Game On!
Episode 2 of Alrawabi School For Girls begins with Layan arriving at school with her two lackeys, Ruqayya and Rania. This terrible trio are the ones in charge of the school but Mariam is intent on changing that hierarchy. Unfortunately she’ll have to do it alone, given Dina has been blanking her and not replying to messages. Two weeks have passed and Mariam returns to school with pills and a new vengeful attitude. Layan continues to terrorize her though, tripping the girl in the classroom and forcing her to apologize. Well, it’s payback time. Mariam sets off the fire alarm and with all the kids out in the courtyard, plays audio footage of Layan gossiping over the tannoy system. Now, it seems like Mariam is working with someone, especially if her message reading “they’re coming, get out of there” is anything to go by. On the back of this, Layan, Ruqayya and Rania are all forced to take up Summaya’s job of cleaning while simultaneously being banned form all school activities – including the soccer tryouts. While the girls are punished with their cleaning gig (which they inevitably turn into a big song and dance), Noaf shows up to talk to Mariam. She’s obviously not happy though, especially given her radio silence in the classroom. It turns out Noaf’s reasons run deep into her past. She was expelled from her previous school and kept quiet to protect her own identity. She basically hacked into their system and stole the midterm exam results so it’s not exactly a simple case of misunderstandings! While contemplating her options in the toilet stalls, Layan and the girls show up and remain determined to use their familial ties to get out of their punishment. After a school assembly involving a bully roleplay, soccer tryouts go ahead. Unfortunately Ms Faten allows Layan and her lackeys to tryout for soccer. Ms Abeer is obviously not happy but Fater is clearly crooked. Anyway, the tryouts end with Mariam pelting the ball at Layan’s face. After, Ruqayya is convinced that Noaf is their main culprit and sets out with her friends to “fix” this problem. In order to do so, the girls go straight after Noaf’s younger sister, Joud. On the back of this, Noaf heads over to Mariam’s and decides to team up with her. They need to teach Layan a lesson and both remain determined to fly under the radar while they do. Well, Mariam, has more up her sleeves, deciding to first take out Layan’s lackeys before going after Ms Faten, who happens to be the root cause of this rot.
The Episode Review
While the first episode set this up as a simple revenge thriller, the second manages to add some extra depth to this in the form of Noaf. Understanding her backstory and how this ties into the main story is a welcome inclusion, while the main story is simple but effective. The characters are still quite archetypal but there’s at least some depth given to Mariam and Noaf. Whether that extends across to our main trio of bullies however, remains to bee seen. The show has done a decent job so far in providing a good backdrop for this revenge thriller and the ending hints that we’ve got many more schemes on the horizon.
