Heartstopper season 2 review: Queer teen love story has a lot to love, but lacks bite
The first season of Netflix‘s Heartstopper was a rich and tender explosion: that will-he, won’t-he feeling of queer adolescence. As two high-schoolers Nick (Kit Connor) and Charlie (Joe Locke) found love in each other, the journey closed into a firm yes. It was the deliberate fairytale-ish treatment that not only charmed its intended audience but also touched into the longing of an older generation. With season 2, creator Alice Oseman takes her characters further ahead, into doubtful and uncharted territories of queer acceptance and coming out- but without really pushing the buttons. When the result lands somewhere between brimming hopefulness and safeguarded disillusionment, who does it speak to? (Also read: Heartstopper Season 2: Trailer, Release Date, Plot and Everything You Need to Know)
Nick and Charlie are together now
Season 2 of Heartstopper, directed by Euros Lyn, starts off exactly, where season 1 ended. Back to the bright walls of Truham High, Charlie and Nick have speed-dialed into the mushy relationship quotient; unable to stop kissing each other in empty hallways, posting pictures on Instagram and celebrating their two-month anniversary. There’s also Tao (William Gao) and Elle (Yasmin Finney) unsure whether to take their friendship a step further; while Darcy (Kizzy Edgell) and Tara (Corinna Brown) aren’t sure if they are really the picture-perfect lesbian couple they project to be. Stuck with them is poor Isaac (Tobie Donovan) who begins to feel left out and taken for granted. Don’t forget Imogen (Rhea Norwood), who shifts her focus from Nick to Ben (Sebastian Croft) out of all people.
Will Nick come out to his family and friends?
Even as Season 2 tries to widen its scope to an ensemble of vital characters and their specific journeys, the main conflict here is whether Nick should come out to his family and friends that he is bi. The conflict here is strictly external, but Oseman and Lyn are somehow less interested in showing and more in telling. The impossible weight and anxiety of having to come out to the world is somehow peddled into narrative diversions- that include a school exam, a Paris trip (to learn French!) and a prom. These episodic chapters are surprisingly long given the conflicts are underlined with mild resolves. A coursework submission? Duh, only one attentive library scene away. A misunderstanding? Only a truth and dare game away.
The internal, strictly subjective tension and thrill that illuminated the edges of Season 1 is missing this time around. Charlie is perhaps the only one who sort of comes around with his turmoil(s)- and it is only later when an eating disorder churns up, handled with vital sensitivity and care. Locke and Connor have insane chemistry together, and operate their arcs with a feather-weight touch. Strangely enough, Nick has no interior dialogue of his own at all, given he is the one trying to decide how to come out. And the moment he begins to do so, Charlie jumps in with a “How about we promise to tell each other when we’ve got stuff going on?” and that’s that. No Charlie, Nick would like to tell himself first when he has stuff going on. When it all aligns together- in an impeccably directed dinner scene, Heartstopper Season 2 earns its context.
What doesn’t work
Yet, it is this constant, vehement emphasis on “Are you okay?” interpretation that harms, and ultimately erases the investment in Heartstopper. None of these characters really have a line separating their private and public selves. The lack of it is not a question of queer experience, but a humane one. The earnestness with which Nick and Charlie begin to support each other begin to feel ornamental after a while. It doesn’t help that the finely pitched performances of Locke and Connor never allow any room for ambivalence. Any inner life, and there’s bound to be a matching clarification. Only Gao rises above the rest, playing off the anxiety and reserve beautifully. The Paris trip, although more of a distinct, narrative wish-fulfilling product, is where the show propels the much-needed moments of intrigue. Heartstopper 2 is far too reassuring and fragile in its own bubble, a little too scared to admit that teenagers might just have their inner lives that do not need a scanner.
This also brings me to position the impact of a show like Heartstopper season 2 in the current framework of this country, where the very conversation around same-sex relationships (and marriage) has reached a strategic crisis. Unceremoniously, the show will find its viewers here- a richly imagined dreamscape of queer relationships boosted by acceptance. It sells the queer dream perfectly. But as India awaits the fate of its LGBTQ+ community in favour of same-sex marriage in the face of conservative opposition, there is an invisible wall of homophobia that ostracises, day in and day out. The heteronormativity frightens. Here is a show that wants you to invest in its journey of coming-out without really allowing a counter perspective. Is acceptance important? Yes, says the show. “Everything’s going to be perfect.” But by robbing a much-needed essence of objectivity, Heartstopper broke my heart in its cold, first-world remove. In its intention to be safe and digestible, it has nullified the fantasy of its own queer-coded world. I wanted to love it more until I couldn’t.