'Control Z' Preview: Could Netflix's Spanish teen thriller be 13 Reasons Why's new competitor?
It all begins with one scandal surrounding a student and suddenly the entire school's elite and the finest are roped into a complex web of lies and now you have skeletons out in the open. Sound familiar? You won't have to look for much, that's pretty much what the plot of Netflix's sensation teen drama '13 Reasons Why' started off with and is still continuing successfully. Its fourth and final season will arrive in less than a month's time. But almost as if picking up from the fragments of the show arrives the streaming portal's latest Spanish teen drama. Following o the heels of 'Elite' and 'Baby', 'Control Z' could be the next big competition for '13 Reasons Why'.
According to the official synopsis of the Mexican web series, "When a hacker begins releasing students' secrets to the entire high school, the socially isolated but observant Sofía (Ana Valeria Becerril) works to uncover the hacker's identity." Sofia is your Clay Jensen from '13 Reasons Why', extremely observant and a prime protagonist in a story that isn't directly hers. A look at the trailer makes her come off as an outcast. In a room full of Instagram filters and extravagant brands, Sophia is your regular dark and brooding teen rebel who has clearly seen enough in the past to be wary of her peers. The trailer shows her befriending the new kid in the school and while there are several reasons to consider him an accomplice in the disturbing game the hacker unleashes, there are other factors that come into play too.
The trailer gives off the prime secret revealed that begins the sinister tale of bullying and harassment. The most popular and hottest girl in school is 'busted' for being trans during what looks like a school seminar. Her boyfriend and her clique of closest friends are all weaved into the plot as allies turn against her and soon more such explosive videos begin dropping about the other popular kids. Of course, it's a classic whodunnit-plot, but so was '13 Reasons Why', where we found ourselves plagued while solving the mystery of who did what to Hannah Baker for her to take her own life?
Unlike Clay Jensen however, Sophia is infested with dark and snarky humor which adds an authentic wit to the plot. The way she figures out the new kid based on his tan, hesitation to talk about his famous dad and also jokingly guesses the number he's thinking make her more of a 'Mr. Robot'-esque character than your regular sad and dark teen in typical Netflix dramas. If not for anything else, it is the central character's possible complicity in the crime that the trailer hooks us with, making it definitely worth a consideration if the series based on Jay Asher's book of the same name hit you as hard.
'Control Z' premieres on Friday, May 22, only on Netflix.