"As Five" (A5 Five) is a Brazilian TV series that began in 2020 and was created by Cao Hamburger, Spin-Off of the Malhação season 'Viva a Diferença' (in English, Young Hearts - Embrace Diversity). The series follows the five main characters Tina, Lica, Benê, Ellen and Keyla, six years after the ending of the soap opera. It's final season aired on March 1, 2024.
Good friends as teenagers, the five women drifted apart over the years, but after reuniting at Tina's mom's funeral, they find out this connection never truly went away.
This series provides examples of:
- Aborted Arc: Season 1 ends with Benê going to bed with Nem and another man at the same time. This second guy is never mentioned again.
- Ascended Meme: It became a common joke among fans to say that Samantha wouldn't be in the series after the first season because she'd move to Mexico, as a reference to the actress spending a year living there. That was actually how season 2 explained her absence.
- Beach Episode: Episode 5 of the second season has the whole cast at Lica's beach house, but it's very much not a filler episode.
- Betty and Veronica:
- The first season has Ellen's fiance Omar as the Betty, and Lito as her adventurous Veronica.
- The central love triangle of the second season has Ellen as the serious Betty that has a lot more in common with Maura than Lica, who's the wild Veronica.
- Broad Strokes: Has a minor case of this over the year the soap opera is set - during Malhação it was always said explictly that the story happened in 2017/2018, but the first season of the series was filmed in 2019 and is set in the same year. This meant that the events of the soap opera were pushed a few years into the past within continuity.
- Burn Baby Burn: After her piano is damaged beyong repair, Benê ends up burning it.
- Cast Full of Gay: Out of the five main characters, both Lica and Ellen have had romances with women, and Tina identifies as bisexual. When you add up the recurring cast, it goes way further than that.
- Closet Key: Maura serves as this for Ellen.
- Continuity Cameo: K2 has a brief cameo in the second season.
- Disappeared Dad: Tonico just doesn't seem to have his father in his life.
- Disposable Fiancé: Omar serves as this for Ellen in the first season.
- Ensemble Cast: The series has five equally important protagonists.
- Everybody Has Lots of Sex: It is a show about young adults after all.
- Friends Turned Romantic Rivals: In the second season, Ellen and Lica both become interested in Maura.
- The Friends Who Never Hang: Despite all five girls being close to one another, there are a few combinations that simply don't seem to have a dynamic without the others. In particular Benê and Tina.
- Group Hug: A few times, with a key example being around Tina at her mother's funeral.
- Happy Ending Override: The soap opera had a very optimistic outlook of the characters' futures. Things did not work exactly that way.
- High-School Sweethearts: Tina and Anderson as well as Benê and Guto start the series as this. In both cases, it doesn't last.
- Hotter and Sexier: The soap opera had a target audience of tweens, the series, however, has a higher rating and due to being on streaming is a lot less limited by what can be shown on television. The main result of that is the frequent sex scenes.
- Incompatible Orientation: The reason Benê and Guto break up in the beginning of the series is that he figures out that he's gay.
- Interscene Diegetic: It's extremely common for the series to show what other characters are doing while Keyla sings, all with her music still playing on the background.
- It Always Rains at Funerals: As predicted by Benê, it rains in Mitsuko's funeral.
- Limited Social Circle: Despite spending years without seeing each other, the five girls just don't seem to have strong connections with almost anyone else.
- Literally Loving Thy Neighbor: In the first season, Benê moves into Lica's apartment and falls for Nem, her next-door neighbor.
- Love at First Note: Edu becomes interested in Keyla upon seeing her for the first time, singing on the stage.
- Love Dodecahedron: With five main characters who all have their own love interests (in most cases more than one), as well as two of them being involved in a Love Triangle in the second season... it gets messy, especially when including the romances of the soap opera.
- Meet Cute: A few, with the most relevant one being Benê meeting her neighbor Nem after she gets locked out of her house and he picks the lock for her.
- Memorial Photo: There's a photo of Mitsuko at her funeral.
- No Sparks: Maura's decision to pick Lica came from not feeling anything when kissing Ellen.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: Most prominently Nem, whose actual name was only ever said once, but it's also pretty easy to forget Lica's name.
- Plot-Triggering Death: It's Mitsuko's death that causes the protagonists to reunite.
- Put on a Bus: Samantha going to Mexico for a year or perhaps more.
- Satellite Love Interest: All of the girls' love interests are this, their lives outside of their relationships aren't focused on.
- Sequel Non-Entity: A huge part of the soap opera's cast is this, with most of them not even being mentioned. The most egregious case is Keyla's family, where her son simply goes from having two fathers to apparently neither being in his life.
- Sequel Series: Serves as this for Young Hearts - Embrace Diversity, picking up six years in the future.
- Sex with the Ex: Lica and Samantha always seem to end up sleeping with each other.
- Struggling Single Mother: Keyla is a huge example of this, up to and including losing her job in the first episode due to not having anyone for her son to stay with and ending up taking him with her to work.
- Team Title: The series is named by the nickname the girls gave to their group.
- Unable to Cry: Tina spends the first season not knowing how to cope with everything happening in her life, not managing to even cry about her mother's death.
- Working with the Ex: Lica and Samantha work together briefly during the first season. Benê and Guto also keep working together for a while after breaking up.
