Series / Secrets Of Summer

Secrets of Summer is a Netflix Original musical series set in a hotel, which especializes inwatersports and is lost in the middle of the Argentine delta where a group of teenagers, alongside Mexican athlete Steffi Navarro (Pili Pascual), will stop at nothing to save it from closing. Cielo Grande brings together childhood memories, family secrets and unforgettable moments in the middle of an exciting wakeboarding competition. It was released on February 16, 2022.

The series was renewed for a second and final season, which was released on December 30 of the same year.

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This work provides examples of:

• Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder: With Naty gone off to college, Charly falls in love at first sight and eventually starts a relationship with Leonor, one of the new female wakeboarders.
• Almost Kiss: Julián tries to kiss Luz, who suddenly gets cold feet and leaves abruptly.
• Alpha Bitch: Natasha Rossi, a famous wakeboader and Steffi's rival who takes pleasure in intimidating her in and out of social media.
• Always Identical Twins: The Monzos, Fer and Juan.
• All Love Is Unrequited: Naty starts to fall in love with Luz, even though she likes Tony instead.
• Annoying Younger Sibling: Ian to Steffi, or to be more specific, step-sibling, since Ron married his mother Paula, who passed away before the events of the series.
• Armor-Piercing Question: Two of them directed at Ron of all people, about how he met Steffi's mother at Cielo Grande, by Ian and Steffi.
  • After Steffi sort-of explains to him what she's up to, a half-asleep Ian says:
  Dad. Are you lying?
  • After Ron finds the picture of Luz's mother in Ian's possesion, right after his question, he confronts Steffi about this. In turn, she comes up with this even very brutal question:
  What secret are you hiding at Cielo Grande, Dad?
• The Bad Guy Wins: Natasha manages to beat Steffi at the Summer Crush competition, but Steffi takes the loss gracefully. However, just before Natasha could return to her country, she decides to stay and concocts a new plot against Cielo Grande after seeing the backlash on social media over her unfair means to win.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: Midly annoyed that he has to keep doing Steffi favors which interferes with his online streaming interests, Ian wishes he had two sisters. He does have two sisters, Steffi and Luz.
• Berserk Button:
  • Matrix's anger issues are clear proof that she isn't a person to mess with, even if it's unintentional.
  • Naty loves butterflies, but anyone (for example, Charly) having different views on them, even calling them "awful" will leave her offended. Next time choose your words very carefully Charly.
• Benevolent Boss: Augusto, the hotel's owner, is openly warm-hearted to all of the staff, including his nephew Julián.
• Beta Bitch: Natasha's coach and physiotherapist.
• Beta Couple: Luz and Tony, Charly and Leonor, Noda and Matrix.
• Big Damn Kiss:
  • Luz and Tony.
  • Steffi and Julián.
• Betty and Veronica:
  • Steffi is the Betty and Natasha the Veronica to Julián's Archie.
  • Downplayed with Steffi (Betty) and Matrix (Veronica) concerning Noda (Archie). While Steffi is a nice girl, Matrix, on the other hand, is hot-tempered and prone to jealousy, yet for a while Matrix mistakenly assumed that Steffi was trying to steal him from her due to a misunderstanding. However, Steffi herself isn't interested in Noda.
• Big Bad: Natasha Rossi, initially for Steffi, but later on for the rest of the characters.
• Big Bad Duumvirate: Natasha and her brother Oliver collude with each other after they take over the Cielo Grande resort at the beginning of the second season.
• Bisexual Love Triangle: Downplayed. Such love triangle arises when Naty falls in love with Luz, who instead has feelings for Tony and is oblivious to her own feelings for Naty, who can only watch in sadness as the two are passionately kissing.
• Bonding over Missing Parents: Steffi, with a deceased mother and Luz with a Missing Dad. However, both of them are apalled to realize that they share same said parents, who turn out to be Ron and Cynthia respectively, making them sisters.
• Blonde, Brunette, Redhead: Steffi, Luz and Natasha.
• Broken Pedestal: Natasha was admired by almost every aspiring female wakeboarder. However, they were not satisfied when they foun out about her plans to cut the forest trees down to make improvements to the hotel she now owned.
