The Secret Score (or La partitura secreta in Spanish) is a Mexican fantasy/mystery series on Disney+ that premiered on April 17, 2024.

Maya Manglar is a talented teenage saxophonist who's still grieving over the mysterious disappearance of her boyfriend, Leo Beltrán. Her close friend, Nati García, tries to take her mind off it by recommending they attend the prestigious Staqui Institute for a three-week summer program, though Maya is initially uninterested. However, when Leo mails a box to Maya containing his father's golden spiral pendant and a note telling her to take care of it for a few days, Maya notices that the box was mailed from the Staqui Institute and agrees to go, mostly to get answers about what happened to Leo.

While at the institute, Maya and Nati quickly meet up with several additional students, including musical prodigy, yet anti-social Max del Valle; prankster and Casanova Wannabe Andy Rivera; and shy, paranoid, but friendly Tenoch Molina. After their first class, Maya, Nati and Tenoch would go into the Staqui Museum to investigate, with Andy and Max following them for unrelated reasons. Then, when they all end up in the forbidden area of the museum, Maya uses the golden spiral pendant to open a secret passage, which leads to an attic with Baroque sheet music and a clavichord. Max plays the music on a clavichord, and after listening to it, the quintet realizes that the music granted all of them magical Personality Powers.

Together with their new magical powers, the gang tries to use those powers to learn what happened to Leo, while trying to keep them a secret. Little did they know that two other students (Connie Díaz Jauffred and Paulina Marín) also heard the music and gained powers, or that a nearby enemy was after the music score and its power.

The series currently has a single 8-episode season, with no word on whether the show's returning for a second season, in spite of it ending on a massive cliffhanger.

Beware of unmarked spoilers!

The Secret Score contains examples of:

