AlRawabi School For Girls Season 2 Review: Silly Second Season is a Shell of its Former Self

– No Spoilers –

The first season of AlRawabi School For Girls was a gritty and realistic look inside the lives and cliques of an all-girls middle eastern school which doens’t take any sort of weakness lying down. For some reason, we another season for the series which ended with a bright red bow and get a different set of girls who are in the same school, reference a few moments from the past but feature a completely different story… and ends up feeing like a parody of the first season.

AlRawabi School For Girls Season 2 focuses too much on GenZ’s Tiktok usage and makes becoming famous such a big part of the season that anything else gets drowned out in comparison. This season’s protagonist Sarah is a youngster with stars in her eyes for the resident mean girl Tasneem and wants nothing more than to be famous on social media. The second season of the series is a light and almost silly watch in its first few episodes, with the girls’ competitive attitude resulting in nothing but annoying rants and petty fights and quips.

The season misses out on the tension and high-stakes of the first season. The kids’ arch nemesis this season is social media and fame, which makes the innocents turn into horrible, self-centred people. Not that they were self-centred before the advent of Tiktok, oh no no. Let’s only blame the internet for teaching youngsters bad habits. Jokes apart, the series feels directionless and a little silly. After the shocking and tense first season, this time around it feels like child’s play and the situations are so silly that it’s stupid.

For most of the runtime, nothing really happens in the second season that warrants you watching the season for 6 hours, which is an insanely long runtime. Shams and Nadeen come with this very convoluted plan for some reason that makes no sense and the way they go about bringing that plan to fruition is straight-up illegal. On the other hand, last season’s bullies have become a laughing stock this season and there’s no tension in the air.

There’s a point in the seires early on when the girls mention that they would like to wear nailpolish and fancy earrings. The principle gives them permission, only that all of them are already wearing blingy accessories and high heels. The only difference is that now they are also wearing hair extensions. The stakes, clearly, have never been as high.

That being said, the series does bring to light important topics such as internet literacy and dos and don’t when using the internet. The importance of sex ed and the need to be aware of what you’re sharing online. The season also brings for consequences for the actions one decides to make and everyone gets a moment to prove themselves in the battlefield of an all-girls’ school. Plus, the music is absolutely amazing and so catchy.

But that’s where the pros end. The biggest issue with the series is that it doesn’t do anything new. It’s almost similar to every other high-school story out there and doesn’t try to reinvent itself in any way. The repetitive storyline is boring at this point and it also doesn’t do well as a sequel to a rather dark previous season. There are a surprise few guests in episode 4 and the scene come out of left field all of a sudden. Although it’s emotional and ties into the heaviness of the last season, it feels like a misfit this season.

In the end, this drama series does bring forth many important lessons but all in the last two episodes and in a rush. It doesn’t let these vast issues take up our lives and eat us from within. Thus, when the seires ends, it’s not as impactful. However, it would be a disservice to say that the last two episodes don’t have an impact; in fact, it’s these two episodes that have some sort of gripping narrative and issues that come out in full force. In spite of its rushed narrative, it’s these two episodes that feel immediate and tense.

AlRawabi School For Girls Season 2 Review: Conclusion

Coming out as a sequel to a gritty, dark and intimate first season, AlRawabi School For Girls Season 2 feels a bit lost. The first season worked as a limited series and made an impact because of it. The second season loses out on a lot, but the last two episodes still create some sort of an impact, so there’s that.

AlRawabi School For Girls is streaming on Netflix.

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