Elite season three introduces itself with style as it opens in a club. Partiers dance like there’s no tomorrow, but the music is ominous. Suddenly, breaking glass. Shattering. Falling. A person hits the ground. Blood is everywhere. The body’s hand twitches.

Welcome back to the murderous Las Encinas.

In typical fashion, we’re transported back five months to see how the events at the club ended up transpiring. For those following along, Polo (Álvaro Rico) has been temporarily released from jail because the judge wants a “confrontation” between him and his accuser Carla (Ester Expósito) to decide whether to charge him or drop the allegations. “He’s been released, hasn’t he?” the school whispers as Polo enters the school with his rich mothers, a defiant look on his face that hides his anxiety.

The first episode plays catch up, as we see where the traumatic events of season two left our favorites. Valerio (Jorge López) is back in town after a family-mandated trip to Chile and Lu (Danna Paola), his half-sister and former lover, isn’t happy to see him because--and this seems at least quasi-literal--her father will kill him. But he’s not happy to see her either, since he got pegged as the villain and Lu as the virginal little girl who didn’t know better.

Omar (Omar Ayuso) and Ander (Álvaro Rico) start the season in lovey-dovey mode, with Omar going down on Ander as he plays video games. But before the episode ends, things get dramatic between the two of them as Ander deals with traumatic information that he doesn’t want to share. Information that threatens to tear the two apart. After Season 2’s rocky relationship, it seems that Season 3 wants to turn up the friction between them.

The Enrique Iglesias-look-alike Samuel (Itzan Escamilla) finds himself alone and looking for a roommate after his mother leaves town to be with Samu’s brother. He’s still pining after Carla, even though she kind of throws him under the bus. But she’s dealing with her father’s return and shady business that threatens to destroy everything she holds dear. Finally, Nadia (Mina El Hammani) finds her future in jeopardy after the sex tape leaked last season and Guzmán (Miguel Bernardeau), still in love with her, is still grappling with the shocking events of Season 2 that threatened to upend everything he believed in.

The future is very much on the mind of the students of Las Encinas, as well as on the mind of Elite’s writers. From the very first episode of the series, the specter of Guzmán’s sister Marina (María Pedraza) has hung over the show. Her murder was the driving mystery of season one and the cover-up drove season two. And here, still, she hangs over the show as a deathly pall. In some ways, the show has been defined by that fateful murder and it seems like season three might end with some finality. It’s been suggested and semi-confirmed that season four will introduce an entirely new cast, so it’s only appropriate that the people we love and love-to-hate are looking towards a life after Las Encinas.

One driving force this season seems to be a scholarship to an American university, a scholarship Nadia desperately needs after her other avenue was destroyed with the sex tape. But Lu’s changing situation makes her just as desperate for the escape The American education can provide. Carla, meanwhile, is forced to lie in order to protect her future. And Ander is facing some terrible truths that put his future with Omar at odds.

Netflix only gave the press the first two episodes to review, so I can’t speak to how the season will go or whether it will do our favorite characters justice. “I know you want everything to go back to how it was, but that won’t happen. Ever,” a character ominously says at one point and the events in these two episodes hammer that point home.

I guess we’ll soon see whether our showrunners can give us the send-off we want, but I’m nervously anticipating the twists and turns it’ll invariably take. I’m not sure I’m ready.