SERIES REVIEW: Heartstopper (season 1 & 2)

Oh my gawd this show [insert weeping emoji here]! Okay, if you haven’t heard of Heartstopper, for shame, for shame! It’s really one of the most wonderful shows I’ve seen in recent years, based off the webcomic by Alice Oseman and focuses on two main characters, Charlie and Nick, who fall in love in high school. It deals heavily with subjects like queerness, bullying, boundaries, trans rights… all sorts of really modern, important subjects. I’m not going to beat around the bush, this show is everything and I absolutely love it.

I watched the first season on my own a year or so ago, just because I wanted to see what was happening in queer television. I have a severe aversion to melodramatic indie teenager stories (The Perks of Being a Wallflower was pretty much unbearable, in my humble opinion, and The Fault in Our Stars had me very divided—I cried but I also found it melodramatic and super annoying), so the show almost lost me at first, but it never ended up doing the excessive melodramatic things that I was expecting it to and ended up finding that it was so sweet that I wanted to share it with my family. My partner is bi and my son (RIP) was so progressive that he made sure that he didn’t knock it until he had tried it (turns out he was pretty straight in the end, but I really respected him so much for having a go of it before making up his mind that it wasn’t for him). We binge-watched the first season together last year in a big cuddle puddle on the couch, and it’s one of my favorite memories of the three of us together. I distinctly recall my cub watching the show, halfway to tears, and just saying, “why does this show exist?” because he was so overwhelmed by how sweet and cute it was. I responded, “because gay teenagers deserve to have stories told about them too,” and he just nodded and went back to being completely captivated by the show. We all loved it.

First of all, the characters are outright wonderful. Charlie is the token gay boy at school, the one who’s been severely bullied. We all known his type from school, surely. His best friend Tao is deeply insecure and scared that everyone he loves will leave him. Isaac is quiet and bookish. Elle is their artistic trans friend who switched to the girl’s school after she was also bullied after transitioning. In the first season, Charlie is seeing Ben, who has a lot of internalized homophobia and is emotionally (and physically, to a degree) abusing Charlie. However, Charlie gets seated next to Nick in class and they start to have sparks. This is portrayed through little doodles of electricity crackling and miniature fireworks every time they two of them are together. The first series largely follows along as Charlie and Nick fall in love, with Nick starting to come to terms with his bisexuality.

There are also other great characters, like Imogen (who in season 1 falls for Nick and in season 2 dates Ben briefly) and Tara and Darcy (the school’s two out-of-the-closet lesbians). For villains, there is Harry (a young bro who plays on the rugby team with Nick and Charlie) and the aforementioned Ben. In season 2, we add Nick’s brother and Darcy’s mother.

Slowly, as the show progresses, we see the first steps of the strength that comes from standing up for people you care for and not passively tolerating bullying. The first season ends with [light spoilers] Nick and Charlie together on the beach, with Nick proudly shouting to the world that Charlie is his boyfriend. He also comes out as bi to his mom, who is nothing but supportive. The first season was so brilliant and beautiful that all three of us cried throughout the show and I was scared to continue watching it, in case the next season didn’t hold up.

However, on the night that I held my own private funeral for my cub, I decided, that because I had such a fond memory of this, to start watching the second season. Just a bit, just to see how it was. I had nothing to fear, it totally holds up. The story progresses and Nick has to make up his mind about coming out. He knows how badly Charlie was bullied for it and Charlie, being the kind and supportive person that he is, gives Nick all the time and support that he needs to let people know. A lot of the season is set during a field trip to Paris, where the two queer teachers start to make a bit of a romantic connection, but it’s just as awkward, showing that these things don’t necessarily get easier when we become adults. Harry and Ben both get heavily put in their place, as Nick refuses to acknowledge Ben’s manipulative efforts to feel better about himself, and Isaac confronts Harry about how shitty he makes people feel when he makes fun of everyone all the time. There are some great moments where people set boundaries and tell their bullies how they really feel.

There are some truly epic mic-drop moments in season 2. Without spoiling too much, here are a few amazing moments: Imogen publicly dumps Ben for acting obsessed with Charlie and being a terrible boyfriend; Nick confronts his father about not being there for him, ever; Charlie’s sister confronts Nick’s brother about being a prick; and Charlie confronts Ben about their entire relationship. These are absolutely brilliant, beautiful moments where people speak their truths, stand up to bullies, call out emotional manipulation, hold their ground, and refuse to tolerate bullshit. It’s just just bloody brilliant. Tao and Nick have become friends after Tao’s antagonism in the first season, and he admits to Nick why he’s so scared of losing people all the time, as Nick is worried about Charlie who’s clearly got an eating disorder. Tara confesses to Charlie that Darcy doesn’t ever talk about their relationship or take things seriously, and it’s revealed that things are really bad for Darcy at home and she’s scared to be her whole self with Tara in case Tara won’t love that side of her (the moment towards the end of the season where we see Darcy’s mother for the first time made me start bawling my eyes out, because I know that’s how my cub’s birth mother treated him, except worse…). Elle is able to finally express her needs to Tao without being afraid that she’ll scare him away with her dreams. Isaac finds his truth when he meets another artist who is asexual, who helps him start to learn about himself (his indie artwork is represented by leaves falling slowly and sadly, but when he makes these realizations, the leaves start drifting upwards, enlightened by his self-discovery). This show is just jam-packed with brilliant, beautiful, wonderful, empowering moments and I was absolutely enraptured the entire time.

More than anything though, this show feels so deeply hopeful. We see that, as all these queer and cast-out kids find friendship and love together, they start to be as big of a group as the “cool kids” and you can feel the progress. Suddenly, being an obnoxious piece of shit isn’t getting you friends or support anymore. Suddenly, the kids who are bullied have enough support that they don’t need to tolerate that anymore. Even the “typical” kids who act snotty or homophobic (mostly guys from the rugby team) end up ultimately realizing that Nick is still their friend and they miss hanging out with him. It makes me feel hopeful that someday, we’ll have empathy and stop being so self-centered and destructive as a species.

This whole show is an absolute empowerment anthem for all of the alternative kids out there. It’s dark and emotional, it feels pretty realistic towards the high school experience and doesn’t feel Hollywoodized or melodramatic like a lot of other teenager-centric media, it delves deep into the souls of teens who are trying to find out who they are and what they like, and you go on this emotional rollercoaster and come out feeling cleansed and like the world has potential to be a better place.

I cannot recommend this show enough. If you love LGBTQ+ media, modern storytelling, and progressive topics, you’ll absolutely love this show. And if you’re not into that sort of thing, this is probably a show that you should watch anyways, because you might learn something valuable about yourself. Full score, I can’t find anything to complain about. Watch Heartstopper… it’s even better than the comic (and I never say that)!