if he doesn't pay up they're all in danger so he uses samoa's relationship with marina to get close to her family and blackmail them for money after that plan falls through because samwell's all like oh my god i don't want to hurt the rich people oh no i can't do it ah nano sleeps with marina to get into her house but they end up falling in love i guess and marina helps nano get the money he needs to pay off the debt there's also ander and omar omar doesn't attend the fantasy school at least not in season one or two actually barely even three he starts attending it at the end of three so whatever but anyway since he doesn't attend that school their connection happens through christian all the rich kids are needlessly cruel to the scholarship kids after their arrival but ender here he just wants to smoke some weed can somebody please give him some weed christian introduces ander to omar nadia's brother omar sells drugs so he too can save up to leave his home and be free and the two of them have a fling that turns into love i guess each storyline here serves as a clue to solving the mystery what is the mystery you ask well i'm glad you brung it up because i've been dying to talk about it for a hot [ __ ] minute the show begins with some well covered in blood watching as the police remove a body from the campus someone has been killed and we don't know who it is until the end of that first episode it was marina and so we spend much of the first season in these storylines trying to understand how things went from fairly innocent to ending in murder and how these storylines could trace back to her so all these plots are a timeline of events a collection of clues and part of the fun in watching is trying to theorize who could have killed marina it worked especially well because in these earlier episodes every plot line could be a motive for example ender and omar their story is a romance drama their relationship is forbidden for a while no one knows that either of them are gay and while it would be more detrimental for omar than it is for ender they don't tell anyone the most important secret though is that no one knows omar sells drugs and toward the end of the season marina starts spiraling and she gets drugs from omar but she's caught with them at school and then she's forced to tell the principal who gave him to her and so all markets found out his parents ground him for life he can't see ander ander can't see him nadia feels like marina has ruined her brother's life and so you could see how any one of them in this storyline would have a motive for killing marina and that's why it works the story lines are deceptively simple but they all culminate in a dire element in any murder mystery building up these storylines is really the highlight of the show and it's an admirable piece of storytelling and it's something that the show does exceptionally well in season one by season two it's it's a little clumsy okay and it's not as if a second season wasn't needed it's not like for example stranger things where the first season ended in a way that doesn't leave you asking a whole lot of questions where our second season isn't really needed but it'd be nice to have the second season of elite makes sense because after we find out who the killer was it's [ __ ] polo by the way which i love but i'll get to that later we also find out that he gets away with it and the wrong person is sent to jail the season ends with christian nano's friend hiding the murder weapon looking all brooding and conflicted but ultimately being too afraid to tell anyone that he knows who the real killer is and was somewhere getting all stoic and saying he knows his brother didn't do it even though he's the one who snitched on him this is literally set up to have a sequel one that can tie up those loose strings and if you or me or any elite fan eagerly anticipating that second season you came up with a lot of scenarios in your head maybe christian will have a more serious arc this season oh this might even be his season 4 jesse pinkman season where he's really struggling with the role he's played in covering up an innocent person's death where we start to feel for him we see just how easily he can be manipulated and how manipulative carla and polo are so much can happen with his character i can't wait to see how it pans out ah oh he's dead oh he's not dead okay good good i was scared for a sec he's gone well is he coming back no no okay [Music] where the first season centered around marina's murder this season centers around zumwell's disappearance we don't know if he's dead or alive or why we're supposed to care can anyone really say some well is a driving force to watch this show that he stirs up feelings like lou guzman nadia or omar him being missing even dead seems more like the show pruning than missing an essential piece there aren't many interrogations this time around instead we get a lot of this detective looking around is the useless detective who put the wrong person in jail in season one i don't know if you remember that this season also introduces three new characters rebecca cayetana and valerio lou's brother no i don't care if it's her half brother they're related and it's disgusting in season one you have these deceptively simple even pulpy plot points that seem like something to fill the void with at first glance christian's throuple situation comes off as an excuse to show threesome sex scenes set to glass animals but it's this plotline that ends up being the most important it's in this plotline that the motivation for the murderer is being carefully built up and again each character in season one could have a motive that's how the story is set up the best scene in the first season is toward the very end right before marina is killed she walks into class unsuspecting and unaware and she looks up to see so much disdain she realizes that she has no one left on her side that people she once considered friends have turned against her she's surrounded by a threat that she doesn't fully understand who who even cares about some well enough to want him gone his mom doesn't even remember he exists fortunately or unfortunately the whole thing turns out to be a boy after christian was sent away somewhere starts to suspect that carla was involved in mighty his death then because it seems like he's getting close to the truth carla seduces him and i guess they fall in love and then someone's like i'm gonna use the way she feels about me now to get her to confess so i'm gonna disappear myself so yeah kind of like um yura and the american version of skins he kidnaps himself and that's that's what that's the plot the problem is that this overall plot is very simplistic a little too simplistic like so simplistic that half the time the show itself can't find any reason to linger on it for too long almost as if it's afraid you're gonna get bored for that reason majority of the season is dedicated to actual void filling plot lines not deceptively unimportant but like like real like actually unimportant a little bit into season two omar starts living with ander and his family his newfound freedom allows him to do things he's always wanted to do like