The students of SLTs. note
Heartbreak High is a 2022 Australian drama television series created for Netflix, by Hannah Carroll Chapman. It is a reboot of the original series of the same name created by Ben Gannon and Michael Jenkins that ran from 1994 to 1999 on Network Ten and The ABC.
Heartbreak High (2022) provides examples of:
- Aborted Arc: The bag of stolen merchandise that Cash and Darren hide on the school's roof is treated like a big deal but once it's stolen Cash doesn't seem too upset and it's never mentioned again.
- Abusive Parents:
- Harper's father is unintentionally abusive. When sober he at least tries to be a good father, if a not very dependable one, but when under the influence of substances, or possibly some kind of undiagnosed mental condition, he becomes unhinged and has attacked Harper more than once thinking she was an intruder.
- Downplayed in the case of Darren's mother who, while at least superficially loving and supportive, has clearly lost patience with Darren over their "antics" and is borderline neglectful as she increasingly favours her boyfriend's wants and needs.
- Actor Allusion: A possible example in that Peter Rivers' son is called Darren: Scott Major played the first Darren Stark in Neighbours a few months before the original Heartbreak High began.
- Ambiguous Situation: The entire first series revolves around the mystery of what's wrong with Harper and why she changed so suddenly. It's revealed that on the night of the concert: Amerie unintentionally abandoned her, she was nearly raped and then finally assaulted by her father in the midst of a psychotic episode. Thus leading to her resentment of her former best friend and her new hostile personality.
- Attempted Rape: Harper’s uncharacteristic behaviour is revealed to have come about as trauma following an attempted sexual assault by Chook and Jayden in which part of her hair was torn out.
- Beef Bandage: Actually a vegetarian bandage, as Malakai improvises an icepack for Amerie out of a sock and a bag of frozen peas. It works pretty well, although it ruins the peas.
- Betty and Veronica: Gender-Inverted. Malakai is the sweet, good natured Betty and Dusty is the sexy, bad-boy Veronica for Amerie's Archie. Amerie could also be considered the Betty and Harper the dangerous, rule breaking Veronica for Dusty's Arche.
- Big Brother Mentor: Missy's older brother Jai is literally this to her and figuratively this to Malakai.
- Big Damn Kiss: In the series one finale, Darren and Cash share one just as the latter is arrested.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Dusty is at first portrayed as a dreamy guy who is bothered by his friend Spider's taunts and takes interest in Harper, confessing a lot about himself as he does so. Later, it's revealed he's only nicer in public and secretly is the brains behind many of Spider's misdeeds and uses Amerie as a tool to childishly get back at Harper after he ruins their relationship through his own insecurities.
- Broken Bird:
- Downplayed, but Harper shows some tendencies of this after her personality change turns out to be a Justified Trope after the reveal of her Trauma Conga Line.
- Also Played With with Malakai after his traumatizing experience with the police at Mardi Gras.
- The Bully: Spencer AKA Spider is this. Even his friends Ant and Dusty become annoyed with his constant need to throw insults at everybody. Though later it's revealed that a lot of this is overcompensating for both his crush on Amerie and the humiliating night they spent together after the concert. Also, later it's shown Dusty is a bully as well, but he pretends to be nice in public and lets Spider take the blame for his own actions.
- Cast Full of Gay: A majority of the main student cast are somewhere on the LGBTQIA spectrum. Darren is non-binary queer, Quinni and Sasha are lesbians, Missy is bisexual, Ant is attracted to non-binary people, Cash is asexual queer and Dusty and Malakai are revealed to at least be bi-curious if not full on bisexual.
- Character Development: As original character Peter Rivers himself says, "I was a racist, sexist, homophobic bully, yet here I am with my beautiful queer non-binary half-Black son".
- Chastity Couple: Brought up as a solution to Darren and Cash's dilemma with their Incompatible Orientation romance, with Darren being very sexual and Cash believing himself to be asexual. Neither seems overly pleased with the prospect.
