Youngins Season 1 Episode 37-39 recap: Expelled!

While Amo, Buhle, Mahlatse, Tumelo and Khaya buzz with excitement over their video getting over a million views, reality comes crashing down in Episodes 37-39 of Showmax Original Youngins, as none of Principal Mthembu's former grooming victims come forward. Principal Mthembu hands out letters for disciplinary hearings with representatives from the Department of Education and their parents. And while the five present their best arguments at their hearings, the department's representatives conduct no further investigation before unanimously deciding to expel them. They're forced to say goodbye to each other and return home immediately.

Back home, each of the five goes through their own struggles. While Khaya's father pours out verbal abuse 24/7, Mahlatse and his mother support one another despite having no money, no job and no food. Tumelo pouts over having to herd cattle, Amo's an outcast in the house where her father murdered her mother, and Buhle sees her father flirting with one of the church women as the congregation prays over her. 

What happened in Youngins Episodes 34-36?

Khaya (Toka Matabane) revealed that he’d seen inappropriate underaged photos on Principal Mthembu’s (Loyiso Macdonald) iPad and admitted to the others that the only reason that the principal has always outwitted them is that Khaya snitched on their original attempts to expose him.

With a mission greater than their anger against Khaya, the five united to attempt to steal the principal’s iPad for evidence. When that failed, they went on Tumelo’s (Lebohang Lephatsoana) TikTok to create a viral video in which they named and shamed Principal Mthembu. Amo (Ayakha Ntunja) revealed that a fellow student (Zintle, played by Lihle Ngubo) had died from a backstreet abortion after the principal impregnated her, and she and Buhle (Kealeboga Masango) called on any surviving grooming victims to step forward so that they can raise their voices together.

On the less serious side, Amo and Mahlatse (Thabiso Ramotshela) shared their first (and second) kiss, and Khaya scored the winning goal in the final football game of the season in front of a talent scout. 

Stream Youngins S1 on Showmax now. Three new episodes each Thursday.

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What happens in Youngins episode 37?

Excitement is overwhelming as the name-and-shame video hits one millions views. But Sefako (Tabile Tau) asks Khaya why he's playing Superman online and risking a potential soccer scholarship, and Palesa (Amogelang Telekelo) warns Amo that the video was not the way to go. Buhle and Tumelo still have stars in their eyes (with Tumelo imagining his future as a "problematic gay"), but Khaya, Amo and Mahlatse suspect that notoriety won't be as fun as fame. 

Pearl tries to settle her class for a discussion on career choices, but Tshepo (Tshepo Matlala) asks whether it's possible to pick a career as a paedophile. As the uproar continues, accusations and insults are thrown at Tumelo, Mahlatse and Amo, who are called “attention-seeking junkies” until Pearl kicks them out of her classroom.

Meanwhile, Buhle disrupts Mr Ramathuba's (Simo Magwaza) class, only to get kicked out when no one joins her and Khaya's chant demanding the fall of Principal Mthembu. Amo starts to fear that none of Principal Mthembu’s victims will come forward, and Tshepo (Tshepo Matlala) and Mazambane (Kadiya Banyini) mess with all five of them by claiming that they can't get laid because Principal Mthembu is a sexual dynamo who gets all the girls. Pearl accuses them of selfishly ruining a man's life before sending them to the principal's office, where they receive details of their disciplinary hearings with representatives from the Department of Education.

What happens in Youngins Episode 38?

Buhle and Amo are horrified to see that not only has no one stepped forward, but their video has reached a new demographic: toxic men. Meanwhile, the school's toxic boys like Tshepo and Mazambane rant about the unfairness of the #MeToo movement.

It's time to face the music, and their parents, as Buhle's dad Pastor Musa (Vuyani Mgugunyeka) tries to placate Khaya's dad Freddy (Ncibijana Madlala). In the principal's office, Amo tells the unvarnished truth, right from her first meeting with the principal at the nightclub when she snuck out of school with her friends. Buhle spits fire as she reveals that she saw Principal Mthembu fondle Lerato (Dakalo Molope) during Zintle's memorial service. Mahlatse reveals that the principal had multiple victims. And Khaya tells the representatives how he came across pictures of underaged girls on Principal Mthembu’s iPad. But Tumelo falters when the representative asks him whether he has even personally seen Principal Mthembu having inappropriate relations with a school student. 

Then it's Mr Mthembu's chance to talk and he goes on the attack, spotlighting what each student has done wrong. He claims, "What Khaya saw was a consensual interaction between myself and a lady friend." (which nobody thinks to challenge), and adds, "As for Miss Mosweu, I did approach her, but I had no idea how old she was, or who she was. She was at a nightclub for people over the age of 21 when she should have been in her dorm." He goes on to mention Khaya's drinking infractions, the sex toys found in Buhle's room, and Tumelo's cheating scandal, before vehemently denying all allegations made against him. 

Without doing any forensic investigation into the students’ claims, like checking the principal's iPad and phone, interviewing other students like Lerato, or checking the reason the principal left his previous school and his previous records, the Department of Education representatives vote unanimously to expel all five students from Olifantsfontein High with immediate effect. And they reprimand the five for conducting their own investigation and coming up with theories rather than telling an adult about Zintle's pregnancy (which Amo tried to do with Pearl), effectively blaming them for her death. 

Khaya has one last confrontation with the principal before trying to convince Pearl to check Principal Mthembu's iPad. But it's time for some heartbreaking goodbyes as all five leave the school forever.

What happened in Youngins Episode 39?

Amo has to live back in the house where her father murdered her mother because Aunt Thuli has lost her own home thanks, in part, to the financial burden of having to raise Amo along with her own children. Aunt Thuli is not unsympathetic, just frustrated, but Amo's schoolgirl cousins give her attitude and her childhood friends taunt her in the street.

Back home in the Free State, Tumelo's dad seems as well-meaning but exasperated as Amo's aunt. He shares his son's frustration that there's still no internet reception in the area, but tosses him a khaki overall because it's time to tend to the cattle. Tumelo is in his personal nightmare: no bars, no sunscreen and an ugly fit, but his father isn’t standing for his disrespectful attitude.

Meanwhile, at Khaya's house his mom seems happy and proud of him as he cheerfully helps her with the housework, but his father refuses to even let him eat breakfast or watch his TV, and orders him to go out and get a job, because if he wants to go back to school, he can pay his own fees.

Mahlatse’s breakfast is two slices of dry bread, but he takes it with thanks and assures his mother that things will get better, even when she admits that she already owes everyone money for food.

And Pastor Musa is all approval when Buhle's mom asks the church women to cast the demon out of her daughter, who has lost her way, but he's taken aback when she asks them to also pray for all their marriages. And Buhle sees him blow a kiss to one of the younger women while her mother is praying. 

Stream Youngins S1 on Showmax now. Three new episodes each Thursday.

What is Youngins about?

Tshedza Pictures’ (Adulting, Outlaws) Youngins follows five students at government boarding school Olifantsfontein High: new girl Amo Mosweu (Ayakha Ntunja), head girl Buhle Kunene (Kealeboga Masango), Buhle’s soccer star boyfriend Khaya Jali (Toka Matabane), Tumelo Dibakwane (Lebohang Lephatsoana) who’s the only openly gay boy in school, and his Grade 10 friend and roommate Mahlatse Jiyane (Thabiso Ramotshela), who’s the school’s drug dealer. After Amo uncovers Principal Mthembu’s (Loyiso Macdonald) predatory behaviour around female students, she and her four new friends become targets. 

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