But seriously: S2 is better, insofar as the show isn't stuck in the love triangle that makes queerness a "question" to be solved, and it can explore Victor's relationship to the community more effectively. The bisexual turn in the finale is out of left field, but welcome for the same reasons.
But the actual storytelling in the central love triangle makes ZERO sense. First, Benji is a terrible boyfriend? He's terrible at showing even a basic understanding of Victor's insecurities around his sexuality, and just seems completely unable to grasp his needs in ways that sell out the character instead of fleshing out our perspective on him. It makes the love triangle with Rahim weird because why would you root for Benji when he's such a dick about Victor playing basketball, for example?
And yet Rahim is also a chaotic characterization. He's introduced as the Victor to Victor's Simon, but the show presents him as being FAR more experienced with gay culture than Victor is, making the idea of Victor mentoring him absurd. It's nice the show could use him to explore things like masc-for-masc and the like, but that defeats the premise of the story, and transitioning him into the love triangle came with no attempt to assess the shift in the mentor/mentee relationship or make it a meaningful development with Victor.
It's often a serviceable teen drama (and I did like the Felix story, independent of the thematic interest we're exploring here), but S2 remained a missed opportunity.
Oh, the other thing about Rahim is that sure was lucky to have the kind of conservative Muslim parents who are totally okay with finding gay porn on their 12 year old's computer.
Ah, but see, if they had explored that then Rahim would have to have been an actual character in his own right, which the story refuses to allow him OR Benji to be.
I agree with almost all of this, except that I think the out-of-left-fieldness overshadowed the value of the bi representation introduced at the end. Plus I just like Felix/Lake better than Felix/Pilar.
In terms of missed opportunities, the other big one I saw was not giving Victor a scene coming out to Adrian one on one. That could have been really sweet and would have given both characters more agency.
I was genuinely surprised that the scene where Victor's mom catches him and Benji was as explicit as it was. Pretty sure the Disney+ version of that scene would have looked a little different.
Yeah, there's no question that the show got some basic mileage out of letting the sex scene exist as it did, or putting a bottle of lube onscreen—it's not really "groundbreaking," still, but it pushed boundaries the first season had no interest in, and that's not nothing.
But yeah, I don't disagree on the bi representation's shoehorned nature, and feel like it's throwing the show a bone to even acknowledge it. But, reminds us how low the bar can be on that front.
The other thing is that unless I read the geometry of that scene wrong it appeared that Victor was bottoming. Given the way that power dynamics are often associated with penetrative sex in the heteronormative world, I think it was interesting to put the series protagonist in that position.
Oh, you definitely read the geometry of that scene correctly, I would say. (But this again reinforces the awkward position the show is in—to not unpack that is denying us what would have actually been a really pivotal moment in Benji and Victor's relationship and told us a lot about how they're negotiating Victor's relationship to his sexuality, but it's obviously not something a teen show would actually discuss outwardly.)
The show definitely falls short on exploring a lot of things that feel like a part of the world / the narrative. It feels like it has a lot of interesting threads about being LGBT+, latinx, a teenager, in love for the first time, and more, but none of that gets the proper time, depth or nuance.
Earlier this season on The Conners 14-year-old Mark was briefly contemplating having sex with his same aged boyfriend. As expected the resolution was that he decided he wasn't ready (which I'm fine with) but in a perfect world there would have been some discussion of the fact that "having sex" could mean several different things, not all of them equally risky or fraught. That was never going to happen at 9:00 PM on ABC, but I seen no reason why a similar negotiation with Victor and Benji couldn't air on Hulu.
Thank you for your words about Heartstopper and about queer content in general, Myles. It's very encouraging to see critics committing to giving space to shows like this that would probably be lost between the non-stopping barrage of content (and still might, but one more voice discussing its merits is worth a lot).
I'm planning on watching this show because, I'll be honest, thanks to how starved I was myself for queer content in my teen years (and I had it way better in the aughts than other people had it in the nineties, eighties and before!), I've come to a point where having it will usually increase my estimation of a piece of media by at least a little bit (and usually more than a little bit). I'm predisposed to liking it, basically. And even now, with all the progress that has been made, it still feels like it's hard to find content that isn't rooted in the fundamental misery of being queer. A fundamentally positive but true-to-life TV show about queer love sounds like the exact antidote that I need for that type of mindset.
Now the big question that I need to answer is if I should read the comics before watching the show. I usually don't bother (and only consider going to the source material *after* I watch the thing, because I'm terrible like that), but your reviews being informed by them being adaptations sounds like an extremely interesting perspective that I would enjoy sharing.
NEED is not the word I would use (sorry for the delay in responding to this) for reading the comics, but I think it makes it more interesting, personally? But, like, it's an 8-episode season with 25-ish minute episodes, so watching, reading, and then watching again is probably a productive exercise in and of itself.
Your suggestion is intriguing. I tend to forget that these shows have extremely short seasons. I will probably do just that! (Mainly because I don't have time to read graphic novels this week, mind)
RIP Grand Army, which destroyed all the other better teen shows (probably like Heartstopper) for me because now I’m simply no longer able to watch teens who DON’T do insane things like purel their genitals or shove their whole forearm into a friend to detach a rogue tampon from her cervix. (Yes, I’m retaliating against you.)
