Spoilers for Season 2 of Heartbreak High are ahead! Read with caution.
With the CW canceling lots of scripted dramas and Freeform canceling Good Trouble, I'm worried about the fate of young adult soap operas that once dominated cable television. Thankfully, Netflix’s Heartbreak High returned for Season 2 just in time to calm my nerves about the lack of teen shows on the 2024 TV schedule. Not only did it breathe life into the underrated genre, but it gave fans an impressive plot twist that will most likely impact future seasons if the streaming service chooses to renew the Australian show for a third season.
Like Season 1, the sophomore season of Heartbreak High continued to explore love, sex, and heartbreak with Amerie and the rest of the students in her grade at Hartley High, paying special attention to LGBTQ+ relationships. However, there were also some new additions to this season including Timothy Voss, a “pro-male” teacher who decides to teach a male-centric sex education class to rival the one already being taught at Hartley, and Rowan Callaghan, a new student to Hartley who immediately finds himself caught up in the mess of drama.
Now, following a major plot twist that came amid all of this, I can't help but think about how a potential Season 3 will be impacted.
Heartbreak High Season 2 Pulled Off An Impressive Plot Twist
The season opened with an image of Hartley High’s Year 11 Formal going up in flames so it was clear from the beginning that a lot of stuff was going to go down this season. However, not even the dramatic opening sequence could have prepared me for what the plot twist of the season would entail.
Despite wanting to start fresh, Amerie finds herself the victim of an anonymous student who is looking to ruin her life. The pranks start unharmful enough — a dead bird in her book bag and the leaking of a private conversation where she trash-talks the classmates running against her for class captain — but are enough to pique the interest of Amerie and her friends who are determined to figure out who is behind these attacks.
In the end, it turns out that Amerie’s aggressor is Rowan. Despite being new to the school, Rowan reveals that he knew Amerie as a child. The two of them forged a bond caring for an injured bird at the skate park until kids started making fun of them and Amerie pulled away.
Filled with rage, Rowan went home and had an explosive meltdown that scared his younger brother into running across the street to find his parents. Tragedy strikes when his brother is hit by a car and dies. Instead of understanding that it was a freak accident, Rowan blames Amerie for his brother’s death, and that’s why he’s been ruining her life in the hopes of teaching her a lesson. Unfortunately, it takes Rowan almost dying himself to realize that neither he nor Amerie was responsible for his brother’s death.
While I had my suspicions about Rowan, especially when he threatened Amerie’s ex to stay away from her, I had no idea that he was harboring resentment for a death that wasn’t anyone’s fault. What made it even more impressive, is that the Heartbreak High creators took a page out of The Sixth Sense, arguably one of the best thrillers of all time, and made Rowan’s brother a character he regularly interacted with to throw fans off. In hindsight, the move is obvious now since no one ever interacts with the brother except for Rowan.
I’m Curious How It Could Impact A Potential Season 3
Heartbreak High might not be renewed for Season 3 yet, but I’m hopeful it will be. After all, fans definitely deserve answers after the explosive finale. While I’m dying to know if Malakai is going to change his mind and return to Hartley or how the school is going to go on now that it’s basically burned down, I’m also interested in how Rowan will fit into things going forward.
The show could choose to write him off by sending him off to therapy to further deal with the emotional trauma he’s been carrying. Or, perhaps, he’ll stick around and allow himself to heel while bonding with his fellow classmates.
I’m more interested, though, in how everything will affect Amerie. Though she’s adamant that Rowan’s brother’s death wasn’t her fault in the heat of the moment, I can’t imagine that it’s something she’s going to forget. For all her fault, Amerie does care about people and what they think about her. Perhaps, this will send her into her own grief spiral that will require her friends to rally around her for a change instead of the other way around.
Overall, considering how shocking this storyline involving Rowan, his brother and Amerie was, it shouldn’t be swept under the rug if the show gets picked up.
For now, fans can watch the first two seasons of Heartbreak High with a Netflix subscription. And don’t forget to check out everything new and coming soon to the streaming service this year.
