Back to 15 seasons one and two established the fact that this teenage time travel story is here to stay. Clearly the first two were successful; that’s why the third season is now out for everyone to stream. The show follows the life of the young girl Anita, who juggles the past and future to set her life right. Sadly, things do not work the way she wants, even in this season. The third season of Back to 15, released on 21st August 2024, is the continuation of the time travel escapades of Anita and her friends.
The third season began with Anita being unable to delete her profile on Photo Blog, which led to her being dragged back to 2009, when she was in college. She is still surrounded by the same group of people except for two new faces, a fine arts student named Filipa, and a new roommate named Jessica. All the women—Anita Bruna, Carla, and Camilla,—are now studying together in a new town called Cafezinhos and living under one roof, which they have called the ‘Empress House Crew’. This time Anita is not keen on doing a lot of back and forth between the past and the future. As mentioned in the second season, she wants her life to take its course, but someone did stall that plan, and she is on the lookout for another time traveler besides her and Joel. Joel’s memory has been tampered with because of the several back and forth journeys. As Anita fills him in, there are a few suspects she is looking into. Apart from that, Fabricio and Anita also find a way to understand their feelings for each other, as the last season ended with him kissing her and expressing his feelings for her. Were Anita and Joel able to find out how they could time travel? Who was the new time traveler that was messing with Anita and Joel’s plan to get rid of the Photo Blog?
The biggest issue with the third season is that, just like the first two ones, the writing is too cluttered. There are way too many plot lines stuffed into each of the forty-minute episodes this season, and all of them have to conclude by the end of the sixth episode. While it might have worked in the first two seasons because there were several stories to tell and conclude, the third season should have been easier to follow, as by the looks of it, this was the series finale. There are many subplots that were introduced and not concluded or given a decent ending. The whole point of a story arc is for it to go through a journey and have a conclusive closure. But in the third season of Back to 15, the showrunners did nothing but tack on a bunch of subplots. The narrative about Carol breaking up with Henrique suddenly comes up in the last episode of the season. The writers of the show treated it like an afterthought. The person who is not allowing the time travel portal to close is introduced very late in the show; the makers do not give enough time to establish the person’s reasons behind why they were time traveling. This happens in the end, and the climax is hasty and rushed with no time given to get a grip over the final chain of events for that matter. The ending has many over-the-top elements, which are seen in many Latin shows coming out of South America.
The show also has many LGBTQ+-related inclusive subjects talked about in this season as well. Sadly, just like in the last two seasons, there is no in-depth exploration of how the characters feel about themselves as they go through changes. The plot revolves around just a bunch of hormones running around instead of delving deep into the mindset of the young people who are in the experimentative stage. The show’s core theme is time travel, but again, there are no definite rules established. The set of rules will bring structure to the screenplay, and since there was neither of them, it only made Back to 15 very bland. Not one subplot is interesting, and it only made the viewing experience subpar.
The young women and men only seem to be having fun in the college, and there is no studying happening, which is far from realistic. One episode is just like the Bill Murray film Groundhog Day, where the chain of events keeps going on a loop. There is hardly any proper explanation of why this was happening. The only time the show is any good is when it openly has a storyline that projects women standing up for each other in their time of adversity. It kills the popular narrative of women being each other’s worst enemies. Young girls in their early twenties come forward to fight a common enemy, which is refreshing to watch.
The direction of the show has taken a hit, and that’s because there was no proper structure given to the narrative. The storytelling is focused on the characters and not the story, and at the same time, the pacing is bad, which is the only reason why the narrative became messy by the end of it. It is only the performances that kept the show afloat. Throughout the three seasons of Back to 15, the only consistent aspect are the performances of the actors. Maisa, like the young Anita, is consistent as a performer who is trying to find a way out of the time travel loop. Nila, who transitions from Cesar to Camila, is brilliant as a person who is struggling with her new identity and gender. The rest of the cast are excellent as the friends of Anita and Joel. Many adult actors are just decent, as the scene stealers are their younger versions as they have more screen time.
Back to 15 could have had a better ending; instead, it became a sloppy mess in the pursuit of bringing in all the stories they had in hand. The series finale deserved better.
