Attention SLTs (er, students): Class — and chaos! — is back in session at Heartbreak High for Season 2.

The Australian teen drama series follows a new generation of students at Sydney’s Hartley High as they navigate friendships, love, sex, and growing up. A reboot of the popular ’90s ensemble series of the same name, this Heartbreak High brings the drama to the 2020s: Imagine a Down Under Degrassi meets Euphoria, with the colorful style and graphic eyeliner perfected by the Spanish teens of Elite. (Less murder, though.)

Season 1 begins when students discover a secret “Incest Map” — essentially, a chart that diagrams all the hookups within their year at school — and the ramifications are not pretty. To begin with, the subjects of the map must join the newly formed Sexual Literacy Tutorial class, aka SLTs (pronounced “sluts”). And if that’s not enough, their politically correct sexual education doesn’t sit well with everyone. In Season 2, the SLTs must face off against the Puriteens, a group that encourages abstinence, and the CUMLORDS, a faction of male students who band together against woke culture.

Oh, and Hartley High is now the “lowest ranking school in the district.” That means there’s nowhere to go but up, right? Read on to find out more about what happens in both seasons of the Aussie gem, now streaming on Netflix.

Who’s in the cast of Heartbreak High? 

• Ayesha Madon (The Moth Effect, Love Me) plays Amerie, a confident, outspoken 16-year-old who decides to document the sexcapades of herself and her classmates.
• Asher Yasbincek (The Heights, The Wilds) plays Harper, Amerie’s estranged best friend and resident rebel of Hartley High.
• James Majoos is Darren, an outsider among the Hartley cliques who’s unafraid of expressing their queerness and sexuality.
• Chloe Hayden (Reef School, Spooky Files) is Quinni, a neurodivergent bomb of positivity and Darren’s best friend.
• Thomas Weatherall (Troppo, RFDS) is Malakai, a star basketball player and the new kid in town.
• Will McDonald (Home and Away, Young Rock) is Ca$h, a kindhearted drug dealer exploring his sexuality and member of a group of eshays (Aussie slang for a subculture of tough-acting teens).
• Josh Heuston (Dune: The Prophecy, Thor: Love and Thunder, Bali 2002) is Dusty, class heartthrob and the object of Amerie’s desire. 
• Gemma Chua-Tran (Mustangs FC, Falling) is Sasha, the coolest person in school — and she’ll make sure you know it.
• Bryn Chapman Parish (Mr Inbetween) is Spider, the resident troll whose reputation as a d-bag might belie his deep-down insecurity.
• Sherry-Lee Watson is Missy, Sasha’s ex and best friend.
• Brodie Townsend (Significant Others) is Ant, a seemingly nice guy who always happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
• Tom Wilson (Home and Away, Latecomers) is Chook, leader of the eshays.
• Chika Ikogwe (Land of Bad, The Tourist, The Moth Effect) is JoJo Obah, a kindhearted teacher tasked with supervising the newly formed Sexual Literacy Tutorial class, which hopes to improve student camaraderie and sexual wellness.
• Rachel House (Moana, Foundation, Thor: Ragnarok) is Principal Woodsy, a no-nonsense disciplinarian who strives to be a strong ally for her students.

Who’s in the cast of Heartbreak High Season 2?

New characters in the second season of the show include:

• Sam Rechner (The Fabelmans) is new kid Rowan Callaghan, a mysterious and meek country boy who becomes embroiled in a love triangle. 
• Kartanya Maynard (Gold Diggers, Deadloch, The Messenger) is Zoe Clarke, a blunt and opinionated celibacy advocate and Amerie’s new archnemesis.
• Angus Sampson (The Lincoln Lawyer) is Mr. Voss, Hartley High’s physical education teacher, who returns to the school after a mysterious absence and is ready to rebel against the school’s PC ideology.

Is anyone from the original Heartbreak High in the reboot?

Season 1 sees Scott Major return as fan-favorite legacy character Rivers, aka Darren’s father, who has come a long way from his bad boy days at Hartley High. Isabella Gutierrez returns as her character, Chaka, who is now Darren’s boss at Harry’s Cafe.

In Season 2, Lara Cox returns as Anita Scheppers, now a well-to-do businesswoman at the Sydney Inter-Outer East Women’s Association Pitch Day (essentially, a rich lady who gives money to kids from underfunded schools for improvement projects).

What happens in Heartbreak High Season 1?

Did you see how complicated that sex map is? Needless to say, a LOT happens. But here’s a short synopsis:

Amerie and Harper are BFFs — or so Amerie thinks, until Harper dumps her with no explanation on the first day of Year 11. And then Principal Woodsy discovers the Incest Map, forcing everyone on it into SLTs with Miss Obah. Amerie and Harper created it, and Amerie takes the fall. Now public enemy No. 1, she bonds with fellow outcasts Darren and Quinni. Another blow comes when Amerie learns that Dusty, who she’s crushed on for years, hooked up with Harper. Not deterred, she sets her sights on hunky new kid Malakai.

Dusty chases after Harper, while Amerie hooks up with Malakai. But after a traumatic encounter with the cops following a Mardi Gras rager, Malakai breaks up with Amerie and finds himself in bed with Harper and Dusty. 

