“Elite” Season 5 Review: Not The Worst But Still ‘Meh!’

While Elite season 5 managed to be not the worst, it was still quite ‘Meh!’ in my opinion. At this point, Netflix would be doing this series a favor by pulling the plug.

This review of Elite season 5 contains spoilers. You have been warned.

Trigger Warning: This review mentions sexual assault.

Elite season 5 continued to develop certain storylines from the boring previous installment. Armando’s murder is still a mystery and Samuel (Itzan Escamilla) and Rebe (Claudia Salas) are trying to keep quiet about dumping his body in the lake while the police sniffs around for clues at the high school, with Benjamin being their prime suspect.

However, we know that Armando’s murder won’t remain a mystery for long because in true Elite fashion, the eight-episode fifth season also features flashforwards. We see Samuel confessing to a crime, yet another dead body in the pool, and other intense stuff.

While I found the ‘A’ plotline concerning Armando’s murder interesting, the rest of the plotlines were kind of boring. Heck, the writers completely forgot about the Omar and Bilal stuff as the season came to a close.

Even though most of the OG cast got written out during the past seasons, there are still way too many characters for the writers to properly handle because they continue to introduce new faces. I have nothing against a series bringing in fresh blood to liven things up, but said new characters need to feel like actual fleshed-out characters for me to care about them.

Similar to the mistakes made in Elite season 4 (the worst season yet!), the new characters introduced in season 5 are nothing more than plot devices to keep certain older characters busy. With Patrick (Manu Rios) serving his purpose to cause drama between Omar and Ander in season 4, the latest season made it even clearer that he’s just a shell of a character the writers like keeping around because he’s pretty.

Due to Patrick not being connected to the main storyline, until the final moment, the writers kept him occupied by introducing the father and son duo of Cruz (Carlotto Cota) and Ivan (Andre Lamoglia). The way the writers had Patrick hook up with Ivan as well as Cruz was just… ewww! The entire thing felt incredibly wrong.

And instead of having Patrick experience some kind of character development after having gone through such a mess, the fifth season left Patrick in the same place we found him. He keeps crying about wanting to find someone to love, and yet he’s incapable of deliberately walking into toxic relationship drama and causing chaos. It’s not cute and prevents me from actually feeling sorry for him and those involved.

The other new character is named Isadora (Valentina Zenere), a very rich young woman known as the Princess of Ibiza. Similar to Ivan, she too serves no actual purpose. Isadora exists to have someone support Phillipe (Pol Granch) after his reputation’s ruined by being very publically out as someone who sexually assaulted a young woman. With Isadora having the hots for Phillipe, I couldn’t help but roll my eyes whenever she tried to help repair his image in hopes he would hook up with her.

And while Caye (Georgina Amoros) helping Isadora with her drug problem and family issues could have made for an interesting development, episode 7 made it obvious why Isadora was created to be part of Elite season 5. Her sole purpose was to be sexually assaulted, while drugged up, and then have Phillipe help her through the ordeal to gain justice going into the already greenlit season 6 and mend Phillipe’s reputation along the way. Isadora exists to aid Phillipe’s redemption storyline and that’s just poor writing when trying to create a character.

As for Omar (Omar Ayuso), in a sense, I wouldn’t have minded him being written off the show by following Ander back in season 4. Omar’s still around in season 5, but he doesn’t have much to do. The earlier seasons were appreciated by showcasing a storyline involving a queer young man growing up in a strict Muslim household. However, once that storyline got resolved, Omar was basically ignored by the writing team. He seems to have no connection with his parents, even though his father was shown to finally accept him in the previous seasons. Like, where the heck did his parents disappear to?

Omar did meet a new character named Bilal (Adam Nourou). I was kind of interested in learning more about Bilal and what kind of trouble he was involved in with gangsters, but, as mentioned earlier in this review, for some reason, Bilal’s storyline was dropped as the season progressed. I would like to know why. Perhaps it will become a bigger thing going into season 6? Hmmm.

I did appreciate the writers not making Omar and Bilal a romantic thing. Omar showed a lot of maturity when he refused Bilal’s advances and made Bilal realize that he didn’t need to repay Omar with sexual favors for Omar to continue helping him. Omar’s always been a character who wants to help people. He likes feeling needed. It’s just disappointing that Omar hasn’t found someone who actually loves him back with no strings attached.

I kind of thought Patrick would have realized that there could be something stable for him in Omar. But I guess the writers were too busy having Patrick be the star of his own Pornhub-style situation by having him do the nasty with Ivan and his father. (Thinking about that still makes me cringe.) 

Coming back to the murder mystery of it all, I liked the dynamic between Samuel and Benjamin (Diego Martin) as Samuel found himself incapable of standing up to Benjamin’s games until it was a bit too late. And while I understood Samuel wanted Benjamin’s approval and saw him as a father figure, I think someone as smart as Samuel should have been able to see through Benjamin’s manipulative behavior sooner, especially when Samuel had a bunch of people telling him about how shady Benjamin was.

With Benjamin out of the picture, let’s see what the writers have planned for Patrick, Ari, and Mencia. Will they lose their fortune? Frankly, I wouldn’t care one bit if the sixth season (which, from what I can tell, is supposed to be the last season) writes the three siblings out. I mean, to be fair, at least Mencia got to play a role in the main storyline. So, I guess she can stay? Patrick and Ari can go!

The lack of actual story in Elite season 5 was quite evident due to the numerous scenes featuring the cast hooking up and going to parties to help pad out the runtime. The Elite series is running on fumes. And if Netflix is kind, it will put this show out of its misery once the sixth season airs.

Elite season 5 debuted on Netflix on April 8, 2022. The eight episodes are around 40-45 minutes long each.

Did you watch Elite season 5? What did you think of it?

Let us know.

Author: Farid-ul-Haq

Farid has a Double Masters in Psychology and Biotechnology as well as an M.Phil in Molecular Genetics. He is the author of numerous books including Missing in Somerville, and The Game Master of Somerville. He gives us insight into comics, books, TV shows, anime/manga, video games, and movies.

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