for instance dressing as dr frank inverter at a halloween party ander doesn't like this at all in fact he explicitly says that the guy omar really is the person he felt he had to pretend he wasn't is not the guy he wants [ __ ] ander with his [ __ ] you know what [ __ ] it here's a video on why ender does not deserve omar one ender no actually i realize this video is an hour long and i kind of don't have time for a small joke that isn't even that funny to begin with yeah i just don't think ander really deserves so much moving on the omender plot point this time around does very little to service the event this season revolves around once again all the students are interrogated when someone goes missing but there's no reasonable suspicion and i know you could argue that since in the end it turns out that samwell isn't missing at all there's no need for any of the actions the characters take to be seen as a motive but no the show is told in the same format someone's dead or in this case missing we go back and forth from present to the past to see who knows what and try to figure out what happened to him even the framing of the interrogation scenes are set up to evoke suspicion in the audience even if the twist is that samwell isn't missing if you're going to construct the story as a mystery it helps to construct it as a mystery samwell is missing and the show wants you to think that anyone could be responsible but it doesn't bother to lay the groundwork if it wasn't a mystery this would be absolutely fine if this season just wanted to deal with the aftermath of everything that happened without having any interrogations or flash forwards there would be nothing wrong with this season it's beautifully shot and the success of the first season has clearly increased the budget the wardrobe is great it feels bigger and more in step with its vision the acting as usual ranges from pretty good to great i would never argue that the actors in this show are miscast or untalented elite struggles sometimes with its character writing but it's easy to look past that because most of the time the performances are just that good but the fact is this season does have a mystery and it does want to evoke suspicion but none of the extra plot points do anything for that i singled out ander and omar initially because in season one as i've said i feel like i've said this a million times their subplot relates to marina's death in that one could look at anders anger directed towards marina and think yeah maybe he could do something like that but in this season everything that happens with omar and ender it just it just doesn't connect to some well at all let's just look at some more plot lines shall we polo is really struggling this season with guilt with anger and he's all alone carla decides they shouldn't see each other anymore christian's been sent to la casa de babel i mean he's been sent to a hospital in switzerland and he's never coming back i'm sorry but he's not these would be the only two people who he would be able to talk to about it but they leave him so the whole season he's just simmering with anger and guilt his anxiety gets worse and he starts having panic attacks experiencing hallucinations i mean he is just straight up suffering at one point he tries to end his life but cayetano saves him throughout the season they'll befriend each other after they both become pariahs and when she loses her scholarship he'll be the one to help her get it back i mean for a second you feel bad for him you almost forget he murdered someone guzman this season quite understandably is just trying to get by he's grieving deeply going as far as to turn to drugs to help him numb the pain of losing his sister this is pretty big considering in season one it's established that he takes drug use very seriously because his birth parents were addicts he's afraid of getting addicted afraid of overdosing and so when ender starts smoking weed guzman basically has a meltdown his relationship with nadia blossomed they have sex it almost ruins nadia's life more on that later and samuel tells guzman that polo killed marina and he's like you're a liar and an hour later he texts him he's like i believe you that's really all for guzman so let's look at lou lou's half brother valerio returns from being cast off at boarding school why was he cast off because he likes to party and break rules and he's reckless and he keeps trying to [ __ ] his sister i don't know why they did this to lou i don't i don't know why they did the salute when valedio returns he's like so you want to pick up where we left off and who's like no i'm with guzman now but guzman finally does it with nadia and when he tells lou that he cheated she goes to the lady over comfort and then someone finds them in a compromising position and lou threatens him and wait wait i think this is the first storyline i've mentioned that actually contributes to the whole sunwell is missing thing hmm very interesting she also threatens nadia that backfires guess that brings us to nadia nothing happens with nadia this season she gets closer to kazman i said that already they have sex nadia threatens lou that backfires lou has valerio film nadia and guzman having sex and then lou shares the video with the entire school there's a really great scene where nadia tells her family about the video it's very painful for her and mina alhamani the actress does a great job she expects for her parents to be angry after all she's always worried about disappointing them has felt the pressure of being the quote unquote good child with her older sister gone and omar out of the house it terrifies her to disappoint them but then this happens and it's probably the best moment in the entirety of season two but i don't have to get into all the subplots the gist is this very few of the extra plot lines this time around have any impact on the mystery only like three people could have a motive and it's lou guzman and carla carla's already covered up for one murder and she's responsible for christian being in an accident because you know she snitched guzman well marina was his sister and he hates samwell's guts but nothing else contributes to the samwell mystery so the mystery doesn't even feel like a mystery also it doesn't help that when we get to the end we find out that the mystery was faked so there was really nothing at stake in the first place and the plot this time around is two out of the three characters that could have had the most interesting arcs this season are gone christian disappears after the first episode and nano the person who ended up being jailed for madinah's murder soon balls they both had other better priorities i understand i would have done the same thing the only one left is polo and his follow-up isn't half bad it details his depression after the fact he regrets killing marina and he wishes he could take it back and he also wishes he could simply be rid of the guilt his struggle throughout this season is the most interesting thing the show has to offer and in a series that comprises over 10 other characters i gotta say that's not very impressive honey this season is also set up in a way that makes a third