- Cool Teacher: Played With with Ms. Obah. It's a lot more subdued and realistic than usual but she tries to come up with some fun and unorthodox ways of teaching SLTs and is constantly defending her methods to Principal Woodsy.
- Cutting Corners: Hartley High's sex education textbooks are outdated, heteronormative and what they've got.
- Double Standard Rape: Female on Male: When Harper has a threeway with Dusty and Malakai, she is called out for taking advantage of Malakai while he was drunk and traumatized, but only briefly and later publicly calls it consensual with no one correcting her. After this, the topic mostly drops and they later joke about it.
- Expository Hairstyle Change: The first sign that something is wrong with Harper is her severe buzzcut. Once she explains what happened to her, it's revealed that this was inspired by one of her attackers ripping a chunk of her hair out.
- The evolution of Amerie's fringe accompanies her social and mental status.
- Fandom: In-universe example; a major plot point is Quinni's love of the book series Angeline and the impact her fandom, and her girlfriend Sasha's dismissive attitude toward it, has on her relationships.
- Foreshadowing:
- In Episode 1, Ca$h immediately makes eye contact with Harper after walking into SLTs. They're acknowledging her Attempted Rape by the eshays.
- In SLTs, Ca$h reads out a scenario in which a boy plans to dump his girlfriend for not having sex with him. Guess what happens to him later?
- Fire-Forged Friends: In the beginning when Amerie and Harper are still in a Pseudo-Romantic Friendship, they are above Darren and Quinni on the school social hierarchy. But after their estrangement and Amerie becoming the school pariah, Darren and Quinni empathize with her outcast status and befriend her and by the end she's as loyal and protective to them as she ever was to Harper.
- Flat Character: Ant is probably the least focused on of all the SLTs kids.
- Good Parents: Many of the kids parents are shown to be caring, three-dimensional people who do the best they can. In particular Amerie's mother, Darren's father and Quinni's two dads.
- Goofy Suit: Hartley High's mascot is the Ibis, or in the vernacular, a "bin chicken" (so known for their scavenging tendencies).
- Guy on Guy Is Hot: While trying to "give up men" Amerie's libido goes into overdrive and she fantasizes about Spider and Malakai making out while they play basketball.
- Hollywood Autism: Averted. Quinni is autistic, but also female, lesbian, highly emotionally intelligent, interested in sex and relationships, and fanatically devoted to her friends.
- Inner City School: Albeit more modern and socially liberal than most previous portrayals would have been.
- Jerk Jock: Spider is The Bully and also on the basketball team. Dusty as well is revealed to be this after posing as the Lovable Jock all year.
- The Loins Sleep Tonight: An ill-timed (and possibly drugs/alcohol induced) episode of this causes Spider deep embarrassment.
- Love Triangle: A particularly fickle one. Amerie likes Dusty, who hooks up with and ends up dating Harper. Amerie then develops feelings for Malakai, who has a threesome with Harper and Dusty after a traumatizing brush with Police Brutality. Both couples break up, and Amerie and Dusty start expressing interest in each other, only for Amerie to break it off when she finds out Dusty spread a false rumour about Amerie being molested by Jojo. The season ends with Amerie and Harper in a Pseudo-Romantic Friendship and some awkward Ship Tease between Amerie and Malakai.
- Naïve Newcomer: The school and its cliques are partially introduced to the viewer through Malakai, a transfer to Hartley High of Aboriginal descent who ends up in remedial sex education class due to a combination of administrative ineptitude and racism.
- Nature Tinkling: Amerie confronts Harper at the cemetery party while the latter is relieving herself behind a sarcophagus.
- Passing Notes in Class: Practically in Once an Episode territory, this happens so often. Amerie is the primary culprit.