(Side note: For those unfamiliar with Aussie culture, Sydney’s annual gay pride celebration is called Mardi Gras, following a famous gay rights march on the holiday in the ’70s.)

Anyway, back to the drama: Harper and Dusty break up, while Darren gets mad at his boo Ca$h for pumping the brakes on their hookups. Quinni tries to mask her autism spectrum disorder in her new relationship with Sasha, but finds it difficult to adjust. Harper is diagnosed with chlamydia and tries to stop Dusty from passing it to Amerie, while Malakai’s PTSD following his assault causes him to act recklessly. And if that’s not bad enough, some new graffiti alleges that Miss Obah and Amerie had sex.

The police investigate, Miss Obah quits, and the students lock themselves in the principal’s office in protest. She returns following their sit-in (and the revelation that Dusty was behind that graffiti). Finally, Harper tells Amerie the reason for her estrangement: She was nearly assaulted by Chook and the eshays after Amerie left her alone at a summer music festival. When Ca$h helped her escape, she came to Amerie’s for help — only to find Amerie hooking up with Spider. When she went home, her troubled father physically assaulted her. 

Once Amerie learns the truth, she encourages Harper to report her father’s abuse to the police. In the meantime, Ca$h is arrested, and the two girls set Chook’s car on fire.

What happens in Heartbreak High Season 2?

The second season opens with another dangerous blaze — the school is on fire, and Amerie and Harper might be inside. But to find out what brought on the conflagration, we need to go back to the beginning of the term and see the sparks begin to fly.

Still trying to rehab her reputation, Amerie decides to run for school captain on behalf of the SLTs. Unsurprisingly, the overachieving Sasha’s already in the race. 

The new PE teacher, Mr. Voss, has a chip on his shoulder when it comes to the SLTs. He’s tired of political correctness and encourages a group of boys, led by Spider, to embrace their masculinity with his new club, the CUMLORDS. (Why are they called the CUMLORDS? Well, they’re teenage boys, so.) Spider throws his hat in the ring for school captain too.

Did we mention the dead birds? Amerie and company keep discovering an alarming amount of dead birds. While at first they think it’s Ca$h trying to scare Harper for putting him in jail, they realize that “Bird Psycho” actually has a vendetta against Amerie, so Quinni begins to obsess over discovering their identity.

Amerie hooks up with Malakai on the first day of term, but it turns out he doesn’t actually want to get back together. Instead Malakai and quiet new kid Rowan explore their attraction. It’s a good thing Harper and Amerie aren’t updating the sex map anymore, because the topography keeps getting more complicated: Spider’s new squeeze, entirely unexpectedly, is Missy, while Harper hooks up with Ant, and Ca$h rekindles things with Darren after he gets out of prison and begins to extricate himself from Chook and the other eshays. Heck, even Ca$h’s nan has a new boyfriend. 

Amerie grows closer with Rowan as he helps her with a campaign video, and they hook up once Rowan and Malakai break up. But their budding relationship is on the rocks when Amerie realizes she’s pregnant (that first-day-of-term hookup with Malakai). She blows him off as she terminates the pregnancy, but Malakai is by her side the whole time. When Amerie has to miss the school captain debates, Quinni takes her spot — and, much to her (and everyone’s) surprise, she wins the election.

What happens at the end of Heartbreak High Season 2 with Bird Psycho? 

Ok so who is Bird Psycho? Well, it’s none other than Rowan, as all of the characters find out in the final episode of Season 2. It turns out Rowan and Amerie were friends as kids and she hurt his feelings, initiating a chain of events that led to his little brother’s death. He blames Amerie, hence the birds. And this is all revealed around the dance.  

Let’s back-up quickly: Mr. Voss isn’t happy with the election results and starts a food fight that results in his termination. Maybe not suited for a career in education after all! Especially given what happens next: The next night, at the school formal, he and his group of CUMLORDS (minus Spider, who’s realized he doesn’t actually share the same values as Voss and his crew) confront the SLTs outside of the gym while armed with torches and wearing trash bins on their heads in homage to infamous Australian outlaw Ned Kelly. Principal Woodsy tells them to scram, and they do — but not before igniting a giant penis they drew in fuel on the field. 

The fire spreads to the building, and everyone runs out — except for Harper and Amerie, who are trapped inside with Rowan Bird Psycho.  the fire rages,  and Harper convince Rowan  that wasn’t actually Amerie’s fault. Quinni runs back inside the school and rescues the three of them in the nick of time. 

Harper and Ant, Spider and Missy, and Darren and Ca$h all comfort each other after the fire. Meanwhile, Malakai is moving to Switzerland and a note he wrote confessing his feelings for Amerie burns up in her locker without anyone reading it. Miss Obah agrees to teach SLTs again, but will make an effort to include other viewpoints. And no, the course will NOT be called CUMSLTs. 

When does Heartbreak High come out?

Seasons 1 and 2 of the series are available to stream on Netflix right now.

Can I watch a trailer for Heartbreak High?

Watch the trailer for Season 2 below.

Heartbreak High Season 2 Trailer