season a possibility carla worried about samwell's disappearance eventually does confess that polo killed marina even telling the cops where the murder weapon is it ends with someone guzman being buddies nano is free and it seems like things are good but in one final scene everyone in the school hallway freezes and they all look in the same direction to see what the [ __ ] why are you not in jail cayetano repays polo's kindness toward her by finding the murder weapon and hiding it he denies he had anything to do with money in his death and with no evidence and just carlo's word against his they have no choice but to release him it's essentially how the first season ended except now everyone knows what polo did sure it's kind of repetitive but at the very least the stakes are higher i wonder how we'll further explore his character in season three maybe he'll oh he's dead i'm not saying that the sunwell's missing plot was so boring that they went back to murder for the third season except i am polo is dead and anyone could have done it guzman is the most obvious suspect marina was his little sister and he is still grieving over her death it could also be some well because after all he exists to obsess over marina then to avenge marina and then to make macaroni and cheese for carla if i had so little going for me i would kill a more interesting person too this season is also constructed through flash forwards present time we're at the club where polo has been killed and this is with two timelines it bounces between moments after polo is already dead and moments just before it happens where we can see who he interacted with and how they responded to him in the moments after his death after the club has become a crime scene we're presented with numerous scenes of characters either being interrogated or being nervous about being interrogated the aftermath timeline also has the same [ __ ] detective who hasn't solved anything since the series started you put the wrong person in jail i mean well actually it makes sense that you you still have a job your cop despite me having made an entire video about this series just based on my over-the-top vitriolic reaction to its third season i have to give credit where credit's due the season is almost a return to form i appreciate the production value and some of the performances moving on carla's father basically starts pimping her out to a new character called dna who is yes the first black person i have ever seen on this show only took three seasons yaday has just started an already booming business and carla's father on the brink of losing all the wealth he stole needs him to keep their business upload and it's honest to god a really depressing storyline oh and carla's father also forces her to take back her confession so their family won't lose their fortune this is basically what extends polo's arc until the end of the season carla misses samwell who also misses her meanwhile he's playing around with rebecca who has strong feelings for him for whatever reason i'm not going to judge her out loud again somewhere in season 2 samwell starts working for sandra rebecca's mom who was a drag kingpin so in this season he decides to rat them out to the police in exchange for nano's protection so he's boring a bad friend and a snitch my god baby pick a struggle he betrays rebecca and ruins your life and it's all very unnecessary because nano doesn't even exist in this season he's in hiding nadia stops saying guzman and starts dating this dude named malik oh look another black person i did not see this comment but malik's having sex with omar because ander has cancer yes it is literally a weekend drama now and this is anders entire subplot for the whole season they just don't know how to make him more interesting as an individual everything likeable about him has always been because of his relationship so now they're like a give them leukemia at one point guzman pretends he's friends with polo just to drag him and beat him senseless i feel like his storyline really just ends there the rest is like naughty of love there's already a glaring issue with it this time around quite simply even fewer people in this season have anything faintly resembling a motive and honestly not having a motive or murder would be fine in a story if it wasn't a murder mystery if the purpose of the story is another murder mystery if it's told and flash forward shouldn't the flashback plots be leading somewhere that's irrelevant to the conclusion come on season one has an awful lot of fluff storylines most notably ender and omar but even with them by the end you can look at their relationship and see how it might have some relevance to marina's death you can see why a detective might look at what happened during this event and go hmm maybe there's something here i don't know carla and yerei feel like a completely different story and it doesn't help that at this point we know regardless of what carla might do to polo she could never in a million years hurt him because at one point she loved him more than anyone so much in fact and her reaction to hearing he killed his best friend's sister was we gotta get you cleaned up so really we can pretty much cross her story line out as it pertains to solving the mystery it's a subplot that doesn't connect with much of anything else and that's most of the subplots here omar malik lou and partially nadia have no obvious impact on the outcome tell me you can look at malek having a fleeing with omar while omar is still with ender and see how it has any impact on polo for any of them to be suspects you can't can you the only people who possibly could based solely on their arcs this season are valerio cayetana guzman and maybe some well if he can be bothered to do more than brood for an hour for a second i forgot rebecca i'll admit i just forgot she existed when i wrote that last part maybe i wouldn't have if her character had more to do so this season is effectively filled with more arbitrary subplots than the series has ever had before and although elite has never at any point been a show with a great narrative structure even season one has head scratching moments the season is just worse in every conceivable way sorry the heart of the show is with its characters and later season although murder and disappearance is still the main plot of the story the episodes focus more on the relationships of its characters we spend a lot of time watching nadia and guzman fall in love watching ander be a [ __ ] bag i mean fall in love with omar watching polo go from having people to love dabbing to face life on his own this is where the show is very interesting probably the most interesting when the plot isn't much the characters carry everything so why the [ __ ] are some of them so weak when christian leaves for bigger and better things valedio and cayetana and rebecca basically become his replacements filling the void he left but they offer next to nothing and become little more than props for the other characters to react to valerio is placed in the story as lou's brother i don't care who has serious issues that he masks under the veneer of eccentricity and lavishness his plot