By Jenna Rittman
Correspondent
“Heartbreak High” is back in session. Season two of “Heartbreak High” was released on April 11, containing new characters, new love interests and new drama.
This is a 2022 Australian TV show that follows Amerie Wadia and her chaotic high school experience at Hartley High. The show is a reboot of the 1994 show of the same name.
Season one is all about Wadia and her fallout with her childhood best friend, Harper McLean. At the beginning of the season, Wadia is exposed for creating an “incest map” on one of the school’s walls, depicting everyone’s sexual activity with one another in the school. While she is trying to repair her reputation and trying to get McLean to talk to her, she also navigates love, sex and heartbreak.
Now that “Heartbreak High” is back for season two, there is some new drama that Wadia finds herself involved in. In the first episode, Wadia starts finding dead birds that keep on appearing around her, such as in her bookbag and at her front door. Eventually, her and her friends nickname this anonymous person as “Bird Psycho,” and they are determined to find the identity behind this person. Alongside this, Wadia must deal with her feelings regarding her ex-boyfriend Malaki Mitchell, and focus on her campaign to become the school’s captain.
One of my favorite things about “Heartbreak High” since season one is how much diversity there is in the show. The cast and characters are all diverse in terms of race, gender and their sexualities. They also have a character with autism, played by an actress who is also autistic. Many people on TikTok have responded positively to this representation, and many agree that this representation is accurate. I’m also happy that one of the characters is asexual, since there is not much asexual representation found in the media.
There were multiple things that I liked about season two, for instance how President Woodsy of Hartley High acted almost as a parental figure for McLean. She helped teach McLean how to drive, and that moment was very heartwarming. The bond between those two was very nice to see, even though I am not the biggest fan of McLean.
Speaking of McLean, I wish they held her accountable for participating in that incest map with Wadia. I do not like how everyone just let McLean off so easily while bashing Wadia for the entire first season.
While I did enjoy seeing the romance between Mitchell and the new character, Rowan, I did feel bad for Wadia the entire time because of Mitchell’s miscommunication. Mitchell asked Wadia if they could have a more casual relationship because he was figuring out his feelings for Rowan. It felt like she was done dirty the entire season.
I’m quite happy that we got to see more of Missy Beckett this season. She barely got any screen time in season one, but they really highlighted her more in this season. I also liked seeing her fool around with Spencer “Spider” White, even though I don’t like his character. We also ended up seeing Spider’s home life, which I found interesting and I am glad we are learning more about his upbringing.
It was also refreshing to see that season two introduces a new plus-size side character, since we don’t see many plus-size characters in the media.
One of my favorite scenes in the entire show is when Douglas “Ca$h” Piggott gets high and starts dancing in the park to music that a man is playing on his boombox. Apparently, that man is Danny Lim, who is an Australian activist and former politician. Many Australian fans of the show recognized him from videos I’ve seen on TikTok. The scene itself is just very entertaining.
Overall, I’m super happy with season two even though I wish they did a few things differently. I mainly wish that they made the rest of the school hold McLean accountable for making that map with Wadia. I wish that she would’ve faced some backlash like Wadia did. I’m looking forward to seeing if they plan to go ahead with another season for this show.
