Murder on the Dancefloor
When it comes to teen dramas, Spanish melodrama Elite is one of the better options in this genre. Last season added more depth to the already entangled story, revolving around the disappearance of Samuel for much of its run-time. This time around we’ve got a new murder to worry about and this all continues to be a vast ripple effect from the original murder way back at the end of season 1. We begin episode 1 of Elite with a party, as people dance and enjoy the night, as fragments of glass rain down around them. A body drops with it – someone has been pushed from the DJ booth and Carla is the one who stands watching the carnage unfold with a grim look on her face. We then jump back five months earlier, as we see her question her Mother about “him” being released from prison. That “him” being Polo of course. This catches us up to that fateful final scene last season as we jump back to school to see our eclectic group looking at Polo with angry, disdainful looks on their faces as he’s led through the school halls. The rest of the group gather in the classroom as they’re told that Polo is released on bail. The judge ha decided on a confrontation between the accuser (Carla of course) and Polo to get their stories straightened out. As the teacher moves on to mention their exams, she tells them to keep focused… just as Valerio enters the room. Lu confronts him after class though and tells him her Father will kill him if he finds out he’s still around. Polo phones Carla at school and tells her they could go back to the way things used to be. She goes on to tell him she’s going to tell the truth and put an end to this entire charade they’ve been playing since the end of season 1. Back home however, Carla speaks to her Father about the hearing and he tells her to withdraw her statement, going on to essentially blackmail her and her Mother over this. Ander and Omar continue to hook up but alarmingly he feels lumps in his lover’s groin. After their hook-up, Ander visits a doctor and awaits the results patiently. At the club Valerio and Rebeca hook up together but all of this is a plot with Lu to get to the bottom of what he’s doing. She confronts him about their parents and after hearing his story, she promises to help him. Back at school, our large group of characters welcome a new boy into the fold called Malick – the same boy Nadia met in her Father’s shop earlier in the episode. He flirts with her but for now, things are left wide open, especially given Nadia’s past with Guzman and the others. Samuel catches up with Carla and tells her he loves her. After a swift slap to the face, she walks away from him while Guzman approaches Ander and talks to him about the case. Only, he receives a text about the test results midway through Guzman talking to him, forced into leaving this conversation and heading up to the hospital instead. The day of Polo’s confrontation begins and all our characters arrive at court, aside from Ander of course. Carla tells them all she fabricated the entire story and deeply regrets her actions in this. She looks around the court and apologises for all the pain she’s put people through and asks for forgiveness as Samuel sees his plan come crashing down around him. Afterward the investigator confronts her and asks just what she’s doing, “Securing my future” she replies as Carla watches her walk away. Lu organises a meeting between Valerio and her Father where she admits that he didn’t molest her last season, it was her choice in the matter too. As she mentions being an adult, he tells her that he’ll provide food and water for her but everything else is off the table. When she turns 18, he wants her out the house, leaving her shell-shocked and crying while Valerio watches on helplessly. At school, Nadia has issues getting a scholarship around her video that leaked last episode and as Guzman watches from afar, she befriends Malick and agrees to go for coffee with him. On a cocktail of rage and betrayal, Guzman turns his attention to Polo whom he sees not long after and winds up smacking him square in the face, prompting their teacher to threaten the entire class. In the present timeline, we see Carla speaking to the investigator in the familiar face to face set-up we’ve seen in previous seasons as Carla tells her she didn’t push the murder victim. It’s here we relive that night as we see Carla follow blood spatters on the floor and wrap up a smashed bottle, stuffing the evidence in her bag but leaving the blood on the floor. The investigator looks in Carla’s bag for clues and upon finding nothing of interest, Carla pleads with the investigator and tells her she would never hurt Polo. It’s here we cut across to the body on the floor and see that this is actually Polo who was murdered. With another murder to contend with and a solid “whodunit” set up, given how many characters we have to contend with each episode now, the answer looks to be obvious. Carla has murdered Polo to prevent him spilling the truth about what’s happened in the past. Of course, when it comes to this Spanish drama nothing is as simple as it first appears. The scene is set for a dramatic, twisty-turny thriller to follow and season 3 looks like it’ll be a pretty interesting one indeed. The recaps at the start of the season are incredibly helpful and I do recommend watching these on Netflix before jumping in if you need a bit of a reminder over what happened last season. For now though, Elite gets off to a great start but quite what the rest of the season has in store for us, remains to be seen.
