Review: He’s Bi, Actually!!!!!

‘Heartstopper’ Season 2 turns a classic gay fantasy into a messy, crucial reality

Aug 10, 2023

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The Yearning Rating: ✰✰✰✰

Romance: ✰✰✰✰
Sex: ✰✰½
Storytelling: ✰✰✰✰
Performance: ✰✰✰
Yearning: ✰✰✰✰✰

Spoilers ahead for Season 2 of Heartstopper!

Written by Ali Romig

I was raised on a…if not healthy, then steady diet of teen media. You could say I was a glutton for it. And while The O.C., Dawson’s Creek, and One Tree Hill all kept my insatiable need for drama fed with weekly helpings of love triangles, drug scandals, and pregnancy scares, queer storylines were mostly served du jour (if at all). For a period of time—let’s say roughly 1998-2012—teen dramas ran the airwaves. But in the succeeding years, this kind of television seemed to have died out. One had to look only at the flailing CW, once the destination for teen soaps, to confirm. That is until more recently. Shows like Never Have I Ever, The Summer I Turned Pretty, and yes, Euphoria1 have brought about a resurgence of teen shows. It is once again, totally raining teens. Albeit with a markedly different mindset.

It would be impossible to talk about teen TV without mentioning Netflix’s breakout hit Heartstopper, based on the bestselling graphic novel series by Alice Osman. Heartstopper has quickly become one of the defining teen shows of Gen Z’s era, even as it features none of the melodrama of its foremothers. Instead of glitzy coke-fueled parties and illicit, alluring behavior, Heartstopper presents a different kind of fantasy to its viewers—the ultimate gay teenage fantasy. One in which the friendly, built rugby player is not only gay for you, but totally in love with you. And oh yeah, you also have an incredible inner circle of cool, beautiful queer people. It's a kind of fantasy that didn’t and likely couldn’t have existed in Orange County, Cape Side, or Tree Hill. A fantasy that—the show slowly reveals—doesn’t even really exist today, at Truham or Higgs. In its greatly anticipated second season, we watch the Heartstopper teens navigate the ways in which coming out, being out, and being young are still hard—no matter how much, or how little, has changed.

Now don’t get me wrong, upon its return Heartstopper is, in many ways, as dreamy as ever. And when I say it lacks melodrama, I don’t mean that as a ding against its bingability. I love that almost half of the entire show is Charlie Spring (Joe Locke) and boyfriend Nick Nelson (Kit Connor) saying “hi” and “bye” to each other. Much time is given to longing looks and sweet, demure makeout sessions between the two boys as they explore their new relationship. Every covert finger graze is accompanied by a youthful illustration of hearts, fireworks, or something that might equally denote jubilance. In my professional opinion, Heartstopper has really cracked the code on maintaining the ever-important yearning factor, even after a relationship’s potential has been realized.

Even so, through sunset-hued scenes of the teens running through Paris on a school trip or giddily Instagram DM’ing2 each other a seemingly endless series of heart emojis, reality manages to seep through the fantasy. Charlie and Nick’s relationship is stable, healthy, and nurturing, but the show isn’t shy about making the assertion that these facts are not enough to fix everything else in their lives. It’s a refreshing and grounded take for a teen show, where love and romance is often viewed as a cure-all.

Nick, who is just coming into his queerness (he’s bi, actually) struggles with how and when to come out. He’s already out to a few people, like his and Charlie’s close friends, as well as his mother (Olivia Coleman, returning in her best role to date “mom-on-iPad”). However, at school he remains unsure, and to make matters worse his bullish brother David (whose flippy hair seems to have been transported here from 2007) and aloof French father re-enter the picture too. Nick is reminded throughout that he doesn’t owe anyone this information, a point that holds even more weight when considering what happened to actor Kit Connor after Season 1 was released. The show handles the delicate balance that is Nick’s story with an expert hand. It is clear that he is not ashamed of who he is, but rather that he is desperate to protect his peace. For many queer people, discovering our queerness can feel like uncovering a cosmic truth, and all we want is to keep it pure and safe. Watching Nick go through the push-and-pull of wanting to be seen, but also not wanting to make himself vulnerable to other people’s bullshit felt incredibly true to life.

While Nick navigates his coming out, Charlie—who is already out—is nothing but patient. He is adamant that he can make sure that Nick has a totally different coming out experience. That is to say, a positive one. In the first episode, Charlie gives a speech to his sister, Tori (Jenny Walser, a morose Zooey Deschanel) about protecting Nick from all pressure, stress, and fear. As he speaks, Tori looks on solemnly, probably realizing his good intentions are only setting him up for future disappointment.

