Aahana Swrup
Following Santi and his friends’ journey within the reggaeton music scene in the industry, Netflix’s show ‘Neon’ depicts the story of an amateur trio who more than make up for their lack of experience in ambition. However, Santi’s bold move from a small town in Florida to the big leagues of Miami with Ness, his manager, and Felix, the creative director, comes with expected struggles. Still, with their dreams and maybe even their close friendship on the line, these three embark on a quest, full of wild parties, dangerous benefactors, and PR complications, to establish Santi as the next big reggaeton star.
If you’re curious to see where this adventurous undertaking takes our protagonists, here is everything you need to know about the course of Santi’s career in ‘Neon.’ SPOILERS AHEAD!
Neon Recap
Shortly after Santi’s song ‘Exagerao’ blew up on the internet, with the music video gaining views in the millions, the artist moved out to Miami, the City of Dreams, with his two best friends. Ness, the logistical head of the group, and Felix, the one with the creative vision, both accompany Santi on his arduous search for success, putting their faith in his talent. However, soon after the move, the trio realizes making it into the industry is harder than they thought.
Initially, Ness plans to make connections and market Santi’s music until labels approach them. However, after an unproductive meeting with Mia, a supposed big name in the reggaeton industry, the group realizes that the strategy is overused by new artists hoping to break out and almost always fails. As such, they decide to take a leap in the other direction and manage to slip into a big industry party to show Mia that they are serious about the business.
Once Mia realizes that Santi has incredible potential and his team has the drive to stand up for it as well, she decides to back him up. Nevertheless, unbeknownst to the trio, Mia doesn’t own a record label and is an assistant to the BPM head, Oscar Morales. Yet, Mia pulls strings covertly to put on a mask of control to make Santi and the others believe she can represent him as his manager.
Soon, Ness finds the funding for Santi to shoot another music video, a new jingle for the supermarket where she works part-time. While the team has some difficulty navigating their new dive into pseudo-professionalism, the song they emerge with becomes popular enough to attract some attention.
Eventually, Mia takes the trio to Art Basel, a fair for artists to secure funding for Santi’s future projects before he can be pitched for a record label signing. At an afterparty event, Ness runs into Gina, an effortlessly cool woman who offers to have a meeting with Santi after finding out that Ness is his manager. A little beguiled by the powerful woman and more than excited at the proposition, Ness agrees to visit Gina’s office with Santi and Felix.
Still, once the trio arrives at her luxurious mansion, where she offers them an unimaginable deal, they soon discover that Gina is involved in some shady business, one with bags of cocaine and drawers of guns involved. Fearing for their lives, Santi and his friends decide to take Gina’s deal. Thus begins Santi’s druglord-backed cruise through music-making, where Gina treats the group to drugs, strippers, money, and a classy ride.
As such, Mia becomes threatened by the potential of Gina stealing the spot as Santi’s future manager. Consequently, Mia takes a risk and pitches Santi to her boss. Furthermore, when Oscar expresses reluctance to trust Santi’s potential due to his lack of a discography, Mia lies about the artist preparing a song with Jota Rosa, a big-time producer. Afterward, all that is left to do is trick a few people and get Santi a spot inside Jota Rosa’s studio on someone else’s time.
Although this misadventure ends with Mia getting fired and her secret coming out in the open, Santi walks out of it with a new song, Corillo, and a potential deal with Oscar. Yet, one catch remains: popstar Isa, represented by BPM, wants to start a PR relationship with Santi to help her transition into Spanish music. As a result, Santi’s Corillo, a song about friendship, ends up being a love song with Isa. Yet, even though Santi’s minimal public image takes a hit due to his association with Isa as his boy toy, at least he manages to score an invite to Daddy Yankee’s party.
Neon Ending: Does Santi Meet Daddy Yankee?
Daddy Yankee’s party ends up being much more of a disaster for Santi and his friends than the occasion calls for. Ness recognizes the harm Santi is doing to his career by defining himself by Isa’s brand and changing his incredible song to cater to her. Therefore, she schemes to get Daddy Yankee to listen to the original Corillo so that his appreciation will help Santi see the truth.
Nevertheless, despite Ness accidentally succeeding at her outlandish mission, she has a fallout with Santi at the same event, rendering her attempted help useless. Worse yet, even though Santi realizes his mistake a few days later and tries to call off his collaboration with Isa, the pop star uses pictures of Santi kissing Celeste, a journalist at Daddy Yankee’s party, to blackmail him into silence.
Isa has a global fan base who will tear Celeste and Santi to shreds if she fabricates a narrative of Santi cheating on her. Therefore, to save their careers, Santi has no choice but to go along with Isa’s plan to debut Corillo at her New Year’s Party. Meanwhile, Ness, Felix, and Mia prepare to help their other client, Javier Luna, with his magic-music blend performance at the same event.
Just when things start looking bleak for Santi, the trio pulls one last bold movie. During Luna’s magic trick, Santi appears on stage. The musician reveals the truth behind his PR relationship with Isa and performs the original Corillo song. Although the crowd goes wild, heavy consequences await the trio on the other side.
Afterward, Oscar contacts Santi to tell him that Isa’s legal team and the officials at BPM plan to sue Santi into oblivion so that he will never be able to work in the industry again. Santi and his friends were aware of this outcome going into their plan, but the reality of it still hits hard. The trio has put their entire future on the line for the possibility of making it into the industry, only to throw it away for the sake of their authenticity. Still, a saving grace appears to Santi in the form of one Facetime call from none other than Daddy Yankee.
As it would turn out, Ness reached out to Daddy Yankee, knowing he liked Santi’s song. As a result, Daddy Yankee, who was impressed by Santi’s performance at the event, wants to collaborate with Santi and make music together. Thus, despite the hurricane of troubles that Santi finds himself in by the end, his unbelievable eventual meeting with Daddy Yankee over the phone provides a lifeboat to his otherwise sinking career.
Read More: Is Netflix’s Neon Based on a True Story?