mainly consists of this really gross will they or won't they again with his sister and then later with polo and cayetano which is much better yes polo ends up being in two threesome relationships because all bisexuals are polyamorous everybody knows that out of the new characters introduced in season two he probably has the most development but that unfortunately is not saying much at all rebecca enrolls in los angeles with new money she claims her family won the lottery but later it's revealed that her mother has a drug empire and that's about it she mainly exists to help samwell get nano out of jail and then she falls in love with him you know because he's so amazing but that is really it when rebecca isn't needed to further the development of characters like nadia and samwell she's just there cayetano was the character out of the new ones that i had the most interest in when season 2 started she arrives at the school as a wealthy socialite and influencer she wears designer clothes and has a vacation home and mykonos and lives in a big fancy house but it's all a lie she's actually the daughter of one of the custodians who works at the school she's a scholarship kid she lives in a tiny apartment with her mom and helps her clean mansions on weekends both rebecca and kayatana come from working class backgrounds but kayatana is still there the show when it's not about crime and love stories okay lust stories it's a reflection of class disparity there's a reason the lens with which we are introduced to la sincenas is through nadia and christian and some well there is a reason guzman's disdain for the working class is such a big part of the first season there's a reason why the strain between the rich and the poor becomes a rift that authorities believe caused marina's death and since we've lost christians since omar has been relegated to anders pet since nadia's storyline became almost exclusively about guzman since samwell is [ __ ] some well kayetana presented a new lens a new opportunity to do something with the themes the show so clearly wants to i fear that much like valerio to lou and rebecca to samwell cayetana would mainly exist for polo and admittedly sometimes it seemed to be exactly that that she existed to be there for him to support him when he's giving up hope to redeem his character but gayatana is the most complex of the new characters i hate kaitana and i kind of love kayatana she like everyone else in this show can be downright awful she demands that her mother doesn't speak to her when they're at school so she can maintain the ruse of being wealthy she lies and lies going as far as to cultivate this image of being a socialite she steals a designer dress from one of her mom's clients and uses a vacated mansion that she's meant to be house-sitting to have a party you lie all the time you lie for no reason you just like to lie when her lies catch up with her in season two and polo comes to her rescue all she can see is the good in him even after he tells her about marina she chooses to support him season two ends on a hopeful note hopeful um [Music] i guess i'm looking at this from polo's perspective but then with the onset of season three you realize kayatana is just as manipulative if not more as carla was in season one i say was because when she starts sleeping with samwell i think she contracted some of his nui although polo evaded responsibility once again the fact that everyone knows he killed marina starts to weigh on him he's bullied a lot sent death threats even tortured by guzman he feels like his life and his sanity is in jeopardy what once seemed like a gesture of affection and support now seems like a tactic an ulterior motive kaytana is so desperate for a better life for the fairy tale she's told herself for years that it seems like she could stoop to polo's level before the final episode of season three i was almost positive that she was the killer yes polo gives her a chance to get out of poverty but also he's the only thing standing in her way if he continues to insist on confessing add to that the fact that polo overwhelmed with all of the bullying decides to transfer to a school in a completely different country and cayetano ruins that for him because she knows if he's out of the country she can't manipulate him she won't have her meal ticket and in the end despite kayada not being responsible for killing him in a way she kind of did because if she had just let him transfer schools he wouldn't have been in spain the night he died so kaya donna is a horrible person a lot of the time but that doesn't mean she's a badly written character not always her choices make sense given her background it only starts to derail a little after polo dies suddenly she's apologetic suddenly she says she really did love polo in the end polo's parents still want to pay her way to the college of her choice but she turns the offer down seemingly learning her lesson about manipulating people about trying to live the lives of others and in the end she becomes a custodian at las insanes this is a good ending but it would be better if we had taken the time to see her truly love polo and not manipulate him if we actually saw a side of her that wasn't calculating and deceitful we see so much of that side that when the real killer is revealed it feels like it comes out of left field it would be surprising if cayetano killed polo but it would be the kind of surprise that feels suited it would track guzman would track hell even valerio would track but you know who doesn't track you know what reveal was so frustrating to me that i made this horrid creature what reveal still frustrates me even how long has it been what six seven months after the fact in the final episode titled polo we finally find out who killed polo [ __ ] lou this lou same old lou from the block although she didn't mean to kill him she did threaten him with a broken wine bottle that made him bleed out so you tell me from a certain perspective i can see why they chose her majority of her screen time in the third season is dedicated to showing her slowly lose everything losing her relationship with her friends losing to nadia still loving and still losing guzman losing her wealth it's polo's arc in season 1 reconstructed on a much grander scale so my feelings on this twist are complex it's not that i have a problem with lou being the killer it mostly makes sense given everything she's lost i have a problem with the fact that they give loose character in the midst of everything collapsing around her something that polo's character did not have in season one a moment of clarity first let's look at season one the reveal that polo killed manina is amazing marina is waiting by the pool for nano to come get her so they can run away together the show fakes you out first by having samwell approach marina and if this was the reveal if samwell was the one who killed her it would be shocking but it would still kind of make sense but then someone walks away leaving marina alone until polo arrives and when you see him from this first shot alone you know you're not being faked out again you know it's him and even though it's still a little surprising mainly