Netflix’s MisEducation follows Mbali Hadebe, daughter of a disgraced corrupt politician mother, fleeing to another university to start a new slate and regain her lost glory.
Warning: This article contains heavy spoilers
Plot summary
Mbali is the Queen of St. Angela but her glorious reign on hearts and social circles comes crashing down when her mother, a corrupt politician and the Minister of Grants is raided for stealing grant money.
Mbali is lambasted alongside her mother and finds herself at the bottom of the social hierarchy. Unable to go back to her old friends who all have turned against her, she heads off to Grahamstown University to begin with a new slate.
Soon, she develops a new crush on GU rowing team captain Sivuyile Levin. She befriends Jay and later Natalie too, who’s Sivu’s sister. However, she also makes enemies and antagonists, thanks to her mother’s legacy that follows her here as well.
To get into Sivu’s good books and regain some of her former glory, she devises a radical plan to help him win the presidential election, but another piece of news comes and shatters that plan. Meanwhile, Natalie dons a new, radical, and free avatar.
Mbali sets up a livestream event to quell the controversy tanking Suvi’s chances at the presidential race. Mbali then decides to reset the voting when the elections are moved up.
Meanwhile, her mother shows up and poses a risk to all her progress. Ballot voting is opted when the servers crash, causing Mbali to dare again and rig the election, and she involves Jay and Natalie too.
Election is won but questions arise about its legitimacy as evidence is recovered. Suvi faces suspension, and so does Jay.
Meanwhile, Sivu and Natalie both confront Mbali and she is at her lowest once again, forcing her mother to arrive at Grahamstown, as MisEducation season 1 rolls the credits.
MisEducation ending explained in detail:
Who wins the election?
Grahamstown University’s presidential elections are intense and there are two main contenders for the president this time — Caesar Monoeke and Sivuyile Levin.
Caesar has been the president for years and continues to not graduate and pick up another degree year after year.
Levin is a black student and Olympic medalist who was adopted by white parents, and captains the GU rowing team which is comprised mostly of white students.
As such, he’s developed an image of a token black character in the college. While Caesar’s powerful speeches and performative Black solidarity are impactful among the students, Sivu brings his diplomacy and the hots to the table.
Caesar garnered momentum for his campaign by declaring war on the colonialist regime of GU. Later, he co-opted the ‘Fee Must Fall’ movement against the fee increase at GU for the next year. All of this proves beneficial for his campaign.
However, to combat his dodgy and dishonest campaign, Mbali turns up the dodgy and dishonesty to an eleven. She decides to rig the election with the help of Jay, although she tries to rig it well before he gets involved, and without his knowledge.
She infects the servers with a virus so the app used for voting also crashes. The election process is then moved to ballot voting. She tries to rig that too, now with Jay on her side. They successfully manage to mix in the fake ballots and fail to burn the real ones.
Sivu is declared the winner and becomes the president. However, things soon take a turn for the worse as MisEducation sees its protagonist face the consequences of her actions.
Aphiwe’s father finds the unburnt ballots and tells her. She then informs Caesar, who kicks up a storm and demands a recount. When evidence of tampering with the election process surfaces, Jay is suspended, and so is Sivu.
Meanwhile, Caesar is reinstated as the president until re-election.
Mbali confesses that she’s the one behind it all but she’s allowed to stay in the college and resume her studies, thanks to her mother who comes through with the bribe and who has arrived to stay at Grahamstown from now on.
Mbali can’t quite register the shock before MisEducation rolls the credits.
What happens to Jay?
Jay has several hustles to keep him economically afloat at GU. He has an Uber knockoff ride called Stuber and also deals ADHD pills. Additionally, he also sells flash drives with viruses in them to crash students’ laptops.
One of these flash drives is in Junior’s possession and Mbali takes it from him. She also takes Jay’s security card to break into the server room and crash the servers. When the flash driver is found, Jay is brought in for questioning.
He is informed that he is suspended and soon will be expelled. Meanwhile, he has other struggles. At the beginning of MisEducation, he hooks up with a student who turns out to be Caesar, a closeted gay man.
Caesar forces himself upon Jay and later threatens to never expose his sexual orientation to anyone, socking him in the eye for good measure. Jay doesn’t expose his secret to anyone but does tell Mbali about it.
He later finds Thato, and the two get along well and get into a relationship. Jay also tells Thato about Caesar as well. At the end of MisEducation, he’s about to be expelled and prepares to leave the campus, before reconciling without Thato.
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