'Elite' Is Often Thrilling in Its Parts, but Somewhat Underwhelming in the End

The Spanish-made Elite is supposedly this year’s hottest teen drama series on TV.  It’s about three working-class teenagers who are given scholarships to an exclusive private school by a construction company as a PR stunt after the roof of their old school, which the company built, collapsed.  In this new environment, their interactions with their rich classmates either lead to bitter friction or unconventional friendships.

The show contains many generic tropes and character types of the genre.  There’s the bland, nice guy.  The kind uptown girl.  The troubled chick-magnet.  The mean queen bee.  The arrogant jerk with a heart of gold underneath.  The free spirit with an I-don’t-give-a-damn attitude.  The brainy, conservative girl.  The manipulative bitch in sheep’s clothing.  There’s a love triangle.  Some “will they, won’t day” pairings.  A “coming out of the closet” arc.  A “boy pretending to be in love with a girl in order to get revenge on her, only to fall in love for real” arc.  You know, all that jazz.

Of course, we are now in the era of teen shows like 13 Reasons Why.  The standard fare is not enough.  It needs to push the envelope in terms of angst and edginess.  So it also features stuff like sex, drugs, and nudity.  Teen pregnancy.  A character contracting HIV.  A polyamorous relationship.  Students blackmailing other students.  Student blackmailing teachers.  Corporate fraud.  Religious persecution.  Etc.

But, most importantly, at the center of it all is the murder of one of the students.

Indeed, the murder mystery is the biggest draw of the show for me.  And I like how the flash forwards to the interrogation of the students are effectively weaved into the main storyline of its 8-episode first season, putting emphasis on the particular parts of the plot where the characters are involved in, while at the same time, dropping clues on who the guilty among them can possibly be.  Everyone is a suspect, and leading to the big reveal, it seems like the murderer is someone unexpected.  Unfortunately, when the narrative finally gets there, it feels kind of underwhelming.

In the end, Elite didn’t impress me as much as I thought it would.  There are thrills to be had, sure, but with the kind of hype surrounding it, I was expecting to get my socks blown off, which didn’t happen.  I’m sure others will enjoy it more than I did.  Maybe it’s just not my cup of tea.   Maybe I just prefer my over-the-top teen drama shows to be more like Riverdale – ludicrous fun.