As the season progresses, it becomes clearer that as Charlie focuses on Nick’s comfort, he ignores his own mental health. He still hasn’t properly dealt with the bullying and abuse he faced last season. Instead, he’s convinced himself that if he can make his life with Nick perfect, then everything else will fall away. And here is the ultimate teenage gay fantasy that I mentioned before. This youthful idea that if our best-friend-crush, or popular-kid-crush, or even classmate-crush would just like us back, then everything would be okay. That if we could simply have the kind of adolescent romantic adventures that our straight peers have always been privy to—like going to the prom with a date you actually like, or kissing at a house party—then nothing else would matter. But Heartstopper Season 2 reminds us that it’s never that simple. The outside world has a way of creeping into our relationships and our heads.

While this current generation of high schoolers may have more opportunities for “beautiful, gay teenage experiences” as the late-to-come-out Mr. Farouk calls them, they face their own set of unique challenges: social media, enduring homophobia, and a false sense from others that they “have nothing to worry about.” Charlie’s internal struggle will no doubt be further explored next season, but I love how the show is able to balance this darker storyline with lightness and levity. The absolute joy that being out and in love brings Charlie and his friends is never questioned and always celebrated.

Speaking of the “L” word (love, that is), Tara Jones (Corinna Brown) and Darcy Olsson (Kizzy Edgell) get more screen time this season, which absolutely delights me. From the moment we met them last year, these two have had a rock-solid relationship, but in these new episodes that foundation is tested. While Nick is out at home, and not at school, Darcy is having the opposite problem. At school she is the confident, patterned-shirt-wearing lesbian we all know and love, but at home we discover that she is living under the heavy cloud of a homophobic mother. This constant pressure affects her ability to show up for Tara, who is desperate to understand her girlfriend’s secrecy. Late in the season, something happens that forces a meeting between Tara and Darcy’s mom. The scene really struck me. Tara’s absolute shock and awe at Darcy’s mother’s coldness was beautifully played and reminded me of how jarring it can be as a young person to confront the reality of an experience so vastly different from your own for the first time.

While Darcy and Tara have my little lesbian heart, and Nick and Charlie are the undeniable stars of the show, it was the slow-burning friendship-to-lovers romance between Tao Xu (William Gao) and Elle Argent (Yasmin Finney) that really kept my eyes glued to the screen, and not just because they are both incredibly chic with fabulous jawlines. Their will-they-won’t-they dynamic was present in Season 1, but this time around the writers raised the stakes, throwing a number of obstacles their way—some more potent than others.

One of the more substantial reasons they initially hold back is that Elle may be leaving Higgs to go to an art school. While Tao famously fears change, Elle embraces new friends who are, importantly, also trans. While it’s never explicitly called out, it seems obvious that Tao’s status as a childhood friend who saw her through her transition aligns him heavily with the past, while her new school and community represent the future. Still, people can surprise you. I won’t give away the entire trajectory of their relationship, but I will say that it includes a Princess Diaries foot pop that is both cheesy and unavoidably endearing.

In Season 2, characters that had been largely relegated to the background get a chance to step forward. For me, the standouts are Isaac3 (Tobie Donovan) and Imogen (Rhea Norwood). Isaac’s discovery that he is likely ace is both nuanced and settled. It felt like watching someone learn to trust himself. Meanwhile, Norwood’s Imogen quickly took the award for best line readings, in my humble opinion. At first I thought she had all the makings of an iconic f*g hag, but given the googly eyes she makes at her ex-bff, Sahar—who is bisexual (actually!!)—while rocking out to The Cure at prom…well, let’s just say Imogen may be more than an ally. If I had one quibble with the season, it’d be that the episodes aren’t long enough to support the stacked cast. I think this show could easily have 45-minute episodes, rather than the half-hour they get. It might give certain storylines, like Isaac’s and Darcy’s, more room to breathe and deepen.

It's probably hearsay, but I think that the greatest love represented in Heartstopper is the platonic love that exists between all of the teens. I adore that this show never forgets to let its friendships sparkle, and treats these relationships with just as much reverence as any romance. Towards the end of the season, as I watched our gang make the decision to bail on prom in favor of a more intimate hang out, something clicked for me. Heartstopper Season 2 may be popping the bubble of the “ultimate gay teenage fantasy,” but it’s also offering an alternative viewpoint: the real fantasy is the one we create with our community. After all, queer people have always had a knack for rethinking the ordinary. Why stop with high school?

You can watch Heartstopper on Netflix. And it’s already been renewed for Season 3 :)

Next week on The Yearning, Meg gives the royal treatment to Red, White, and Royal Blue, based on the bestselling book by Casey McQuiston.

Whether or not you think it’s actually for teens.

Seriously though, why are they all DM’ing each other instead of texting? Is this a British thing or a Gen Z thing?

Fun fact: the book Isaac is reading for much of the season is We Are Okay by Nina LaCour, which just so happens to be my favorite book for young adults ever. Read it!