Elite Is the Wild Spanish Teen Drama You Should Absolutely Be Watching
In 2020, teen dramas have moved on from the bygone era in which (hot) 35-year-old actors played 16-year-old schoolchildren who used overly long words and endlessly anguished over whether or not to date the girl from down the creek or the new neighbor from the brownstone next door. And sure, Gossip Girl is still around, but it’s on HBO Max now, where you can probably expect 30% more drug use, bare butts, and swearing—and, for once, a more age-appropriate protagonist.
Looking at the small screen’s transformation over the past decade, it’s only natural that the tidal wave of prestige television would crash down upon the tried and true teen drama. We’ve traded angst and hand-wringing for smart sex writing on Netflix’s Sex Education, sharp and true-to-reality portrayals of addiction and toxic masculinity on HBO’s Euphoria, and win-at-all-costs political satire in Ryan Murphy’s The Politician. In other words, teen TV should no longer be relegated to a guilty pleasure you indulge in when you’re hungover. The kids have never been alright, but they’ve never been worse off—or more compelling—than today’s batch of stress-riddled TV characters.
This is exemplified by Netflix’s insanely-addictive Spanish teen offering, Elite. The show has all the markings of a teen TV classic: Underprivileged and marginalized kids thrust into the exclusive world of the super rich? Check. A cast of insanely beautiful actors all in their twenties who feel like they’re contracted to take their clothes off at least once an episode? Check. Love triangles and forbidden romance? Check. Murder…?
Elite follows a group of teens at a prestigious private school in Spain, Las Encinas (the building of which feels closer to a San Francisco tech campus than a high school). Within the first minute of the first episode, however, you realize things aren’t all as they seem: A member of the student body has been killed. Reminiscent of Shonda Rhimes’s How To Get Away With Murder, HBO breakout Big Little Lies, and the criminally underrated Glenn Close series Damages, the show uses flashbacks to expertly weave together its tangled mystery, tossing you through a number of unpredictable pivots and bisexual threesomes in the process. It is, quite frankly, ridiculous. That’s what makes it so utterly captivating.
Clearly subscribing to the Riverdale school of batshit plotting, no subject is off limits for Elite. Thankfully, the first season of the show isn’t inaccessible in its outlandishness, although you’ll definitely need to suspend your disbelief before you hit play. Focused mainly on the love triangle between working class student Samuel, his ex-con older brother Nano, and Marina, a melancholic and troubled Marissa Cooper-esque rich girl, the show soon fans out to tackle racial discrimination, class inequality, and corruption.
Underpinning the whole thing is the show’s rich characterization. Consistency is key, and unlike other teen dramas, whose characters undergo flip-flopping personality transplants every time a new story arc begins, Elite burrows deep into the motivations and psychological makeup of its core cast. Samuel, green and innocent at the start, has his world blown open by his affection for Marina and his realization of the power and violence, both physical and mental, that the super wealthy wield. The relationships between the working class students and their privileged classmates is fraught with tension, the latter’s cruelty and bullying a reminder of how money can strip away a person’s empathy. When Samuel learns the reason why his old school closed and why he has been gifted places at a private institution, he is caught up in a world of corruption, only complicated by his brother Nano, who finds himself in a dangerous financial situation. Following the murder, and into the show’s second season, you see Samuel unravel as he goes to extreme lengths to uncover the true killer, all while the last vestiges of his naivety are played upon by those willing to manipulate to get what they want.
Likewise, Marina finds herself at odds with her economic privilege, embracing the education and opportunities offered to her while rejecting the manicured facade that her family presents. Her HIV+ status, drug taking, relationships with Nano and Samuel, and discovery that her father has embezzled public funds leads her to realize the morally questionable behaviors involved to accumulate money and power.
Even Elite’s comic relief mutates throughout its first season, twisting until all humor is wrung out and its characters are left gnarled and bruised. Christian, one of Samuel’s friends and another working class newcomer at the exclusive high school, finds himself embroiled in a bizarre sexual farce with existing (and exorbitantly rich) couple Polo and Carla. As things progress, their relationship—which originally plays out like a twisted sex game lifted from Cruel Intentions—takes real shape; before long, the trio become a proper thruple. Other less confident shows might have made an issue over Christian and Polo’s sudden same-sex experimentation, but Elite allows for a naturalistic portrayal of sexual fluidity that isn’t a plot point, but instead, another facet of these character’s development.
Where shows like Gossip Girl and The O.C. often took laissez-faire approaches to how they portrayed sexuality, Elite does just the opposite. The show’s sweetest, and perhaps most nuanced plot involves tennis prodigy Ander and Omar, a Muslim drug dealer. Their romance, unlike the heightened melodrama of the other relationships on the show, is grounded and serious. We see the impact that internalized homophobia can have on young men, their fractured relationships with their fathers, the conflict between conservative, familial religious beliefs and sexuality, and, of course, the manifestation and impact of class difference in relationships. But their love is also tender, too, and from the scenes where they’re kissing during their first venture to a gay bar to the moment when they’re in bed together and first say “I love you," it feels cheek-blushingly intimate as you peek into the quiet privacy of two men exploring and shaping their identities.
At its core, though, Elite is a still a somewhat camp soap opera about the lives of teenagers, and it certainly has fun with it. It’s hard not to feel a jolt of glee when future heiress Carla, clearly modeled on telenovelas villains, seduces another boy to help further her personal agenda or to cover up another crime. And the snobbish Lu, while deeply unlikeable, is so ferociously bitchy that her cutting jibes and offensive asides feel ripped straight from the Ryan Murphy playbook. She’s also the subject of one of the show’s wilder plots, something no good teen drama can do without: incest. When her drug-addled and over-sexed half-brother Valerio rocks up in the second season, their sibling rivalry, played initially for laughs, is a cover for the fact that the pair have definitely been playing the Naked Olympics together. But while, yes, you definitely shouldn’t fuck your brother, Elite’s sensitivity around sexuality means that you don’t cast judgement on the pair. You see how isolated Lu is in her position as the school’s Queen Bee, and Valerio, all his arrogance and unbridled hedonism, provides comfort and camaraderie (as well as sexual gratification…) to his lonely sister. Should they be doing it? Probably not, but Elite helps you understand why they might be.
Elite is layered, though, and heightened teenage melodramatics aside, the central simmering mysteries each season do hold up their own when held up against shows like The Sinner or The Killing. And, at only eight episodes a season, there’s no space for things to become bloated either (making this the perfect coronavirus self-isolation binge watch, TBH). However, more than that, Elite plays out like a teenage fantasy, filled with the sort of intrigue, sexual gratification, and drama that most of us would have relished during our awkward teenage years. Even better, it does so with a wink, begging you to relinquish control of your seriousness and to let a little silly in. And did I mention that every single member of the cast is so good looking that it might give heart palpitations?
It also looks like this third season is something of a coda. While it has yet to be picked up for a fourth season, rumors are circulating that the show’s creators are overhauling the cast for any future outings. It makes sense: as things stand for season three, these characters are on the edge—there’s only so much incest, partying, and clandestine romance that one group of people can take. So take this opportunity to catch up and welcome this chaotic set of murderous, super horny group of Spanish teens into your life. I promise it’ll help you feel young again.
Originally Appeared on GQ