- Pet the Dog: Principal Woodsy gets several moments. Where in any other teen show they'd have her rejoice when trouble finds the kids who have caused her so many headaches, she repeatedly puts aside her past anger towards them and what they've done to the reputation of the school to stand by them. Particularly noted when she makes a point to reach out to Malakai after his run in with Police Brutality and when she eventually comes around to the idea of keeping on Ms. Obah as a teacher.
- Woodsy also literally has a dog. That hangs around the school. That she pets. CONSTANTLY.
- Police Brutality: Sadly suffered by Malakai at Mardi Gras. Implied to be rooted in racism over his indigenous heritage.
- Precision F-Strike: Doubles as an example of Suddenly Shouting, in the series one finale when Cash publicly proclaims his love for Darren, causing Spider to make an off-colour joke as usual, Quinni, who had only recently overcome a nonverbal episode, tells him to "Shut the fuck up!".
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Principal Woodsy, who is at first played as something of a parody of stern teachers in teen comedies who come in to ruin all the fun, repeatedly shows that, while she must enforce the rules and keep order, she genuinely cares about the students and will go to bat for them, even the ones that cause her the most trouble.
- Sentimental Music Cue: Subverted; what initially seems like one of these turns out to be Amerie's own headphones. Her auditory self-pity is interrupted by bathos when she accidentally inhales a fly.
- Separated by a Common Language: Darren comments that they need a translator to understand Ca$h's eshay slang.
- Sequel Series: To the original 1994 series, with three of the original actors returning in their original roles in a recurring capacity.
- Significant Wardrobe Shift: Quinni's emotions are literally written on her face— in stickers. Her post-meltdown, post-breakup appearance— wearing a conservative long-sleeved top and completely devoid of any of her usual starry, sparkly signifiers— is gut-wrenchingly sad.
- Stop Being Stereotypical: Very much averted by both Amerie and her mother, who most definitely are NOT the stereotype of a conservative and demure South Asian woman.
- Take That!: After Quinni comes out as autistic to Sasha, the latter is surprised she couldn't tell, citing that Quinni is "really emotionally intelligent." note In response, Quinni snarkily refers to Sasha as "Sia", a jab at the singer's controversial film Music (2021), which was criticized by many autistic creators (including Quinni's actress Chloe Hayden) for its patronizing and disrespectful depiction of autism.
- Talking Down the Suicidal: After Malakai's brush with police brutality and his discovery that Amerie is involved with Dusty at her house party, he drinks himself into a stupor and threatens to jump off the roof of the house in a thinly veiled suicide attempt. Missy gets her brother to intervene and pull him back from the edge, and the two of them escort Malakai safely away.
- Token White: Especially when compared to the original series, there are very few White characters here, although it must be at least partly a case of Truth in Television, given that Australia, like most Western countries, has become a lot more multiracial over the last few decades.
- Trauma Conga Line: Harper has this in spades on the night of the concert. Already dealing with her father's issues, she proceeds to have a fight with her best friend Amerie, leading to them being separated. She then gets drunk and is abducted and nearly raped by the local drug dealer and his friends; she manages to escape, but is injured and traumatized. Once she finds her way to Amerie's house, she is turned away by her unknowingly and finally, after returning home, finds her dad in the midst of a psychotic episode, which leads him to attack her.
- Unwanted Assistance: Harper claims that her threesome with Malakai came about because he was alone and she was trying to help him. Amerie, Missy, and Sasha are less than impressed with this reasoning.
- We Used to Be Friends: The main thrust of series one is this. The mysterious and at times violent feud that erupted very suddenly between the previous Psuedo Romantic Friendship between Amerie and Harper.
- When He Smiles: Cash. He spends most of the series tortured by his criminal connections, feeling trapped in that sort of life with "friends" that he's afraid of and can't trust but, when he does let himself just have fun and be a normal teenager with Darren, he shines.
- Wild Teen Party: Amerie hosts a costume affair to try to restore her battered social reputation. Inevitably, it goes poorly. Malakai nearly commits suicide and the scheduling conflict it creates for Sasha and Quinni indirectly causes them to fight and break up.