• Call-Back: The second season ends with Natasha and Oliver at the airport and the two see on social media a poll of who of the Navarro sisters is the best wakeboarder, but Natahsa doesn't pay any mind to that when Oliver asks her, similar to the first season when Natasha cancelled her flight to Milan to get revenge on Steffi and the gang after she is made aware of the negative outcome regarding her cheating means so that she could win the other competition.
• Catchphrase: No da. By none other than...Noda.
• Can't Take Criticism: Matrix doesn't take well Luz's honest comment about how rude she was to Naty when she accidentally spilled drinks on her table, to the point of tearing the contract apart and even threatening to leave the hotel over the "poor" treatment she received from the staff.
• Cannot Spit It Out: By the first season finale, Naty tries to confess her feelings to Luz, but ultimately chickens out as she doesn't want to ruin her relationship with Tony.
• Childhood Friend Romance: Subverted. Luz and Julián have been friends since childhood and he has a crush on her. However, when he leans in on to kiss her, Luz suddenly gets cold feet and leaves abruptly. Later on, it turns out that Luz is in love with Tony and only sees Julián as a good friend.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: Matrix behaves like this, believing that Steffi tried to steal Noda from her.
• Crash-Into Hello: This is how Steffi and Luz meet for the first time while they randomly bump into each other practicing skateboarding with Tony and Naty.
• Dark Is Not Evil: Matrix usually wears dark clothes, not that it makes her a person with the intent to harm.
• Deadpan Snarker: Matrix of all people in the show.
• Demoted to Extra: Ian gets significantly reduced to a secondary character in terms of storyline by the second season.
• Did Not Get the Girl: An inverted example with Naty, who stays alone after she friendzones Charly and decides to sacrifice her own feelings for Luz, and goes off to college after the events of season 2.
• Dude, Not Funny!:
  • When Charly rejects Naty's idea of including butterflies in the promotional video just because "it doesn't make sense", Julián amusingly makes a counteroffer: penguins; Naty doesn't see the fun of that.
  • Matrix suspects that there's something going on between Steffi and Noda, saying "I know they're up to something!", as Tony and Ian ask if she had seen her or Noda by any chance. Tony jokingly remarks that they must've teamed up to rob a bank. Matrix only responds with a fearful angry stare.
• Driven by Envy: Steffi and Natasha used to be teammates. However, Natasha felt threatened by her amazing skills at wakeboarding that she wanted to cut Steffi out of the team, but Tony was completely against it and Natasha herself was kicked out instead. This is what motivates Natasha to wanting to defeat Steffi at all costs in the Summer Crush competition.
• Even the Girls Want Her: This is how Naty feels about Luz from the first moment they meet.
• Everyone Loves Blondes: Both Julián and Juan each develop a crush on Steffi. While the sentiment with Julián is mutual, however, Steffi always rejects Juan's attempts to win her over.
• Evil Redhead: The one and only Natasha Rossi who takes pleasure in making Steffi's life impossible.
• Fantasy-Forbidding Father: Ron is implied to be against Ian wanting to become a famous youtuber with his amount of technological devices. His reaction when Ian playfully flies his drone all over him indicates that it isn't the first time Ian had done this before, telling him that he should make the most of his time by focusing on his school studies and making him stop by threatening to call off the upcoming purchase of a console he wants. Ron doesn't forbid him from achieving such wild dreams, though.
• First Guy Wins:
  • Aside from Tony, Julián is the first boy Steffi meets since her previous boyfriend dumped her for Natasha and the two eventually start a relationship. However, they briefly break up, both due to Steffi having her head on other stuff, especially the fact that she suspects Julián to be her brother, and for kissing Santi, her ex-boyfriend, but they still get together in the end.
  • Subverted with Julián in Luz's case. Even though Luz met Julián first, she sees him as a good friend and only has eyes for Steffi's coach Tony, whom she met before Steffi came to Cielo Grande.
• First Kiss: Luz has her first kiss with Tony. Averted with Julián, who she only sees as a friend.
• Freudian Excuse: Ron's reason to not wanting Steffi to know the truth about her birth mother comes from the fact that when he met her back at Cielo Grande, Steffi's grandparents did not approve the relationship due to her coming from a poor background and when she gave birth to Steffi, and Luz as well, they forced him to kept both sisters separated from each other. Later on, Steffi's true mother turns out to be Luz's mother Cynthia, the very same woman Ron met years ago.
