Liking, Subscribing & Hacking
Introductions
Welcome! If you need a handy recap before Control Z Season 2 drops, we’ve got you covered with our full story recap if you don’t fancy plunging back into this 10 episode series. Control Z takes place in a social-media obsessed high school and is basically a mash-up of Elite, Gossip Girl and You. If you weren’t initially clued in to the social media slant on this, the opening shots show a litany of emojis floating in the air like zero gravity confetti. Anyway, let’s tuck in.
An unlikely match
Our story begins with Sofia walking through the hallways and intervening with Gerry and his clique as they start bullying Luis. This bullying does continue throughout the series, growing increasingly more nasty as the episodes progress. To start with here, it’s a simple case of Sofia ushering the kids to move so she can reach her locker. Sofia is a rebellious loner and that’s only made worse by the fact her father died a year prior. However, Sofia’s entire persona is put to the test when she’s teamed up on a project with new kid Javier. During the school presentation, a mysterious stranger hijacks the video to reveal that Isabella is actually transgender. This marks the first of a string of victims who have their secrets revealed. While Isabella and her boyfriend Pablo are teased by the students, Sofia starts to investigate.
The investigation begins
It doesn’t take long before Isabella receives a message from “@allyour secrets”, asking if she wants to get revenge on those who have wronged her. There’s four names here – Gerry, Natalia, Raul and Pablo. Isabella agrees to the revenge and chaos inevitably ensues. More videos are released, incriminating all four, while the school scramble to work out what’s going on. All the students visit the new school principal, Quintanilla, with their concerns; Sofia gets herself sent there intentionally so she can investigate. It’s pretty fruitless in truth. While lurking about though, Sofia soon finds out that the school’s security is actually pretty fragile and the WiFi network looks vulnerable to being hacked. Whoever did this seems to be a student – or part of the school system. Sofia continues to trade texts with the hacker, although her phone is confiscated at school which complicates matters. This leaves her to investigate using her intuition. As she does, flashbacks reveal a conversation she’s having with a mysterious man at a bar. Sofia promises him she’ll get to the bottom of things as it becomes clear she too is keeping secrets.
The coma
Back at school, everything kicks off during a particularly nasty bout of bullying against Luis. In fact, an uppercut from Gerry sees him knock the poor kid clean out. Sofia takes advantage of the situation and uses Luis’ thumb to unlock his phone. Here, she watches a video confirming that he didn’t hack anyone. Sofia decides to use this to clear Luis’ name, given his earlier pressured confession in the season. The incident also sees Gerry expelled. There’s a big party in the midst of all this, where the hacker continues to try and coerce the kids into fulfilling different tasks. One of those involves Sofia jumping off the roof into the swimming pool. This seems to be what the hacker needs to make his entrance, which occurs not long after when Sofi is grabbed and taken away. It’s a brief segment in truth (and played for the effect of a dramatic cliffhanger) but allows Sofia to come face to face with the hacker. Whoever it is, they’re wearing a creepy mask.
The NONA
The beginning of the end arrives at school the next day. All the students receive a text from the hacker claiming that their secrets are going to be exposed at the NONA. Sofia eventually circles back around to Bruno, the IT guy from school who originally mentioned the WiFi being vulnerable. Sofia interrogates him and comes to the conclusion that he’s just an accomplice and not actually the hacker. Javier and Raul fighting again is just the distraction Bruno needs to scramble off with his laptop. Only, Sofia believes Javier is in collusion with him given the sloppy attempt to stop the IT technician from getting away. As we soon come to find out, Javier’s nice guy act is just that – an act. He’s been involved in some pretty shady stuff in his past, including a hazing ritual gone wrong. Within this, he encouraged one of his old friends to jump to his doom. Javier is erratic and fueled by revenge; the exact characteristics that the hacker has. For now though, it’s unclear whether this holds any weight, but it’s clear Raul and Sofia believe he’s the hacker.
The hacker is revealed!
With Bruno flying under the radar and the identity of both the hacker and Pablo’s “honey bunny” a mystery at this point, Quintanilla begins acting really shady. He bans phones at school and launches a full investigation after cancelling the NONA. However, Sofia finds comfort in Raul, whom she makes love to toward the end of the season. However, as the camera pans down it shows a hacker mask under the bed. It was Raul all along! So Raul is the hacker. He was the one who created the “@allyoursecrets” account with Bruno, working together to harvest information on his own friends and various students around campus. This then coincides nicely with a series of flashbacks to earlier moments in the season – with additional context to show how he’s the ringleader in all this. Eventually it leads up to Raul donning the mask at this party and kidnapping Sofi. At school, an oblivious Sofia teams up with Raul to tell Quintanella that Javier was the hacker. In doing this, it gets the innocent kid expelled. Quintanella’s earlier suspicious behaviour is explained here though. It turns out he’s been having an affair with Susanna and Raul has been blackmailing him. Raul also gets his father arrested while Jordi loads Nati up with drugs for the NONA. This has been an ongoing subplot throughout the season, with Nati paying off her debt through selling drugs.
Sofia’s trump card
The NONA begins and secrets are revealed. Maria tells Pablo that she’s pregnant, which goes down like a ton of bricks. At the same time, Sofia tells Raul that if Javier is the hacker she wants to leave and be with him. Oh, the irony! Well, Raul soon admits to being the hacker but it seems Sofia already knew. According to her, she did all this to coerce a confession out of him. Sofia begins growing in confidence, monologuing about how she’s so clever. Raul justifies his actions though, claiming that this is exactly what she wanted and now no one is lying anymore at school.
Confessions
As Raul confesses to everything, it’s revealed that actually, Javier has been filming all of this. At the hospital, Luis goes into cardiac arrest. During a particularly poignant and difficult moment, this leads to him dying. At the same time, Pablo exposes Maria as the honey bunny but after all the drama and issues Isa has had to deal with, she’s nonchalant over the reveal. Back at school, Javier and Raul fight on the glass roof, which is a pretty common hang out spot for these kids by now. Gerry, now armed with a handgun, shows up as Raul staggers down from the roof to a raucous chorus of boos.
Raul’s revenge
Just before leaving though, Raul uses the school projector to play a video exposing all the other dark secrets being kept. Not only do the students learn that Alex has been sleeping with her teacher, they also find out that Sofia’s dead father is actually alive. On that same subject, it turns out he faked his own death. Now, although we’re not explicitly told, it seems like he could well have done to this to score a tidy sum of life insurance money. Outside the school, Gerry confronts Raul. He holds the gun under his own chin and demands an explanation. Javier jumps in to try and save him but ends up getting shot for his troubles. As the episode comes to a close, a big cliffhanger hangs over this one as Javier has been shot. Will he survive? Or will he end up with a similar fate to Luis? So that’s the entire story of Control Z Season 1 in a nutshell. There’s a lot more going on here – including more intricate details surrounding some of the love triangles and bickering, but hopefully this is enough to get you up to scratch for season 2. Control Z Season 2 drops on Netflix worldwide on the 4th August 2021! What did you think of Control Z’s story? Have we missed any crucial details in this recap? Do let us know in the comments below!
