Elite Season 8 Review: Las Encinas Closes Its Doors (Before it’s Too Late)
Cast: Omar Ayuso, André Lamoglia, Valentina Zenere, Mirela Balić, Gleb Abrosimov, Fernando Líndez
Created By: Carlos Montero and Jaime Vaca
Streaming Platform: Netflix
Filmyhype.com Ratings: 4/5 (four stars)
Elite Season 8 and the finale season of the most loved series arrive on Netflix to close a long journey that began in 2018. The Spanish series, which has become a global phenomenon, has tried to maintain for six years and eight very long seasons the distinctive traits that have characterized it throughout its long production: teenage drama, sexual tension, intrigue, and a touch of criminal mystery. As we will see in this review of Elite Season 8, the spicy Netflix show seems to oscillate between the need to offer something similar to its most ardent fans and the desire to close the story in a meaningful way. The result is a season that, on the one hand, may satisfy fans of the series, but on the other, is unlikely to attract new viewers.
The Spanish series that has kept millions of Netflix users glued to their TVs and devices for eight seasons is coming to an end, with an eighth season that takes the Iberian teen drama into a new abyss of intrigue, power, and perdition, re-proposing the themes and elements that have decreed its success, but which now seem so exploited that they have been drained of their disruptive value and are increasingly repetitive. As we have always been accustomed to, the series continues in the name of excess, from all points of view, from the continuous parties to the relationships between the characters. Trying to show an increasingly contemporary present, Elite Season 8 does not differ too much, in this sense, from the previous seasons. Similar dynamics are repeated, from the crime around which the entire story revolves to the secondary characters who become primary ones.
Elite Season 8 Review: The Story Plot
The last season of Elite, as per tradition, has a mysterious death at its center, that of poor Joel, slaughtered with a calf during a night of forbidden revelry. The plot of this eighth and final season of the adventures of the privileged adolescents of the exclusive international school Las Encinas and the other characters, of different social backgrounds and generations who, however, revolve around that glossy, unruly, and desperate universe, unfolds around that death, and in order to understand who the murderer is. The new season continues the narrative line of Raul’s death and the responsibility of Carmen and Cloe, but also of the toxic obsession that still hasn’t abandoned Sara, the deceased’s girlfriend and victim. The role of the most beloved characters in the series remains central, starting with Isadora, who we find struggling with the unbalanced accounts of her Isadora House and with the cumbersome shadow of her parents.
Ivan who, after having mourned a serious loss in the seventh season, also finds himself in Elite Season 8 mourning a person he loves, namely Joel. The murdered boy is the deus ex machina of the main story, it is through him that the audience discovers how far you can go to get what you want. It is Joel who leads us into new depths through his relationship with Hector who, together with his sister, leads the sect-association of the Alumni, the former students of Las Encinas. However, Omar has a central role, even in the epilogue of the season and therefore of the entire series. In Elite Season 8 there is no shortage of twists, surprises, and plot twists, and they will accompany the viewer towards the definitive decision that will put an end to the adventures of the boys of Las Encinas.
Elite Season 8 Review and Analysis
As we said, this season also maintains the formula that has defined Elite since its inception: a cocktail of turbulent relationships, class conflict, explicit sexuality, and a central mystery that unfolds throughout the episodes. In this case, the murder of the character of Joel, played by Fernando Líndez, acts as a catalyst for the development of the plot. The series continues to address relevant social issues, as it has done since the beginning: issues such as economic inequality, sexual diversity, mental health, and power dynamics in relationships are still present, even if at times their treatment can be superficial or forced for the sake of drama. The show continues to favor that tidy and glamorous aesthetic typical of contemporary teen drama, with photography that highlights the opulence of the environments of Las Encinas and an exuberant costume department that continues to be a distinctive element of the series. The parties and scenes of debauchery, trademarks of the series, are once again present, even if this season they seem to have lost some of their initial splendor.
Over the years, Elite has discovered and launched many talented actors such as María Pedraza, Miguel Bernardeau, Arón Piper, and Ester Expósito. However, the series has gradually abandoned its original premise on the contrast between social classes, moving towards a narrative increasingly dominated by wild parties, erotic scenes, drug abuse, and toxic behavior. In this sense, it leaves behind a complex legacy: on the one hand, it has been a launching pad for young talent and has demonstrated the potential of Spanish productions in the global market. On the other hand, its treatment of sensitive topics and its tendency to sensationalism have been criticized. Ultimately, the series ended its run as it began generating debates, provoking mixed reactions, and, above all, capturing the attention of the public. It remains to be seen whether its influence on the teen drama genre will be long-lasting or whether it will be remembered as a phenomenon of its time, a reflection of a specific period in Spanish television production.
As the final season, we expect Elite Season 8 to pull all the threads of the plot by giving answers to still-open questions and somehow proposing a solution for all the characters. This only succeeds in part. In reality, the only story left open from the previous edition is the one concerning Raul’s death, with the video filmed by Dalmar that nails Carmen and which will have a truly important role only in the final episodes. For the rest, Elite Season 8 seems to want to propose itself almost as a season in itself, so few are the ties with the past. It’s true, Nadia returns and we find Ivan and Joel continuing a story that began in the seventh season, but Isadora, for example, we find her almost starting from scratch, buried in debt, and trying to get into the very exclusive Alumni association. This completely new element is central to the story and works as a further propellant to stimulate the search for forbidden pleasures and the desire for exclusivity on the part of the boys of Las Encinas.
Elite Season 8 therefore, despite being the final season of the entire series, has its autonomy. Even in these final episodes, the elements and themes that have decreed the success of a series that tells without filters a world of privileged young people are taken up, relaunched, and explored in depth, but also the attraction that this world has for peers (and not) who would like to belong to it. We return to the central theme of the Elite‘s classism, but also to the themes dear to the authors of the series and to the young people who follow it all over the world: sexuality, mental health, friendship, love, excesses, toxic relationships, family and many others. Themes that could be defined as classic in series for teenagers but that in Elite are addressed explicitly and realistically. Elements that have decreed a global success, elements that, however, have now been truly exploited in every way by this series, and if already in the seventh season, we felt tiredness and repetitiveness of certain themes, in this eighth, we can say that the writers take us to the bottom of the abyss and that, more than this, we could not imagine or tell. For this reason, we learn with a certain relief of the decision to close the doors of Las Encinas because we want to keep the disruptive idea of this series that we have made up until now and not be forced to observe its increasingly, inevitably, and physiologically, descending parabola.
Elite Season 8 Review: The Last Words
From the thirst for power to friendship, Elite has been an innovative and cutting-edge product from the very beginning. And, even in this last season, it closes its doors following this path, anchoring itself to the positive elements that it has brought with it from previous seasons, adapting them to the various situations. From the charismatic characters to the strong bonds of (dis)loyalty, everything ultimately revolves around friendship, the main focus. A friendship in continuous evolution as was the one shared by the protagonists of the first seasons, to the closer ones, but equally significant (the one between Iván and Isadora above all). It’s hard to rate the latest season of Elite, which is why we’re deliberately staying in the middle: on the one hand, we look back with nostalgia at how the series managed to renew the teen drama in the streaming universe; on the other, it’s undeniable that, after the third season, there’s not much left to say.
