Elite
エリート
Storyline
The whole story, ending included.
A Spanish private school where every friendship is also a sexual arrangement; the most explicit teen show Netflix has produced.
Las Encinas is the most exclusive private school in Spain. When the roof of their state school collapses, three working-class teenagers, Samuel, Nadia and Christian, receive scholarships there from the construction company to blame, whose owner's children, Guzmán and Marina, are in their class. Envy, class resentment and desire tangle the newcomers with Lu, Carla and her boyfriend Polo, Ander, the head's son, and Nadia's brother, Omar, a small-time dealer who falls in love with Ander. Told through police interviews, the first season builds to Marina's murder: Polo killed her during a quarrel, and Samuel's brother, Nano, is arrested for it.
In the second season Samuel fakes his own disappearance to trick Carla into confessing what she knows, and Polo is arrested, then freed. In the third, which closes the first class's story, Lu accidentally hurts Polo in a struggle on graduation night, and he falls to his death; the friends cover it up, and it is ruled a suicide.
The fourth season brings a new head, Benjamín Blanco, and his children, Ari, Mencía and Patrick. A businessman, Armando, is sexually coercing Mencía through blackmail; when Ari confronts him he attacks her and leaves her near death, and Guzmán kills him. Samuel and Rebeka help dump the body in a lake, and Guzmán and Ander leave. In the fifth season a new student, Isadora, is raped by three schoolmates in Ibiza, and Samuel, about to hand evidence to the police, dies when Benjamín tries to wrest it from him and he falls by a pool. Benjamín is arrested.
In the sixth season Iván's father, a footballer, comes out and is killed in a homophobic attack. Sara, an influencer, hits Iván with a car and drives off, and lets her abusive boyfriend, Raúl, frame the drugged Mencía; Iván survives, and the Blancos leave Madrid. In the seventh, Carmen, the mother of a new student, Chloe, pushes Raúl from a balcony after he attacks her daughter, and they stage it as suicide.
In the eighth and final season Joel, an eighteen-year-old student who has been selling sex to members of a powerful alumni club, is found dead. The killer is Luis Marín, a police officer who has been sexually coercing Isadora, and who killed Joel when Joel threatened to ruin him. Chloe's phone recorded the killing, and Omar releases the video. When the police come for Luis, Isadora poisons him, and he dies. Omar and Nadia, with the head, give the press the whole buried history of Las Encinas, from Marina's death to Joel's, and the school closes for ever.
Starring
Itzan Escamillaas Samuel
A shy scholarship student from a working-class family who sets out to prove his brother innocent of Marina's murder.
Samuel’s story
Samuel arrives at Las Encinas on a scholarship after his school's roof falls in, and falls for Marina, whose father's company is to blame. When she is killed and his brother, Nano, is arrested, he sets out to find the real killer: he gets close to Carla, falls for her, and fakes his own disappearance to make her confess. With Guzmán he hounds Polo and is expelled for it, and after Polo's death on graduation night he helps hide the truth. He falls for the head's daughter, Ari, and helps Rebeka sink the body of the man Guzmán killed; when it surfaces, he takes the blame on Benjamín's promise of money and lawyers. Deciding instead to give the police evidence against Benjamín, he struggles with him by a pool, falls, and dies.
Mina El Hammanias Nadia
A brilliant scholarship student, the daughter of Palestinian immigrants, barred from wearing her hijab at school, who returns at the end to expose it.
Nadia’s story
Nadia comes to Las Encinas to win the scholarship awarded each year, and on her first day is told to take off her hijab or leave. She meets prejudice from her classmates, learns that Guzmán tried to seduce her for a bet, and falls for him anyway. Her rivalry with Lu for a place at Columbia turns into friendship. She keeps the group's secret about Polo's death on graduation night and leaves for New York with Lu; the next year she and Guzmán end it by video call. Years later she comes back to Madrid to help Omar through his panic attacks, and when he wants to burn the school down she talks him round. With him and the head she gives the press everything Las Encinas has buried, and the school closes for good.
Omar Ayusoas Omar
Nadia's closeted younger brother, dealing drugs to save enough to leave home, who falls for Ander against his father's wishes.
Omar’s story
Omar deals drugs out of his family's shop and hides that he is gay, until a dating app brings him Ander, the head's son. Exposed as a dealer, he is confined to the shop by his father and runs away to work in a nightclub. In time his parents accept him and he enrols at Las Encinas, but after a triangle with Patrick, Ander leaves. Samuel's death sends Omar into depression; back at the school as an intern, he breaks up with Joel on finding him with Iván. After Joel is murdered and members of an alumni club attack Omar, he wants to burn the school down, but Nadia talks him round. He releases the video that exposes Joel's killer, and with Nadia and the head gives the press the school's buried history, closing Las Encinas for good.
Ester Expósitoas Carla
A marchioness's daughter and Polo's girlfriend, who knows the truth about Marina's death and covers for him.
Danna Paolaas Lucrecia "Lu"
A sharp, competitive rich girl, Guzmán's girlfriend at first, whose rivalry with Nadia turns into friendship.
Arón Piperas Ander
The head's son, a star athlete under constant pressure from his parents, who falls in love with Omar.
Why it matters
Élite borrows the teen soap and the murder mystery and uses them to look at privilege: what money buys at Las Encinas, and above all what it hides. Across eight seasons it keeps returning to the same questions, how class shapes who is believed, how a Muslim girl is barred from wearing her hijab, how a gay son of a strict family and a trans student find room to live, and how sexual violence against students goes unpunished when the people involved are rich enough. Critics called it a guilty pleasure, and some praised it for keeping its sex scenes about women's pleasure and for handling abortion with care. Netflix said the first season was streamed by more than 20 million accounts in its first month. The series ends by making its long subject explicit: a school that survives by burying its crimes can only be ended by telling them.