Netflix’s Heartbreak High Season 2: A Dramatic Shift in Tone and Style

Netflixu2019s reboot of the 90s classic ramps up the colour and sensationalism. Itu2019s all high and no heart. The second season of Netflixu2019s reboot begins with Carrie-esque visions of a school formal erupting in flames, as if to say: this season will be louder, busier, and more sensational than the first.

And perhaps racier: within the first half-hour, the protagonist u2013 Hartley High student Amerie (Ayesha Madon) u2013 has had sex at school. Comparably indelicate moments from the original production, created by the late, great, came with a sting: the show dipped in quality along its 200+ episode arc but it was originally as much social realism as soap opera, with a streetside energy that felt raw, unfiltered and a bit dangerous u2013 like smoking your first cigarette.

Netflixu2019s series, created by Hannah Carroll Chapman, is starkly different: polished, upbeat, and performative. Plenty of moments make you think: u201cHuh? Would somebody really do that?u201d One takes place in the first episode, when a student (Brodie Townsend) drops his weed-infused gummies on the ground and, instead of picking them up, scarfs them all down. Itu2019s obvious from a scripting perspective why he does this u2013 to trigger wild wastoid humour, culminating with the kid proclaiming that heu2019s going to cut his own penis off.

This scene, like many others, is neither drama nor comedy; you donu2019t laugh along and you donu2019t take it seriously. Others u2013 for instance when Amerieu2019s bestie Harper (Asher Yasbincek) experiences a hallucination of a creepy man staring at her, en route to school u2013 are clearly intended to have an impact. Yet they barely register amid the noise and haste. The tone is hyper-real, borderline cartoonish.

Both the show and the characters seem desperate to impress; thereu2019s so much posturing. Everybody has a shtick u2013 even the principal, u201cWoodsyu201d(Rachel House). Returning students from the first season include Amerieu2019s on-and-off romantic interest Malakai (Thomas Weatherall) and her friends Darren (James Majoos) and Quinni (Chloe Hayden), who is autistic. New enrolments include country kid u201cRowan from Dubbou201d (Sam Rechner), plus thereu2019s a new teacher: Angus Sampsonu2019s macho head of PE, Timothy Voss, a character perhaps inspired by Tony Martinu2019s rugby coach in the 90s production, who provided a conservative counterpoint to the schoolu2019s generally socially progressive teachers.

Sampsonu2019s rambunctious and increasingly irritating performance, again, canu2019t be taken seriously u2013 nor is it funny ha-ha. Generally speaking the younger cast are pretty good, bringing some verve and colour, though they are of course at the whims of the writing and direction. The humour gets a bit cringe when the frame contracts to 4:3 and switches to monochrome to launch a campy noir spoof, relating to a quasi-whodunnit plot thread about a prankster terrorising Amerie.

Her own behaviour is often morally dubious but the writers donu2019t want us to seriously consider that she might just be u2026 bad. u201cIu2019m really trying to be a better person,u201d she says at one point; it rings hollow.

Compare this to the more earnest, which does a fine job making us feel the fundamental decency of its protagonist, despite her erratic behaviour and immaturity. And also to the under-appreciated Australian series, which provocatively foregrounds cruel zoomers unafraid to exploit ever-changing social mores. You can sense the Heartbreak High writers wanting to satirise these mores; instead they arrive at a kind of flaccid comedic both-siderism.

One student, Gemma Chua-Tranu2019s Sasha, screeches about the importance of vegan food and pronouns, while on the other side of the cultural divide, boys embrace Vossu2019s new u201cCum Lordsu201d club, which involves u201cmanning upu201d by consuming animal carcass and embracing retrograde notions of masculinity. For the first five episodes (what Iu2019ve watched so far) the writers donu2019t take sides u2013 clowns to the left of us, jokers to the right, inferring that common sense is some place else.

That perspective didnu2019t sit right with me, and the showu2019s mocking undertones donu2019t allow for genuine social debate. The original production did a great job turning Hartley High into a microcosm of society; a bubbling cauldron of drama and conflict. Despite ramping up the colour, bling and sensationalism, this new series turns the temperature down.