The curriculum is rather brutal: in Poisons class, some of the kids actually get poisoned to demonstrate how they work.
Meanwhile Marcus has the usual "poor kid in a snob school" hijinks, including a snarling enemy, a doofus best friend, romancing the Girl (who, of course, finds him "arrogant"), negotiating between feuding gangs, and avoiding being murdered as part of another student's final exam.
I don't know which made me more nauseous, the extreme violence or the constant girl-on-boy cruising. These girls are ludicrously horny. They act like stars in a porn movie, who pounce on any man who comes within 10 feet.
Or the racism. The school is stratified into rival gangs: the nerds, the preppies, the losers, and various racial minorities displaying their own stereotyped violence (black, Hispanic, and Asian). Marcus is half-Hispanic, so he doesn't know where he belongs.
I saw a little bit of reflection of heteronormativity in the outcasts, who don't really want to be killers, but were forced into the academy by their parents. When I was in high school, just a few years before 1986, boys had to pretend to be girl-crazy. Forget to stare, drool, and moan at the big breasts bouncing by, or to make a statement suggesting lack of interest, and your friends would simply not believe you. Your enemies would attack: "Fairy! Fag! Girl!"
But it's only a reflection. The producers envision a world where gay people do not exist. Two gay characters from the comic books have been erased. This series is about violence, cliques, and female horniness
1. Benjamin Wadsworth2. Benedict Wong (right); I don't know who the boyfriend is)
5. Billy (Liam James, left), son of a punk rocker and aspiring murderer.
10. Shabnam (Isaiah Lehtinen, left), portly, gay-coded, and a rich banker's son, three strikes against him, so he tries too hard to make friends.
