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Elite is elite

(sorry for the dumb title, I couldn’t think of anything else)


Where do I begin? Elite is a show about a bunch of high school students being tangled up with a murder, and them navigating their way through with a murderer amongst them. The school in the show is a private school, so think How to get away with murder and Gossip Girl, and you’d basically have Elite.


I’m not going to drone on and on about how I think it’s a great show, though I should inform you I only watched it up till season 3, but instead I’m going to rate the characters of the show because the content would be much easier to write as compared to a complete review of the show. (I will still give one review though, which is season 3 isn’t as well-written as 1 and 2.)

Elite has a relatively larger cast, so I’m just going to cherry-pick and choose the characters who I remember enough to write a whole post about.


Let’s start off with the main character, shall we?


Samuel.


4/10

He’s alright. When he first got introduced, my thought immediately went to Dan Humphrey. (I’m an avid fan of Gossip Girl, so there will be multiple references to the show. If you don’t get it, then boy, do I have weekend plans lined up for you.) He’s introduced to us as a protagonist from the get-go, and I think he remained pretty much as a blank slate throughout. He doesn’t really do much in the show, apart from your usual high school self, which is to befriend a girl, fall in love, have a relationship, and then spend the rest of your school years finding her murderer. I think he is written as a gateway for the audience, so the audience watches the show based on his perspective (especially in the first season), and gateway characters are quite bland in general (again, think Dan Humphrey), so Samuel doesn’t really stand out much as a character in season 1. In season 2, he became his own character with storylines outside of the main one, but it was still lacking. I couldn’t really understand why he was so in love with Marina, even after finding out she slept with his brother and was in love with him. A murdered ex-girlfriend is hard to move on from, but you would think it’ll be easier since Marina was such a bitch. (I honestly thought she was going to steal from her own family to save the brother, but I’ve underestimated how damaged her brain is.) I understand Samuel was trying to save his brother from jail, but his actions after his brother got released and his subsequent fits thrown at Polo were so…weird. There were times I felt he was legitimately angrier at Polo for killing Marina than for sending his innocent brother to jail (priorities?). I don’t understand his character motivation, especially in season 3, and whenever he pops out on my screen, I just know I’m going to be annoyed.


Nadia.


6/10

I have no idea if she was a good representation of the Muslim community, mainly because I don’t see most of my Muslim friends (especially girls) taking off their hijabs and making out with boys at the club, but moving past that, I thought her character was interesting. She is trapped inside a strict household, and she does not allow herself to find and understand herself truly on her own terms. The struggles she had with balancing her nice daughter's identity and her wilder, more rebellious regular high school student was relatable to watch. I think anyone who grew up even in a semi-conservative household understands the conflict between “OMG I can’t do this” and “OMG I want to do this” quite well. Whatever your choice is, it will then always make you feel guilty afterwards, even though nothing bad or illegal was done, which is why I think her character was one of the most frustrating and yet interesting to watch. (Plus, you just know there is a cane somewhere in her house, and it makes a lot of sense for her to be on her toes all the time.) I didn’t like how she treated her brother, though, always judging him as though she was a saint and making her brother’s problems and struggles all about her. I get that teenagers are all self-centred, but you don’t have to be such a hypocritical bitch.


Polo.


8/10

Speaking of frustrating and interesting, here we have the most attractive man in the cast. (This rating will be and is heavily biased.) I thought his character was sort of redundant, up until the last few episodes of season 1 obviously, but I liked his character the most. The period where he kept lying to Guzman about him not being the murderer irked me as well, but I don’t think any of us could admit to our best friends that we accidentally killed their sister, which is what made his character less hateable. At least you can see where he’s coming from. The pure tension you feel when watching him interact with Guzman and everybody else who wasn’t aware of his crime was already miles more thrilling than Samuel’s disappearance. His actions after the murder are a very classic case of being a product of his environment. Multiple times throughout the show he had the intention of confessing, but his girlfriends and mothers kept denying him the opportunity and make him turn the other way, which made his struggles more three-dimensional. He not only had to grapple with himself, but he also had to fight and struggle with the people in his life telling him to keep quiet. Everything from the murder, to his coverup, to his life after everyone turned against him wasn’t choices or situations he willingly made and got into. His character had to deal with a lot of conflicting thoughts and coupled with the performance of the actor, that made his character the most interesting, less detestable and even garnered sympathy from viewers.


Lu.


6/10

Her character went viral and was compared to the many queen bees in many other high school dramas like Blair Waldorf. Though I see where the comparison is coming from, I thought her character was redundant in the first 2 seasons. She was just there as the rich girl and the IT girl and offered nothing else interesting or important to the storyline. Though I will say the casting for this character was done incredibly because if it was another actress, I don’t think the character would be as charismatic or become a fan-favourite. Her storyline only got interesting by season 3, where she was cut off by her family and only then can we see more than her bad bitch character. She finally had depth to her character, reasons for doing the things she does, and her actions became much more than “because that’s what the audience likes.” Lu in season 3 is a very rare case of reverse flanderization. (Also, she was more guilty in her murder of Polo than Polo was with his murder of Marina.)


Guzman.


7/10

Let’s be honest, everyone likes a reformed bad boy trope like Chuck Bass, so it’s not a surprise he also became one of the fan favourites. His character development was the strongest, going from an annoying elitist stuck-up prep boy to someone who accepts and mingles with anyone he likes, regardless of status. This type of character development is almost always foolproof. That being said, his character post season 1 was no longer as interesting, and I think a huge part of it was because his pairing with Nadia just wasn’t as electric as it was. His character seemed to be fully developed by the end of season 1, so for the other 2 seasons, he was just floating by.


Relationships.

After all, what is a high school show without everyone dating one another?


Nadia and Guzman.



I loved them in season 1, didn’t care for them in 2 and 3. I didn’t understand their relationship at all in season 2. They acted like strangers, and Nadia should really have just told him about her unable to see a future with him due to her religion and family, and just proceeded on as friends instead of leading the poor guy on. I mean, why would she hook up with him fully knowing he was in love with her, and she didn’t want a relationship? That sounds like a dick move. In season 3, their relationship barely progressed, and all their kisses bored me. I can’t really believe she also said that their love wasn’t enough for them to be in a relationship when she was fully prepared to snort coke and who knows what else for him. Nadia was even more ridiculous in their short story, but that is another rant for later.


Carla and Samuel.



Not sure where this ship started from. I don’t believe Samuel is truly that good in bed for her to fall head over heels for him, but here we are. Their relationship made no sense, and there weren’t enough problems or challenges they went through together for them to be so concerned for the other, especially considering their relationship started because he was convinced she was an accomplice to Marina’s murder (and she was using him for reasons I’ve forgotten). I have no idea why people like them so much, and I honestly don’t intend to.


Ander and Omar.



Again, they were cute in season 1, not so much in 2 and 3. Their relationship was too tumultuous, and they never seemed to be on the same page. Someone is always more in love than the other, and their on and off love is a spectacle to watch.


Carla and Polo.



Truly thought the show would be written as them against the world. They had the perfect set-up, and they wasted it on Samuel. Even if they couldn’t be partners, it should’ve become a murder-suicide love, since he killed for her, and she covered it up for him. Their scene in the courtroom was intense too and I can’t believe that was the only time we saw them together in season 3. They should’ve been the main couple, and I stand by this 100%.





I would like to end this by saying when watching the show, I changed all their ages to 18, because there will never come a day where I’m deluded enough to believe that they’re 16. And for 18 year olds, they’re all very messy, even more so than the Gossip Girl crew, I think.

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