[Movie] Heartbreak High – Season 1 Episode 1 “Map B**tch” Recap & Review

Map B**tch

Episode 1 of Heartbreak High begins with a young version of Amerie and Harper meeting when they were 5 and how their friendship progressed until now. They have been best friends since and now they are high school students at Hartley High. Their somewhat weird hobby of watching people’s relationships from the side-lines led to the start of the infamous “incest map” on an abandoned stairwell wall at school.

In the present, Amerie is heading to school, ready for a new year at school but Harper has gone MIA since a festival they went to a couple of weeks ago. This turns out to be the least of Amerie’s problems as her classmates find out about the map.

The students are immediately summoned to a parade and during the scolding speech by the principal, Harper makes an entrance. She has changed her whole look and is angry and ignoring Amerie. After the parade, Amerie is called to the principal’s office, she is busted but she decides to take the fall alone.

Later in the day, she finally gets to Harper but she is pissed and refuses to talk to her. Amerie doesn’t understand why; she remembers that they had a fight at the festival but her memory of the night is blurry. She tries to talk to Harper once again but she turns physical and Amerie ends up with a nosebleed. Amerie is also dealing with her fellow students being angry with her for the “incest map.” 

The day doesn’t get any better as all the students named on the map are summoned to class. 

Among them is a new student Malakai, the school’s gorgeous heartbreaker Dusty, a non-binary kid named Darren and their friend Quinn, Douglas the school drug dealer, Spencer aka. Spider the wannabe, Anthony, Harper, and Amerie are also joined by mutual friends Sasha and Misty.

They get to attend a special sex education course, courtesy of the map. It is a Sexual Literacy Tutorial and they have no choice but to attend it twice a week. The class will happen on their time and their English teacher Jojo will head the class. She comes off as a modern progressive teacher and wants to be real with the kids about sex.

The kids are not particularly excited to hear about their new special class and it reignites their anger towards Amerie. In the meantime, the news about the incest map has reached local new stations.

At the end of the day, the kids go home and we get to see their home situation. Darren is struggling at home with a stepdad who doesn’t understand their sexuality. They are also sleeping with a boy from another school. 

Amerie is ostracized by her friends and she tries to reinvent herself by cutting her own fringe. It is a disaster and Darren and Quinn step up to help her. They are the only ones who will talk to her. They convince her to take them to a cemetery party.

At first, Amerie is scared to go but once they arrive it is not as bad as she imagined. She even gets a kiss from her long-time crush Dusty before leaving. The party ends after a police raid and the episode closes with a hint that maybe there is a new incest map. According to the person writing it, “Dusty f*cked Harper.” 

The Episode Review

The show has already established a mystery as we all want to know why Harper ended her friendship with Amerie. We are all curious about what happened at the festival.

Dusty is a player and if he did sleep with Harper, I don’t think Amerie will handle the betrayal from her former best friend well. Although this is only the first episode, we already have a good handle on some of the characters so far.