because polo is kept in the background in a deceptively unimportant plot when you see him approaching it all makes sense everything since the beginning has pointed to him he's already proven in the first episode that there isn't anything he wouldn't do for carla and vice versa he's already shared how unhappy it makes him that his parents are so dissatisfied with him that they want him to be different the entire season after polo starts this thing with christian guzman is constantly telling him how much of an idiot he's being how he's letting people walk all over him how he needs to take charge of something for once and then he loses carla and he's desperate he doesn't have a moment where i don't know he makes peace with him and carla going their separate ways nor a moment where he feels assured and confident not uncertain and scared but you know who does in the fourth episode of the third season an episode named after lou she throws a reverse valentine's day party where everything is the opposite of the norm the guys bare skin and the girls wear tuxes the guests bring the alcohol and entertain lou instead of her having to entertain them it's all orchestrated to hide the fact that lou's father has cut her off but to maintain her status in episodes leading up to this she is clearly lonely and toward the end of this episode she watches all of the couple's dance but she sees that it's all a mess carla has it a but she wants some well samwell has rebecca but he wants carla nadia has malik but malek is [ __ ] her brother and omar has ender although he's cheating on him with malik lou looks at all the couples and seems to realize that this won't make her happy that a relationship can't fix things that maybe she's better off alone guzman is the only other person who's alone too and this would be the perfect opportunity for her to be with him after all she has always loved him and now she could have him back even if only for a night but she turns him down [Applause] [Music] and she's not lying she's confident she's happy she's just realized that she's enough for her it's a pretty great moment this moment is the thing that stops the reveal from being effective though why would polo saying this push her over the edge if she's become comfortable and content with being independent for the first time in her life independent of her father independent of guzman independent of valerio she still has a friend and nadia a friendship that has become the most important and most real one that she's ever had why would this push her over the edge also no that didn't happen okay he lorded the scholarship over her head but all he wanted was for her to get everyone off his back of cayetana and valerio's back he never threatened her he never even threatened that he'd tell everyone she was broke he literally just said yo i know you need the scholarship so maybe stop [ __ ] with us and i won't interfere with you winning it i don't know bro just a thought lou does end up winning the scholarship award alongside nadia and all is good she could take the scholarship and dip but no she and nadia decide to take a stand knowing full well it could compromise their enrollment because the scholarship was set up by polo's parents y'all really thought you were gonna call out polo and keep a scholarship that his parents set up you didn't think they'd be a little bit mad including [Music] surprise surprise the scholarship gets taken away second of all polo didn't do [ __ ] i mean okay no humor he murdered someone that's not that's not what i meant you both brought this on yourselves how are you so mad at him for something you did it doesn't make sense if you really wanted to take a stand and keep in mind this stand they take is framed in such a way that they seem to know speaking out against it could make them lose it all then sure say all that [ __ ] just don't delude yourself into thinking they'll let you keep the scholarship it's contradicting is what it is it's a twist for the sake of being a twist and what's more frustrating is that it wouldn't have been without these two moments what is the point of giving her these moments you have lou embrace being alone and then cause her to lose her [ __ ] because polo said this you have lou make a stand against polo condemning his actions and his family's willingness to cover it up but somehow she still thinks she's going to get a scholarship and then she blames him for losing it baby what the character writing is weaker in later seasons but make no mistake the weakness has always been there take for instance marina there's a moment where she and samwell are working on an assignment together the assignment requires them to look at photos of each other and get to know the other person well enough to make an instagram profile for them uh it's i don't know it's it's rich people's school while someone is looking at the pictures he finds screenshots of articles marina had saved on her computer articles about her father's construction company and the role he played in the collapse of samwell's old school she says she wants to do investigative journalism and it seems as if this is where she'll start she has no respect for her father or his schemes to clean up his image by using the less fortunate photos it wouldn't be far-fetched to presume that she could be capable of exposing her own father and in the beginning i was sure that marina's death had more to do with this than anything else and she was going to make waves be confronted with either destroying her family losing her wealth and doing what's right the watch with all the information seems like it could play into this but it doesn't in fact marina's interest in her father's misdeeds ends right there as soon as it's introduced if it's been suggested that she's looking into shady business deals why does she want to keep the watch back why doesn't she want to expose them why introduce this as being part of her character part of her arc if it's not which reminds me of nano when the series begins they make a point of letting you know how much animosity nano has for the wealthy he gets out of jail and the first thing he wants to do is get back at the people who caused the collapse of san esteban christian makes a joke about the debris that fell on his head and nano well why yes christian he is thank you for noticing because i sure did it isn't that nothing is done with this being part of nano's characterization it's only that the way it ends up being utilized is kind of half-assed and frankly anti-climatic you know who i think has the best arc in the entire series [ __ ] polo the murderer and i'm not just saying that because he's bisexual shut up when you look at it differently you could perceive polo as being the real main character i know he's not technically because of this guy but his arc is bigger than one season it's over the course of three and when his arc ends so do the stories of many other students even esther exposito who plays carla said that it feels like a cycle is closed and by the end of season 3 you will see why and i really think the why is polo love him or hate him he held the show down he had the most interesting storyline in season two and