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

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

Heartbreak High, the reboot of the classic 1990s Australian series, returned to Netflix on the 14th of April to a good deal of fanfare. Everyone was excited about witnessing the next chapter for fan-favorite characters, and while there are some slight stumbles backward in the second season, there’s a particular Hartley High teen who has risen to be the darling of the lot. Quinn “Quinni” Gallagher-Jones has returned, once again played by actress, author, and activist Chloe Hayden, and the fans could not be happier. After having to endure so many poorly researched, borderline offensive portrayals of Autism Spectrum Disorder on film and television, Quinni in Season 1 was a genuine revelation. Audiences, especially those who are similarly neurodivergent, were keen to see where this new term would take her.

As a quick recap of her character’s journey so far, Quinni is the best friend of Darren (James Majoos) and the new friend of protagonist Amerie (Ayesha Madon). She is the heart of their clique, imaginative, kindhearted, and always ready to give others the benefit of the doubt. As the term goes by, she ends up falling head-over-heels for a girl in her year, Sasha (Gemma Chua-Tran), and the two start dating. At first, it’s really cute, but Sasha continues to unintentionally fall into ableist pitfalls. Feeling like she has to protect Quinni from partying and drug use, as if she wasn’t also a teenager, messing with her hard-line routine, and treating the things she’s passionate about with blatant disinterest. The relationship falls apart, but Quinni learns to self-advocate and communicate honestly about her feelings rather than fearing being “too much.”It was cathartic to see the feelings I’ve experienced played so authentically, so I was among the number who were excited to see what was next.

Heartbreak High

Release Date

September 14, 2022

Cast

Ayesha Madon , James Majoos , Chloe Hayden , Asher Yasbincek

Main Genre

Drama

Seasons

2

The Second Term Is Off to a Rocky Start for Quinni

Things have changed for the better and worse for Amerie and her crew. Darren’s boyfriend Ca$h (Will McDonald) is in jail awaiting trial, popular boy Dusty (Josh Huesten) has left school, and Spider (Bryn Chapman Parish) still sucks. People haven’t quite grown to like Amerie, but at least she and her best friend Harper (Asher Yasbincek) have made amends. A lot of changes come for Quinni quickly, like a new addition to her friends’ group with Harper, and while she’s happy things are going well, she’s also struggling to keep up. However, there are some ways she keeps herself in the loop. When Amerie suddenly steps up for school captain as an attempt at redemption, Quinni becomes her vice-captain and campaign manager. More importantly, she tasks herself with solving the mystery of “Bird Psycho”, someone dedicating themselves to ruining Amerie’s high school life. She does this with a fiery passion, a special interest if you will, with conspiracy boards and case files to find this saboteur.

This keeps her in the loop and feeling involved, but it all comes to a screeching halt during an incident at school camp. While finding her phone full of evidence, she’s bitten by one of Australia’s many poisonous snakes out in the bush. This causes her squabbling classmates to pull it together and rescue her, but she almost dies from the bite. This is a naturally traumatic event for her, which leaves her physically and emotionally spent, but it also leaves her out of commission for a short time. Her friends come out of whatever dramas they’re going through to help and comfort Quinni through her recovery. In trying not to stress her out, they don’t inform her of all the changes that have happened since she was gone.

This, unfortunately, has the opposite effect. After finding out 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, Quinni confessing that she’s starting to feel left out and emotionally exhausted, resulting in the suggestion that she stop playing by everyone else’s rules. After all, no one ever asked her to mask.

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‘Heartbreak High’ Gives Us a Real Conversation on Autism and Masking

This begins the second half of Quinni’s journey as she unmasks, but what is masking and unmasking? Trying to fit in is hard, especially when the advice “be yourself” never works out as advertised. This is an issue that autistic people run into a lot, this feeling of being perceived as wrong, or alien, or just too much. Since one can’t expect the world to be a more accepting 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 television and film. It’s playing pretend as 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 get by at school, work and in social situations, it can have a devastating impact on mental health, sense of self and access to an autism diagnosis.”

We see a dramatic change in Quinni’s behavior when she unmasks, and starts “looking out for number one.” She becomes more brazen and less concerned about communicating with even her closest friends. If she doesn’t feel like talking, she won’t talk, if she doesn’t find something interesting, she’ll leave. On the one hand, it’s a liberating experience to live for one’s comfort. When she doesn’t concern herself with being too much for other people, she can let loose and have a good time. She permits herself to step out of the drama that her friends are going through and give herself a very justified break. On the other hand, while she is upset with her friends for going after her coping strategies when they aren’t exactly the picture of stability, there are points where she seems genuinely uncomfortable with shutting down her friends when they need her. You see her pause, and watch her face fall, before holding fast in her denial to accommodate for others because she has a point to prove.

In Season 2’s dramatic finale, Quinnie opens up to Darren. She misses her friends and doesn’t want to lose them, but she also doesn’t know who she is without the mask she wears. Her sense of self got lost in the part she had to perform to navigate the world, but 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 classmates while slowly dying from a snake bite. She becomes school captain with a rousing speech that exhibits her care for the entire cohort, not just select parties. Best of all, she runs into a burning building to save her 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