Heartbreak High review: the Hartley High kids are back for a final season of chaos

It’s going to take more than a raging inferno to stop the kids at Hartley High from having a good time.

Two months ago a fire turned the main building at the South Sydney school into a burnt out shell (as seen in Season 2). Going by the chaos of muck up day, everyone has well and truly moved on. Bitchy chat groups, classes in the gym, year sevens gaffer taped to a wall, and a general vibe of freewheeling fun; what could possibly go wrong?

The final year of Heartbreak High

Last season opened with an ominous flashforward that cast a grim shadow across everything that followed. This season everyone is feeling good and excitedly counting down to the end of high school. Amerie (Ayesha Madon) is hitting her academic goals, bestie Harper (Asher Yasbincek) may or may not have moved on from the drama with Ant (Brodie Townsend), and Quinni (Chloé Hayden) is running things as school captain.

Spider (Bryn Chapman Parish) and Missy (Sherry-Lee Watson) are now a public couple – though her friendship with school vice-captain Sasha (Gemma Chua-Tran) seems on the skids – and Ca$h (Will McDonald) and Darren (James Majoos) are smooching in the halls. All seems right with the world.

Then their rival private school St Bruno’s stages an attack that’s all water bombs and cries of ‘povvo high’. They even steal the head off Hartley’s Ibis mascot, leading to the memorable cry, ‘They didn’t just take our mascot’s ibis head – they took our school spirit’.

The students want revenge while the teachers, pointing out that graduation is only weeks away, call for calm. Good luck with that: this is Heartbreak High we’re talking about, even if Amerie’s new boyfriend Noah (Ioane Sa’ula, from The Bump) is a St Bruno’s boy.

Hang on, Amerie has a new boyfriend? But what about Malakai (Thomas Weatherall). Sure, he seemingly left Hartley High (and Sydney) forever at the end of last season, but there was that heartbreaking letter to her that he left behind… which she never saw. Guess that particular romance is over for good – unless, of course, Malakai is back this season.

(Spoiler alert: he’s back before the end of the first episode.)

Facing the future

This season’s (initial) vibe is all about the bright future ahead. An early sequence where everyone talks about where they see themselves in five years is full of optimism. Well, for the girls at least (and non-binary Darren). They’re all dreaming big, especially Zoe (Kartanya Maynard), who expects to be signing a multi-million dollar deal for her podcast (subject to be determined – she’s ‘a storyteller’).

The guys, on the other hand, are all about getting a trade or following their partner wherever they may end up.

The days when Heartbreak High was an overtly edgy take on teen sexuality – remember the ‘sex map’ that kicked things off in Season 1? – are largely behind it, as pretty much everyone has become comfortable with who they are (who they’re dating, not so much).

The aggressive sexual politics of Season 2 have also vanished, along with Angus Sampson’s manosphere PE teacher. The bad guys this season are still guys, but they’re the more traditional creepy dickheads and stuck-up snobs than anyone driven by online ideology.

The result is a slightly more inward-looking season than previous years. The big drama that kicks things off comes after an attempt to even the prank score goes seriously wrong, and it suddenly becomes clear that the days of consequence-free wacky hijinx are fading fast.

These are now kids with something to lose, even if it’s just a place at uni, and being put up against a bunch of rich kids set to cruise through life only makes that more obvious.

High-octane heartbreak

Fear not: Heartbreak High is still all about the energy – the water bomb attack is straight out of an action movie – with outlandish outfits, big drama and characters who don’t understand the phrase ‘low-key’. But for its final season, grounding the goings-on in slightly more realistic terms makes sense.

We’ve spent enough time with these characters for them to be interesting in their own right, not just as a way to tackle current events. For the graduating class of Hartley High, wacky pranks and running wild are over. With adulthood comes consequences – and occasionally, injuries.

Even early on it’s clear that not everyone is going to live out their fantasy future; one main character stumbles at the first hurdle with bad exam results, and the obstacles keep on coming throughout the season. High school romance is all well and good, but once you graduate you have to find a way to pay the bills.

There’s still plenty of room for personal drama and romance. (We did mention that Malakai is back, right?) The failed prank leads to a whodunnit investigation as they try to figure out who took things too far, even as the police are closing in on them. And if you thought the gang were going to miss out on Schoolies Week, think again.

Heartbreak High might be heading out the door, but we all know better than to expect these teens to go quietly.

All eight episodes of Heartbreak High Season 3 are available on Netflix from 25 March.

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