even without his death in season three his arc would still be satisfying before he died he was trying to make things right with everyone and then turn himself in he made sure his parents still gave the scholarship to nadia and liu an apology won't do much when death is involved but he does apologize to guzman again he knows he's going away for a long time and he just wants to stop the cycle of pain and trauma that he started if polo didn't die if he just ended up being in jail like he planned i'd still be satisfied with his growth as a character in the beginning he's a fragile kid he's soft-spoken and quiet and can sometimes be an absolute pushover but it's also hard for him to take action and to take responsibility his choices at the end of season three they're not choices he would have made in season one but it's not inconsistent it's growth he changes and we get the chance to actually see him change unlike kayatana who goes from being absolutely manipulative to no i actually love polo a lot [ __ ] where despite being considered a secondary character most of the time polo became the pulse of elite and without him i do wonder how the upcoming seasons will fare nadia and lu get their scholarship after all the two of them leave to study in colombia and nadia and guzman's love story ends polo's death also kind of forces guzman to make peace with everything and forgive him i'll admit i'm still not 100 sure that guzman would forgive him in this moment but boy that did not stop me from tearing the [ __ ] up [Music] in the end everyone decides polo wouldn't want lou to pay for what happened so they all decide to make it look like an accident or a suicide or something polo's death brings them all together in a way that they hadn't been before despite all their clashing and petty disagreements they come together to protect lou i like the idea of this a lot but it's kind of hard to believe everyone would want to protect lou nadia guzman valerio and omar i get actually even carla because before they drifted apart carla and lou were good friends but rebecca kayatana zamwell it's hard to believe they would want to protect lou but you know what whatever i'ma go with it you may have noticed a bit of mild animosity directed towards some well throughout this video if you picked up on that wow you're very perceptive you might have espn or something because i know it was subtle the thing is it's hard for me to explain why i dislike someone it's not like his character doesn't do anything he gets caught up in a lot of [ __ ] he's in drama all the time he's always doing something it's just dear god he bores me to tears [Music] this character is the least distinctive of everyone in the show the only other person who comes close is ender but ender gets a pass from everyone because he's he's really nice to look at i'll give him that i'll give you a list of characters that bore me the most from i'm literally asleep right now to huh what i wasn't paying attention but no i'm sorry i really can't go into depth with someone kind of like the writers can't go into depth with his character he's just really that boring which is a shame because i've seen interviews with his son the actor who plays some well and when he's not doing body rolls in his bedroom he comes off as a fairly charismatic person how shittily does your character have to be written for the actor who plays him to lose all of his charm once action is called also somewhat is just so obsessed with marina in season one he loses any other quality he might have had he and nadi are supposed to be good friends but he ditches her as soon as he meets marina although he knows nadia is facing a [ __ ] time discrimination like everyone on this show is a shitty person but at least they're not boring too somewhat also while i'm on the topic of characters i might as well say i don't really buy the whole throuple thing with cayetano valerio and polo i it was so random let's do another threesome guys and they just threw three characters together worse than the character writing is the show's ability to perpetuate stereotypes while actively or seemingly actively trying to dismantle them um i call it the material girls complex you see what i said in the beginning it kind of circled back you know i i mean there's probably a real name for it i hadn't thought of that you see this is how the show tackles or doesn't tackle issues of classism racism and islamophobia one thing the show gets a lot of credit for is its inclusion of the character nadia shana there aren't many rarely any most lima characters on tv especially not ones who are essential to the plot and instrumental to the series in the way that nadia is and plenty of muslim girls and women were excited to see her on screen not only was she muslim but she was wearing a hijab and she was in the main cast and then the trailers and wow it was looking great in the beginning nadia was my favorite character and i i still very much have a thing for mina elimani but that's beside the point she was like so many women i knew and she was such a deviation from the muslim characters i'd seen in the past for instance hazel aiden and ali bhandari two characters from degrassi next generation and nadia was a relief because she was complex in ways that other characters weren't in ways that importantly made sense she was head strong confident and focused she knew what she wanted how she was going to get it and no one was going to get in her way she was at times extremely likable and at others a bit harsh and judgmental she was flawed and we all loved her for it nadia faces islamophobia almost immediately when she starts attending the new school from the rich kids from christian from the administrators which is [ __ ] the whole situation is [ __ ] the school threatens her with expulsion if she doesn't remove her hijab in school and it's an awful gut-wrenching scene the show seems to want to speak against islamophobia maybe to even suggest that nadia should be allowed to wear her scarf at school based on the tone of the scene but there's also a scene with her brother omar after samwell finds out that he's dealing drugs and despite the onslaught of harsh words from lou and guzman from calling her religion archaic and oppressive to calling her taliban girl la cabeza it seemed clear that the show is painting these antagonizers out as antagonists they're in the wrong and their words are not meant to be taken as truth which is great it's aware of the prejudices muslim women face and it seems to want to speak against it but there's always a but by season two everything changes nadia takes off her scarf while at a party and there's nothing wrong with a muslim woman choosing not to wear her hijab because in the end it's kind of her choice once more this is a problem with framing by having nadia take her scarf off and immediately become more free and more accepted by her peers it paints not only the hijab but the religion of islam out to be oppressive and rigid the way the show could have been more anti-islamophobia was by having the principal allow nadia to wear her hijab by having her peers accept her with it on by writing a muslim family with a good healthy dynamic