‘Heartbreak High’ Season 2 Shows a Side to Quinni We’ve Never Seen Before

Editor's Note: The following contains Heartbreak High Season 2 spoilers.

The big picture

• Quinni navigates personal growth and difficult friendships as she unmasks her true self and becomes a hero
  
  Heartbreak Hotel
  Season 2.
• Quinni's journey shows the impact of masking autism on mental health and self-identity.
• The
  Heartbreak high
  The reboot on Netflix portrays a true neurodivergent representation and friendships.

heartbreak high, the reboot of the classic '90s Australian series, returned to Netflix on April 14 to much fanfare. Everyone was excited to witness the next chapter of the fan-favorite characters, and while there are some slight setbacks in the second season, there is one particular teenager from Hartley High who has become everyone's favorite. Quinn “Quinni” Gallagher-Jones is back, played once again by the actress, author and activist Chloe Hayden, and fans couldn't be happier. After having to endure so many offensive and poorly researched depictions of Autism Spectrum Disorder in film and television, Quinni in Season 1 was a real revelation. The public, especially those who are also neurodivergent, were eager to see where this new term would take her.

As a quick recap of her character's journey so far, Quinni is Darren's best friend (James Majoos) and the protagonist's new friend Amerie (Ayesha Madon). She is the heart of her clique, imaginative, kind and always willing to give others the benefit of the doubt. As term goes by, he ends up falling in love with a girl in his year, Sasha (Gemma Chua-Tran), and the two start dating. At first, it's very cute, but Sasha keeps accidentally falling into pitfalls. He feels he has to protect Quinni from partying and drug use, as if she weren't a teenager too, playing with her rough routine and treating the things she's passionate about with blatant disinterest. The relationship breaks down, however Quinni learns to stand up for herself and communicate honestly about her feelings instead of being afraid of being “too much.”It was cathartic to see the sensations I've experienced played out so authentically, so I was among those who were excited to see what happened next.

The second term is off to a rocky start for Quinni

Things have changed for better and for worse for Amerie and her crew. Darren Ca$h's boyfriend (Will McDonald) is in jail awaiting trial, popular boy Dusty (Josh Huesten) has dropped out of school, and Spider (Bryn Chapman Parish) still hurts. People haven't really liked Amerie, but at least she and her best friend Harper (Asher Yasbincek) have made up. Many changes come to Quinni quickly, like a new addition to her group of friends with Harper, and although she is happy that things are going well, she is also struggling to keep up. However, there are a few ways to stay on top of it. When Amerie suddenly becomes school captain as an attempt at redemption, Quinni becomes her vice-captain and campaign manager. More importantly, she is tasked with solving the mystery of “Bird Psycho,” someone who is dedicated to ruining Amerie's high school life. He does it with a burning passion, a vested interest if you will, with conspiracy charts and files to find this saboteur.

This keeps her informed and involved, but everything comes to a screeching halt during an incident at school camp. While finding her phone full of evidence, she is bitten by one of Australia's many venomous snakes in the bush. This causes her fellow fights to come together and rescue her, but she almost dies from the bite. This is a naturally traumatic event for her, leaving her physically and emotionally drained, but it also puts her out of commission for a short time. Her friends come out of the dramas they are going through to help and comfort Quinni during her recovery. Trying not to stress her out, they don't inform him of all the changes that have occurred since he left.

This unfortunately has the opposite effect. After uncovering multiple revelations during a birthday trip to the zoo, and still without the phone that could reveal who Bird Psycho is, she breaks down completely. She and Darren have a heart-to-heart, with Quinni confessing that she's starting to feel abandoned and emotionally drained. resulting in the suggestion that she stop playing by other people's rules. After all, no one ever asked him to wear a mask.

“Heartbreak High” gives us a real conversation about autism and masking

This begins the second half of Quinni's journey as she unmasks herself, but what is masking and unmasking? Trying to fit in is hard, especially when the advice to “be yourself” never pans out as advertised. This is a problem that autistic people run into a lot, this feeling of being perceived as wrong, outsider or too much. Since the world cannot be expected to be a more welcoming and accommodating place, autistic people tend to adjust their behavior to be “more acceptable” to the world. This is where masking comes in, a strategy that can be developed by watching and imitating others in real life or even on TV and movies. It's playing pretend to be a neurotypical person to survive in a neurotypical world, something of a necessary evil that can be emotionally and psychologically draining. The National Autistic Society notes, “While this strategy can help them cope at school, at work, and in social situations, it can have a devastating impact on mental healthsense of self and access to an autism diagnosis”.

We see a dramatic change in Quinni's demeanor as she unmasks herself and begins to “look for number one.” She becomes more brash and less concerned about communicating with even her closest friends. If he doesn't feel like talking, he won't talk, if he doesn't find something interesting, he'll leave. On the one hand, it is a liberating experience to live for comfort. When he doesn't worry about being too much for others, he can let loose and have a good time. He allows himself to get out of the drama his friends are going through and give himself a much-deserved break. On the other hand, while she is upset with her friends for following their coping strategies when they are not exactly the picture of stability, there are points where she seems really uncomfortable with shutting out her friends when they need it. You see her pause and see her face fall, before she stands firm in her denial to accommodate others because she has a point to prove.

In the dramatic Season 2 finale, Quinnie opens up to Darren. He misses his friends and doesn't want to lose them, though she also doesn't know who she is without the mask she wears. His sense of self was lost in the part he had to navigate the world, though the real Quinni is revealed not through how she acts, but through what she does. Masked, unmasked, or somewhere in between, Quinni successfully deduces who Bird Psycho is with little help. She calmly instructs her companions as she slowly dies of a snake bite. He becomes school captain with a rousing speech that shows his concern for the entire cohort, not just select groups. Best of all, he runs into a burning building to save his friends without hesitation. While the moral of Heartbreak high Season 2 is that there are no true villains, Quinni Gallagher-Jones has the heart of a hero.

Heartbreak high is available to stream on Netflix.

WATCH ON NETFLIX