This recap of The Mess You Leave Behind episode 2, “They Know”, contains spoilers.

The big theory of "They Know" is that Viruca did not commit suicide but was assassinated, which floated here in the premiere but really calcifies it. Mauro considers this to be the case, in fact. The episode opens with him hassling the police about their negligence, and let's just say he's not going to drop the stuff out of there.

It's really no wonder. By contrasting her to Viruca, the students are also trying to goad Raquel by forcing her to share something profoundly personal with them as their previous teacher once did. In my view, this is a little too friendly teacher-student dynamic, but nobody in the show seems to think it's all that strange, Viruca least of all. She explains with the entire class how she became pregnant at 16 and fabricated being raped to manipulate her mother into allowing her to have an abortion.

As well as pushing the idea of Viruca’s murder, “They Know” is also about getting to know the students, mostly through the personal letters they write to Viruca in response to her own revelation. Roi has a particular focus in these missives, and he gives a lot away about himself, especially his unhealthy fascination with Iago, but it’s obvious that him, Iago, and Nerea are the suspicious triumvirate in this narrative and probably all have something or other to do with Viruca’s death.

We also see how Raquel is getting much more on-board with the idea of Viruca being murdered and looking into the matter herself, while also trying to maintain a certain amount of respect at school. When Marga attempts to intervene in the kids bullying her, Raquel won’t allow it, deciding she has to take charge instead and threatening the kids with failing them all if they don’t admit who left her the sinister note.

Raquel also has family issues to deal with, as her relationship with German takes another hit when they argue over his parents selling up the restaurant and him deciding to turn it into a B&B rather than continue being a writer.

But the real turning point comes at the end of “They Know” when Raquel receives not just messages from an unknown number but a video of her having sex with someone who clearly isn’t German. It seems these students, as well as being obnoxious, are a lot more in-the-know than they seem.

We recapped every episode — check out the tag.