• Age-Restricted Ability: In "Staqui Code", it's revealed that the leaded score plays in a high frequency of 20-kilohertz sounds, and can only be heard by people under 20 years old, meaning adults won't get any powers from the leaded score.
• The Bad Guys Win: Season 1 ends with Rafa using his new power to impersonate Nati and get close to the Guardians, and then steal both halves of the music score right from under the heroes' noses, and deliver them to Dod, allowing them to activate the Silver Score and gain the ultimate power.
• Bittersweet Ending: More bitter than sweet for the season 1 finale. Good news: The heroes were successfully able to bring Leo back, thanks to Max playing the score backwards during a full moon, so now Maya and Leo can finally be together again. Bad news: Max ended up disappearing almost immediately afterwards, due to playing the clavichord score too many times, leaving him trapped within his own power, much to Maya's heartbreak. And more bad news, thanks to Rafa using his new Power Copying power to get Andy's shapeshifting, he was able to pose as Nati, get close enough to the Guardians during the ritual, steal both halves of the music score right from under the heroes' noses the moment Max starting disappearing, and deliver them to Dod so they could activate the Silver Score.
• Detrimental Determination: This is Leo Beltran's backstory and the key cause of his disappearance. If Gael's statement about Leo is anything to go by, Leo was extremely stubborn and simply didn't know when to stop, even when it would have benefitted him in the long run. Rafa and Dod were after Leo's half of the score, and in spite of his father getting killed — likely for reasons involving the music score — Leo stated he'd "follow his father's footsteps, but without making mistakes". He wanted to get further than his dad did and use his power to find the other part of the score. Gael warned him that playing only half of the score too many times was dangerous, but Leo continued playing the score anyway because he was obsessed with finding the other half. After a while, Leo got trapped within his own power of invisibility, leaving him transparent for years with nobody able to see, hear, or even touch him. All Leo had to do was give up, and the second half of the score would have remained hidden, he wouldn't have been stuck in his invisible form, and the entire series would have been avoided.
• Driving Question: What happened to Leo to cause him to disappear mysteriously? Who was after him and why? Answer: He had one half of a magic music score that gave him the power of invisibility, and Rafa and Dod were after him and the music score, in order to try finding the other half of the music score, activate the Silver Score, and get a power beyond imagination. As for why Leo disappeared, he played his half of the music too many times and got trapped within his own invisibility power.
• Extremely Short Timespan: The entire show takes place during a single three-week summer program. And considering the first season ends on a cliffhanger, the program isn't even finished yet, as it's only been 8 days.
• Five-Man Band: Maya's team consists of five members:
  • Maya herself is the leader of the group with the strongest dedication to the mystery and the ability to see into the past any time she touches an object, which is perfect for when she or her teammates need to investigate past events by actually getting a glimpse of them.
  • Her close friend Nati serves as the emotional heart of the group, as well as the memory wiper who can ensure that any suspects or witnesses don't make anything public, and that their secret stays safe.
  • Max is the technopath, who can read people's thoughts with texts on his phone, and pull up videos from their perspective, allowing the team to see into others' thoughts and get some secrets from them. He's also the most prominent player of the clavichord, which enables the group to recharge their powers whenever they run out.
  • Andy may be the least serious member of the team, but his role is just as important, considering he's the shapeshifter who can go undercover and impersonate anyone to get information from suspects and antagonists.
  • and finally, Tenoch is the team researcher who's the most brushed up on Staqui's history, and some additional interests. With his teleportation power, he serves as the group's mode of transportation, who can teleport the group anywhere in an instant.
• Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: All the episodes are named after music terms, which is fitting for a show that takes place in a music conservatory.
• Kid Hero: Maya and her group are all teenagers using their powers to investigate Leo's disappearance.
• Magic Music: The attic for the Staqui Museum has an ancient score that, when played on the clavichord, grants powers to anyone nearby who listens to the music. But only if the listener's under 20.
• Obvious Villain, Secret Villain: Rafa serves as the Obvious Villain to Dod's Secret Villain. Right in the first episode, it's made clear that Rafa was after the score for some dark purpose, but his master, whom he was talking to on his phone, remained a mystery for several episodes, not being revealed until the end of "Against the Strings".
• Personality Powers: The show has made it clear that the powers that the students get are not random; they're linked to the characters' personalities somehow, and meant to serve as a way to improve them and have them become better people.
• Purely Aesthetic Glasses:
  • Dod's seen wearing a pair of round glasses during nearly all of his scenes in the first 6 episodes. After revealing himself as the Big Bad in the very last scene of "Against the Strings", he dramatically removes his glasses as he walks into the room. This showcases that he never needed glasses, but simply wore them as part of his "friendly teacher" act. Even after the reveal, he'd continue wearing his glasses when he's in public or interacting with most of his students, in order to keep up his act. But when he's in private or talking Rafa and his allies, he'll take his glasses off and get dead serious.
  • Principal Catalina is like this as well. She wears glasses in a lot of her scenes, but she's also seen taking them off while walking and holding full conversations with others, showcasing that she doesn't glasses to see either.
• Riddle for the Ages: There are seveal questions that the show never provides answers to:
  • It was established that Leo had an old key in his backpack, and while Gael confiscated the key from the Guardians, it's never revealed why Leo had the key or even what said key opens.
  • "Scale in Paradise" established that all five of the Guardians have symbols that appear on their hands in the moonlight — Plus, there👁 Image
    ◊ are even👁 Image
    ◊ promotional posters👁 Image
    ◊ featuring👁 Image
    ◊them all👁 Image
    ◊, in addition to two additional posters for Rafa👁 Image
    ◊ and Leo👁 Image
    ◊ with their symbols. What are Connie, Paulina, and Pepe's symbols?
  • In "Scale in Paradise", what was up with the symbol that appeared on the clavichord as Maya was playing it, and what does it even mean?
  • Why was Pepe in the forbidden area of the museum in "Falsetto Andante", when Maya and the gang were recharging their powers in the attic? He couldn't have known they'd be there.
  • What was in the box that Dod was showing to Rafa at the beginning of "Staqui Code"?
  • According to Dod, the Silver Score is activated once both halves of the Leaded Score are played at the same time, and it's much more powerful and enhances virtues, granting a power unimaginable. Except it's never revealed what this power actually is. Since the Leaded Score plays at a high frequency that only people under 20 can hear, and the Silver Score is stated to be more powerful, would adults get powers from the Silver Score too?
  • How did Dod learn about the Silver Score in the first place?
  • What's the context behind Rafa's Power Copying abilities? How long do each of his copied powers last? If he asks for one power, will he lose the other? Even Rafa himself isn't sure how this works.
  • Rebeca Staqui — the founder of the conservatory — was stated to have mysteriously drowned in a lake, but nobody ever found the body. What's the context for this? Is Staqui actually dead, or did something else happen to her?
  • How did Germán Beltrán die?
  • Who are the Mercury?
• Teen Genius: Considering the show takes place in a prestigious music conservatory, pretty much all the students qualify as this in one way or another. Max and Rafa are the strongest examples of this trope, with Maya, Tenoch and Leo not being too far behind.
• Title-Only Opening: The opening features a brief sequence that leads straight to the title card, which lasts a few seconds before jumping right into the episode.
• Wham Line:
  • Near the end of "Scale in Paradise", Rafa and Paulina arrived at the hole leading to the alternative museum entrance, and when Max tries to hold Rafa back, Rafa shoves Max to the ground so he can get to the ladder and climb down. Max gets back up and tries to stop him, but Paulina tries to hold Max back, and tells Max to stop... but there's a distorted echo when Paulina gives the order, and Max stops trying to fight Rafa. It's the very first time Paulina uses her Compelling Voice, which, up to that point, she didn't even know she had.
  • "Against the Strings" has multiple Wham Lines for different occasions: In the Cold Open, Gael is relieved when he seemingly encounters Leo again, safe and unharmed, but when it's revealed to be only Andy posing as Leo, Gael reveals that he knew about the score and its power the whole time and that he was concerned about Leo:
  Gael: You too? (Maya and Andy look in Gael's direction) Who else listened to the score?
  • Near the end of the episode, the Guardians met up with Gael again, who had previously stated that the score was dangerous, and that Leo disappeared because he was obsessed with finding the score. Here, we actually learn just how Leo disappeared.
  Gael: Leo played the score too many times, and was trapped by his power. Invisibility.
  • But the granddaddy of them all occurs immediately afterwards in the very last scene of the episode, Rafa's back in the secret attic after yet another failed attempt to get the score, and tells an offscreen person that he had another plan to get it, to which Dod has this to say, finally revealing who Rafa's master is...
  Dod: No. Time's up. I'm taking care of it now.
• Wham Shot: In the very last scene of "Against the Strings", Rafa's back in the secret attic after yet another failed attempt to get the score, and tells an offscreen person that he had another plan to get the it, in a slightly nervous tone. And then the camera pans around 180 degrees to a shadowy man walking through the doorway. He steps into the light as the audience finally sees who Rafa's been answering to for the past 6 episodes... it's Dod!