  • Natasha's feud with Steffi started because both of them had a crush on the same guy, Santi, who was their coach at the time. It's clear that Natasha harbored feelings for him, which were not reciprocated, but Steffi herself was in denial of this and did not tell Natasha beforehand, so it's no wonder why this hurtful experience turned her into a bully to Steffi later on.
• Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse: It is one thing for Ron to take good care of Steffi but another serious one is to hide a family truth that she deserves to know. The fact that Steffi's grandparents disapproved of Ron's relationship with Cynthia and forcing him to separate both her and Luz from each other didn't give him the right to lie to his own daughter for years or even make up a story that he hoped would be enough for her to be kept at bay. Even if Ron's intentions were out caring, it still doesn't justify it.
• Friendly Rivalry: Between Steffi and Natasha by the finale of the second season after apologizing and forgiving each other over their own mistakes.
• Good is Not Nice: Even though Matrix came to support the Cielo Grande cause with the Monzo twins, she is shown to be cynical and outright prone to outbursts for the most insignificant things. For example, she almost pettily threatened to withdraw just because Luz called her out for yelling at Naty for accidentally spilling a drink on her table.
• Good Stepmother: Paula, Ron's wife and Ian's mother, used to be this to Steffi, with whom she had a close relationship. Sadly, she passed away prior to the events of the series.
• Graceful Loser: Steffi ends up losing the competition to Natasha, but she takes it with dignity and doesn't even hesitate to approach Natasha and share her beautiful experience at Cielo Grande.
• Granola Girl: Julián has definitely grown fond of nature and hosts meditating sessions.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: Matrix is this to almost all of the hotel staff.
• Have We Met?: Steffi asks this question to Luz when they first meet. Luz replies "no" and Steffi tells her that she reminds her of someone. In episode 9, Steffi and Luz are revealed to be sisters since both Ron and Cynthia are their respective parents.
• Hopeless Suitor: Played for laughs with the Monzo twins as Fer and Juan fall in love with Natasha and Steffi respectively. After one date with Fer, Natasha no longer wants to have anything to do with him and Steffi, who has a crush on Julián, constantly rejects Juan's advances to win her over, with Fer amusingly replying "Julián, one. Juan, zero."
• Horrible Judge of Character: Fer, one of the Monzo twins, when he falls in love with Natasha, Steffi's nemesis, that it ends up clouding his judgement, resulting in a rift between him and Juan, whose warnings are mistaken for jealousy, and the group questioning which side is he on. The pacific protest made by the gang to prevent the cutting of the trees and Juan begging him to come back is what snaps Fer back to his senses.
• Hypocrite: Ron accuses Steffi of using the Summer Crush competition just as an excuse to investigate the truth behind her birth mother. However, it turns that he was actually doing the exact same thing, use the competition as an excuse to stop her from looking into her mother's past. Made worse by the fact that he's been lying to her the whole time when Steffi's grandparents elaborated a story about her, with even Ron going along with the lie to protect her.
• If You Taunt Him, You Will Be Just Like Him: Natasha arrives at Cielo Grande and bullies her. As she leaves, Steffi angrily tries to go after her, but Tony stops her, telling Steffi not to sink down to her level.
• I Have No Son!: Zig-zagged. Steffi is less than pleased when her father Ron, a former wakeboard champion, arrives with her brother Ian at the hotel to see her at the competition. She lets them stay on one condition: pretend to not acknowledge each other as a family.
• Innocently Insensitive: Charly rejects Naty's idea of including butterflies, aside from sharks, in the Sky Vibes' promotional video only because "it doesn't make sense". Naty feels visbly offended by this comment and calls him obtuse, even more when Charly tested if she was okay with excluding the butterflies. After some reflection, Charly apologized to Naty and included the butterflies as promised.
• Interrupted Declaration of Love: Charly tries to confess his feelings for Naty, who interrupts him mid-sentence and amdits that she is in love with a girl. That girl is revealed to be Luz while Naty watches in sadness as she kisses Tony.
• Internal Reveal: Tony, Ian and the rest of the group are made aware that Steffi and Luz are sisters.
