Heartbreak High

The Chaos of Growing Up in Public

There is a particular kind of messiness that defines adolescence—a jagged, unpolished frantic energy that most teen dramas spend their budgets trying to sand down. They want to turn the teenage experience into a glossy, aspirational product. But watching the reboot of *Heartbreak High*, I felt something closer to a relief. It’s not interested in being pretty. It’s interested in being loud, messy, and fundamentally uncomfortable, which is to say, it feels like high school.

The original 90s series was a staple of Australian television, known for its grit and its willingness to talk about things other shows wouldn't touch. Bringing it back in 2022, under the stewardship of Hannah Carroll Chapman, felt risky. Reboots often suffer from a sort of cultural imposter syndrome—they try to mimic the "vibe" of the original while grafting on modern social sensibilities. Yet, *Heartbreak High* manages to dodge that trap by refusing to treat its inclusivity as a lecture. It’s the water they’re swimming in.



The central conceit is simple: a "map" of hookups discovered on a school wall ruins the life of our protagonist, Amerie (Ayesha Madon). It’s the kind of high-stakes social catastrophe that, at sixteen, feels like the end of the world. But the genius of the show isn't the map; it’s the fallout. It forces disparate students into a remedial "sexual literacy" class. It’s a narrative device, sure, but it works because it breaks the characters out of their cliques and makes them look at one another.

I found myself particularly struck by the performance of Chloé Hayden as Quinni. It’s a rare thing to see neurodivergence portrayed not as a superpower or a deficit, but simply as a reality of existing in a world that wasn't built for you. There’s a specific scene where Quinni is trying to navigate a party, and the sound design subtly shifts—the hum of the room becomes a dull roar, the lights sharpen, and you can practically feel her internal shutter clicking shut. It’s not "acting" in the sense of big, teary monologues. It’s acting in the sense of total, physical honesty. Hayden doesn't just play a character; she invites you into her sensory orbit.



This show thrives on the chemistry between the outcasts. Darren (James Majoos) and Quinni possess a platonic intimacy that feels more vital than any of the show's romance arcs. Majoos, with their sharp-tongued wit and effortless swagger, carries the weight of a queer kid trying to find their footing in a school that demands performance. Watching them, I was reminded of *The Guardian’s* assessment that the show "is not just a reboot, but a reclamation." It takes the raw, uncomfortable spirit of the original and reframes it for a generation that demands a higher level of emotional intelligence—even if they haven't quite figured out how to use it yet.

The production design does a lot of the heavy lifting here. Hartley High feels lived-in, covered in graffiti and posters, cluttered with the detritus of teenage life. It avoids that antiseptic sheen common to Netflix productions. You can almost smell the body spray and the stale air in the classroom. This is crucial because it grounds the show's more melodramatic turns. When things go off the rails—and they do, frequently—the setting keeps the stakes feeling localized. These are kids trying to make sense of their politics, their identities, and their bodies in a space that feels just as claustrophobic as it does liberating.



I’m not suggesting the show is perfect. Sometimes the pacing hits a wall, and the dialogue can lean a bit too heavily into the "alphabet soup" of modern identity discourse, sounding more like a glossary than a conversation. It’s a common flaw in contemporary YA drama, where the desire to be "representative" can occasionally steamroll the character development. Yet, there’s an earnestness here that’s hard to dismiss. The show cares about its characters, even when they’re being terrible to each other.

By the time the third season wraps up, you realize that *Heartbreak High* isn't about the map on the wall. It’s about the map of the self. It asks, over and over, how you find your way back to yourself when everyone else has already decided who you are. It’s messy, yes. It’s sometimes frustrating. But it’s also undeniably, humanly true—which is more than I can say for most television these days.