instead of writing two kids who are absolutely terrified of their father the show runners aim to break down stereotypes only to perpetuate them dana al-sheikh ali wrote in an op-ed this year about how nadia's once seemingly groundbreaking representation has done more harm than good what bothers me the most is that the elite writers never needed to have nadia wearing a hijab in the first place they didn't even need to make her muslim instead nadia was their token muslim their ticket to claiming diversity i don't think i'm the only one who believes that i'd rather have no representation at all and harmful representation the moment when nadia takes off her scarf and is freed by that action i immediately thought of goldina here a character from degrassi next class oh wow look i'm finally talking about degrassi may not have been what you had in mind but anyway degrassi next class is an amazingly flawed show i like to call it my endearing little hot mess but there are story lines that i really appreciate and goldie nahiers is one of them i mean not her full storyline just from this one episode like nadia goldie ends up in a somewhat forbidden relationship with winston chu eggnodia goldie can be judgmental about the lives of others when russia a new student enrolls she and goldie become fast friends as they're both muslim and not complete dumb asses goldie kind of embarrasses herself and after that rasha decides she doesn't want to wear her hijab anymore goalie considers taking up her hijab too because she doesn't want to stop being friends with russia so goldie goes to school and she takes it off and then she puts it right back on she realizes she doesn't feel free or better without it that she's compromising a part of herself to fit in and that she would much rather be herself than pretend she likes wearing hijab and rasha doesn't wear hijab and you know what they can still be friends and that's fine also if people want to be idiots about islam that's on them not her in less than 20 minutes degrassi depicts the relationship between a muslim woman and her hijab with more care than elite does in three seasons but nadia is just one example of the many ways elite manages to almost say something but not quite see that was this that was what i meant the main theme of the show has all to do with class class disparity class discrimination classes that the students barely attend okay that wasn't funny strike it from the record despite focusing so much of its time and a significant amount of the character's dialogue to discussing the rich and the poor elite does little to further demonstrate its point if it has one but oh you're being too harsh it's brain candy it's melodrama it's not meant to be deep i agree this could be like the oc or 90210 or any number of the teen soap operas that don't concern themselves much with trying to be more than what they are for a long time this is how i view the show but even in the moments of dumb fun it's impossible to ignore the topics the show centers around part of nadia and guzman's star-crossed lovers thing isn't only that nadia's muslim and guzman isn't but that nadia is poor and guzman is rich most of the couples in the show are exactly that in season one it was samwell in marina nano one marina and you know what by the way it's [ __ ] weird that none of marina are together and everyone acts like it's normal because i'm pretty sure nano is a grown ass man and marina's like 15 going on 16 what the [ __ ] is up with that christian and polo and carla and although ander isn't rich he is by his own declaration middle class which still separates him from omar this continues throughout every season the hook of the story is that three poor kids go to a very elite school and become entangled with all sorts of dangerous people at the end of season one we know polo killed menina but the person who pays for his crime and gets sent to jail is nano season one is the only season that captures the theme of the show in a realized way and if we just ended there we'd wallow in the knowledge that the rich can get away with anything even murder i know i said i like that season 1 ends in a way that allows for a second season but i think even if we just left it here as a miniseries this ending is actually complete it's brutal it's sad but the story could be over they got away with it the end and what you take away from that is well eat the [ __ ] rich it starts to shift in season two and then it stagnates the theme is still there but there's not a lot being done with it and by season three it's just unclear rich people get away with things sometimes but that's okay maybe i promise i'm not looking too deeply into something that isn't supposed to be overanalyzed i'm looking at a show that clearly wants to do more a show that makes a point of including a quote from pedro albizo campos the quote being when tyranny is law revolution is order and does nothing with anything my frustration with it isn't that it isn't deep it's that it wants to be and it's not it's like how you can enjoy something that's self-aware and can't be but you can't enjoy something that thinks it's smarter than it is you don't have to be deep you can be a murder mystery with ruffles galore i don't care [Music] so does this mean you shouldn't like elite no what the [ __ ] i don't care what you like i'm a person posting a video on the internet i'm not the academy awards and even if i was the academy awards my opinion should not mean much to you given the fact that both crash and green book have multiple oscars now enjoy what you want to enjoy like what you like i'm probably still going to check the show out when the fourth season arrives just to see where it's at even though many of the characters i like are gone i didn't appreciate polo while he was here and now look at him he's dead nadia was my favorite character and she's dipped out blue's gone so that means one of these new characters is going to replace her with smart insults and it'll just remind me of her and then i'll be sad valedio i take back what i said about you not being interesting enough please do not leave me here with these people and after seeing the new cast members i can almost hear the showrunner saying yeah we tried the black thing for a season and uh no but i suppose i should be thankful that some of these old characters are leaving and making it possible for other characters to you know do things good on you for me the show isn't as good as it was when it first started and even then it was flawed but it was also just a fun time if the show continues to dip in quality if it gets to the point where it feels like it's beating a dead horse we'll always have season one for all of it's not great moments and its questionable character decisions it was a solid murder mystery that made people excited about the future of teen drama genre and that's something to celebrate last thing i'll say is that regardless of the show's quality i will always be grateful toward it for introducing me to mina alhamani she is so hot she is so my type i didn't even watch season three because i cared about the plot i watched it because i wanted to look at her face look at her face [Music] you