• I Was Having Such a Nice Dream: Luz dreams that she is at the old Sky Vibes bar with Julián, both of them as children, reliving the day where her grandparents where performing. Naty catches her with a smile on her face.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Matrix might be abrassive, cynical and a bit of a Jerkass, but the heart of gold part becomes evident when Juan, one of the twins, has her leave some chocolate cookies to Steffi's bedroom as a nice gesture, after they begged her to stay at the hotel when she had earlier threatened to leave just because of a trivial mistake from one of the hotel staff.
• Kick the Dog:
  • Steffi revealed that Natasha once humilliated her via social media with the reveal that she is dating the former's ex-boyfriend and rubbed it in her face.
  • Natasha and her team deliberately splashing Steffi, Tony and Luz in water.
• Lack of Empathy: Natasha only looks out for Natasha. She doesn't show any remorse regarding Steffi's wakeboarding accident after she crashes into a log, even going as far as to disregard Fer's feelings for her.
• Luke, You Are My Father: When the truth about Ron and Cynthia comes out, the latter is as shocked as Steffi when realizing that she is her other daughter. Ron as well with Luz, who is his other daugther.
• Malicious Misnaming: "Chano" is what Natasha and Oliver keep calling Charly, despite repeatedly correcting them.
• Meaningful Name: Luz meaning "light", reflected also by her cheerful and bubbly personality. This is even lampshaded by her mother Cynthia.
• Missing Dad: Luz grew up without a father in her life and whenever she asked her mother about him, she would always give Luz the same answer: leave him where he belongs, in the past. After she and Steffi meet and team up to investigate her family past, Luz is shocked to discover that Steffi's father, Ron, is her father as well.
• Never My Fault:
  • Naty accidentally spills a drink all over an angered Matrix who insults her. When Luz defends Naty by telling Matrix how rude she was to her, she tears up the contract and threatens to leave the hotel, blaming the staff over the "poor" treatment she's been receving since her arrival, completely ignoring the fact that her anger issues were what led to Luz's honest comment. Subverted when the Monzo twins beg her to change her mind and she apologizes to Luz over her previous behavior.
  • Charly accidentally offends Naty when he rejects her idea of including butterflies in the promotional video just because "it doesn't make sense", leading the angered Naty to call him an obtuse person. Charly refuses to acknowledge that he had hurt Naty's feelings through these words, telling her that him rejecting the butterflies doesn't mean that he doesn't appreciate her. Subverted when later on, Charly does include the butterflies alongside the sharks as a way to make it up to her.
• Oblivious to Love: Naty falls in love with Luz from the moment she meets her, but Luz doesn't know it, let alone due to her closeness to Tony, whom she met years ago.
• Official Couple: Steffi and Julián.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Steffi, Naty, Charly and Tony, whose real names are Steffania, Natalia, Carlos and Antonio.
• Out of Focus: The Monzo twins, Noda, Matrix and Ian don't play such a major role in the series. They don't do anything important other than the twins trying to promote the hotel's cause, Noda and Matrix entering a relationship and Ian only thinking about his channel.
• Parental Abandonment: Cynthia was told by Ron's parents that he supposedly abandoned Luz, his other daughter, but that isn't the case because they made the whole story up.
• Parental Substitute: Julián's parents died in an accident when he was a kid. Nevertheless, his uncle Augusto sees him like the son he's ever had.
• Parents as People: Ron loves Steffi very much that he doesn't want to see her suffer. When the truth about him and Cynthia being Steffi and Luz's respective parents came out, Ron believed that Cynthia didn't love Steffi, which is obviously not true, causing him to try and stop her from investigating out of caring.
• Perky Goth: Matrix may not be as approachable as one would initially think due to her personality and dark clothes, but it isn't hard to root for her when she meets Noda and starts dating him as they are huge fans of their favorite heavy metal band, Toxic Waste, although she still maintains her anger tendencies and Deadpan Snarker moments.
• Plagiarism in Fiction: Oliver takes the Cielos' song "Cálida belleza", which was written by Naty, and has the gall to pass it off as his own and publicily sing it at the hotel's karaoke-bar. Of course, none takes this well, especially when Oliver changes it. When they confront Oliver about the theft the next day, he simply cites it as a "homage", even though they point out the contrary. However, this ended when Oliver stated he didn't need it anyway as he had already hired Wonder to write songs for him.
• Platonic Life-Partners: Steffi and Tony.
