As a person who grew up watching Skins, Netflix‘s AlRawabi School for Girls was an instant favorite of mine. Knowing that the new season would include a new cast and continue the school’s progress, just like Skins, made me even more excited for the series, especially knowing that we were left on a cliffhanger, and we’d know what happened through the perspective of the new characters who are outsiders just like we are. Brilliant!

The cherry on top for me was having Tara Abboud in the cast, who I’ve been keeping an eye on since her apperance in the award-winning film Amira. I expected good stuff.

Luckily for us, Netflix gave us access to watch the first episode, and, unfortunately, watching the first episode of the series left me feeling confused and disappointed.

AlRawabi School For Girls Season 2 follows the story of a teen’s newfound fame on social media as it takes a toll on her mental health and leads her down a dark destructive path, impacting everyone around her as her rise and her fall are candidly documented through the lens of her classmate.

First, let us start with the positives…

The production and cinematography, just like the first season, is top-notch, as expected from Netflix.

As for the actors, the selection of actresses, in my opinion, is even stronger than the last season. The girls are all portraying their characters to a tea and it’s convincing, 100%. The major issue is, that the characters are so unlikeable!

On to the negatives…

I’ve never watched a show where I just hate all the characters. I understand some of them are supposed to be bullies, and overall flawed, but there can still be redeeming qualities in bad characters for entertainment purposes. The characters so far are just boring, and quite frankly, cringe.

They’re taking every cliche in the book, and making a character that portrays it in a literal sense. The arts girl, who’s curly head, weird, and walking around with a camera (with no lens, mind you). Then the fearless rebel who was friends with the popular girl, and now hate each other. The popular girl’s side-kick who’s doing the bullying for her and is punk rock from the outside, but insecure from the inside.

Shut up already!

Now coming to the dealbreaker for me which makes me unsure if I want to continue watching or not, its the fact that we did not get any answers for the cliffhangers in season 1!

I don’t care what these new kids are up to, give me the closure I’m looking for! Granted, they do give hints about it, and they make it clear that we’ll get an answer, but I just find it cheap that we’re being teased about it just so we’d watch the new season.

This, for me, is the dumbest thing the creators could’ve made because there’s no way any of us would invest in the new characters while we’re still holding on to the old ones. I understand you’re probably waiting for a plot twist by the end, but that’s just lazy writing in my opinion.

Now does that mean you should not be watching the new season? Look, I have hope that it becomes better after a while, and we’ll get the closure for the first season, but I highly doubt any of us would be as impressed as we were with the first season.