Channel: Yhara zayd

Views: 163,694

Rating: 4.9535928 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: pJA94j2Qx7Y

Length: 60min 14sec (3614 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 10 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/DarKy-dak1ng]

1hr video, wow
tl;dw

but i clicked on 47' min and she says she doesn't like Samu because he's in drama all the time, he's always doing something "dear god he bores me to tears"

I honestly think there's a lot of action around Samu in all three seasons. But maybe it's boring for her.

I don't expect people to rewatch the show but an average person can barely remember student's names after first season and it just tells how many things we're going to miss no matter what. So people are going to rate it "an average" or worse (unless they rewatch the show or look for explanation in wiki).

[u/DorindasLiver]

I agree with most of her points except for Ander not "deserving" Omar. They're just a bad fit, neither is better than the other, they both done fucked up xd.

S2 and s3 have bad mysteries. S2 was too predictable and boring, S3 was the opposite. There were no clues pointing towards the killer...

Also, what they did to Lu was rly annoying xd

And, yess Polo is the best written and most interesting character.

Finally, I rly disagree about the Nadia take. The video creator says that it's islamophobic, which it is not. I thought the writers really outdid themselves with her storyline of emancipation. It was incredibly well acted by the whole family as well.

[u/TE3NIDDL3]

That's her opinion. I only agree that Samuel is boring, Caye is an interesting character and Polo is the heart of the show. I don't think Ander is boring. He was a withdrawn introvert, which made him different from all characters, but he was also eccentric. It was interesting to watch and I always looked forward to scenes with him. I don't think also that Ander doesn't deserve Omar. In season two, he struggled with a lot of problems. Divorce of parents, death of Marina, Polo's secret. It was too much for him. Omar had always been a support for him, and he finally appreciated it. They functioned really well at the start of season three. And I'm surprised her favorite character is Nadia, because I still blame her for having sex with Guzman knowing he has a girlfriend. Then she apologized to Lu, but the resentment remained. But that's her opinion. It's nice that someone has analyzed the elite in such detail.