• The Pollyanna: Luz is always cheerful and charismatic.
• Poor Communication Kills: Matrix spots Noda exiting Steffi's bedroom and, when he is not looking, goes through his cellphone and hears one of his coded messages sent to his unknown contact. She mistakenly assumes that Steffi tried to steal Noda from her and outright tells her in the Sky Vibes premiere to stay away from him, although Steffi has no idea what is she talking about. In reality, Noda was following orders from his unknown contact, later revealed to be Steffi's father, to prevent her from looking into her mother's identity.
• Put on a Bus: Some of the characters from season 1.
  • Matrix and Noda, who quits his job at Cielo Grande, move away after starting a relationship. Matrix is replaced by her twin sister, Wonder, as the twins' provisional manager.
  • Naty goes to college in order to fulfill her dream to become a writer.
  • Irene resigns as Natasha's coach and her role is taken over by Santi, Steffi's ex-boyfriend.
• Sequel Hook: The final scene of the first season where Natasha is about to plot revenge, not only against Steffi, but for the rest of the characters when she contacts someone named Oliver for them to "discuss Cielo Grande's future".
• Separated at Birth: Both Steffi and Luz are revealed to have suffered this, as they were born to Ron (Steffi's father) and Cynthia (Luz's mother) and the former's parents convinced them that it was the best to keep both sisters separated.
• Shipper on Deck: Steffi supports the relationship between Tony and Luz.
• Sore Loser: Zig-zagged with Natasha. Even though she technically won the Summer Crush competition against Steffi, however, the finale sees Natasha, who is about to board a flight to Milan, reacting to the backlash she is receiving as some users complain that Steffi's loss was unfair due to an imppresive trick she performed; Feeling overshadowed by this, Natasha doesn't take it graciously and cancels her flight, instead contacting someone named Oliver, possibly for them to work on a Big Bad Duumvirate as she arranges for him to come to Buenos Aires and talk about the hotel's future.
• Surprise Incest: Steffi suspects that Julián, who she is dating, might be her brother, due to Luz's grandmother continually insisting that Augusto, not Ron, is their real father. Turns out that isn't the case.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Matrix's twin sister, Wonder, is one to Naty in season 2 as she always uses a notebook to write down things that are of her interest to get some inspiration and make lyrics of a new song. Oliver is impressed by her skills and diligence, so he invites her to join his team.
• Small Role, Big Impact: The actions of Ron's parents (and Steffi's grandparents) are what lead to the truth behind Steffi's family past being concealed.
• Tell Me About My Mother: This is one of Steffi's goals, know more about her birth mother. Steffi demands some information from her father Ron, who reveals that they had a relationship, which wasn't approved by Ron's parents (also Steffi's paternal grandparents) due to her coming from a poor background. They kept making up a story about her to Steffi, but she remained unconvinced. After meeting Luz's mother, Steffi is shocked to discover that she actually is her real mother, also being upset that her father has been lying to her.
• Ugly Guy, Hot Wife: Noda is the ugly guy to Matrix's hot girl in their relationship.
• We Used to Be Friends: Season 2 reveals that Steffi and Natasha had a friendship, which was destroyed due to Steffi's growing feelings for Santi. And the worst part is that his and Natasha's feelings for each other weren't mutual and Steffi never gathered the courage to talk to her about it before.
• Wham Line: Naty revealing in the sixth episode that she is in love with a girl, implying that she is a lesbian.
  • Also, Luz reveals that the woman from the photo is her mother.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Steffi and Luz become understandbly upset at Ron and Cynthia after finding out that they've been lying to them about being their respective parents, as well as Luz being Steffi's sister, calling them out over their actions before leaving in disappointment.
• You Do Not Want To Know: When Natasha and her team deliberately splash Steffi, Luz and Tony in water. Luz feels provoked and yells that she will report her to Augusto, only for Steffi to get her to back down by telling her Natasha isn't worth it because by doing this she'd be awaking her "inner monster".
• You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: Steffi's reaction when Natasha shows up to the hotel.
• You Never Asked: When Steffi and Luz tell Cynthia about their suspicions of Augusto presumably being their father, she is forced to clear up the misunderstanding by explaining that they had a short-lived relationship that didn't work out, and advises the girl that they could've asked her about this so the tension about the mystery would not keep going further.