Haha. When I was writing this comment I felt like there was a third traumatic image from this show I couldn’t quite summon so the good news is I think they all may fade eventually.
Myles: Your disappointment with Love ,Victor season 1 is well documented. What did you think of season 2?
*Cracks Knuckles* Glad you asked.
But seriously: S2 is better, insofar as the show isn't stuck in the love triangle that makes queerness a "question" to be solved, and it can explore Victor's relationship to the community more effectively. The bisexual turn in the finale is out of left field, but welcome for the same reasons.
But the actual storytelling in the central love triangle makes ZERO sense. First, Benji is a terrible boyfriend? He's terrible at showing even a basic understanding of Victor's insecurities around his sexuality, and just seems completely unable to grasp his needs in ways that sell out the character instead of fleshing out our perspective on him. It makes the love triangle with Rahim weird because why would you root for Benji when he's such a dick about Victor playing basketball, for example?
And yet Rahim is also a chaotic characterization. He's introduced as the Victor to Victor's Simon, but the show presents him as being FAR more experienced with gay culture than Victor is, making the idea of Victor mentoring him absurd. It's nice the show could use him to explore things like masc-for-masc and the like, but that defeats the premise of the story, and transitioning him into the love triangle came with no attempt to assess the shift in the mentor/mentee relationship or make it a meaningful development with Victor.
It's often a serviceable teen drama (and I did like the Felix story, independent of the thematic interest we're exploring here), but S2 remained a missed opportunity.
Oh, the other thing about Rahim is that sure was lucky to have the kind of conservative Muslim parents who are totally okay with finding gay porn on their 12 year old's computer.
Ah, but see, if they had explored that then Rahim would have to have been an actual character in his own right, which the story refuses to allow him OR Benji to be.
I agree with almost all of this, except that I think the out-of-left-fieldness overshadowed the value of the bi representation introduced at the end. Plus I just like Felix/Lake better than Felix/Pilar.
In terms of missed opportunities, the other big one I saw was not giving Victor a scene coming out to Adrian one on one. That could have been really sweet and would have given both characters more agency.
I was genuinely surprised that the scene where Victor's mom catches him and Benji was as explicit as it was. Pretty sure the Disney+ version of that scene would have looked a little different.
Yeah, there's no question that the show got some basic mileage out of letting the sex scene exist as it did, or putting a bottle of lube onscreen—it's not really "groundbreaking," still, but it pushed boundaries the first season had no interest in, and that's not nothing.
But yeah, I don't disagree on the bi representation's shoehorned nature, and feel like it's throwing the show a bone to even acknowledge it. But, reminds us how low the bar can be on that front.
The other thing is that unless I read the geometry of that scene wrong it appeared that Victor was bottoming. Given the way that power dynamics are often associated with penetrative sex in the heteronormative world, I think it was interesting to put the series protagonist in that position.
Oh, you definitely read the geometry of that scene correctly, I would say. (But this again reinforces the awkward position the show is in—to not unpack that is denying us what would have actually been a really pivotal moment in Benji and Victor's relationship and told us a lot about how they're negotiating Victor's relationship to his sexuality, but it's obviously not something a teen show would actually discuss outwardly.)
The show definitely falls short on exploring a lot of things that feel like a part of the world / the narrative. It feels like it has a lot of interesting threads about being LGBT+, latinx, a teenager, in love for the first time, and more, but none of that gets the proper time, depth or nuance.
Earlier this season on The Conners 14-year-old Mark was briefly contemplating having sex with his same aged boyfriend. As expected the resolution was that he decided he wasn't ready (which I'm fine with) but in a perfect world there would have been some discussion of the fact that "having sex" could mean several different things, not all of them equally risky or fraught. That was never going to happen at 9:00 PM on ABC, but I seen no reason why a similar negotiation with Victor and Benji couldn't air on Hulu.
Thank you for your words about Heartstopper and about queer content in general, Myles. It's very encouraging to see critics committing to giving space to shows like this that would probably be lost between the non-stopping barrage of content (and still might, but one more voice discussing its merits is worth a lot).
I'm planning on watching this show because, I'll be honest, thanks to how starved I was myself for queer content in my teen years (and I had it way better in the aughts than other people had it in the nineties, eighties and before!), I've come to a point where having it will usually increase my estimation of a piece of media by at least a little bit (and usually more than a little bit). I'm predisposed to liking it, basically. And even now, with all the progress that has been made, it still feels like it's hard to find content that isn't rooted in the fundamental misery of being queer. A fundamentally positive but true-to-life TV show about queer love sounds like the exact antidote that I need for that type of mindset.
Now the big question that I need to answer is if I should read the comics before watching the show. I usually don't bother (and only consider going to the source material *after* I watch the thing, because I'm terrible like that), but your reviews being informed by them being adaptations sounds like an extremely interesting perspective that I would enjoy sharing.
NEED is not the word I would use (sorry for the delay in responding to this) for reading the comics, but I think it makes it more interesting, personally? But, like, it's an 8-episode season with 25-ish minute episodes, so watching, reading, and then watching again is probably a productive exercise in and of itself.
Your suggestion is intriguing. I tend to forget that these shows have extremely short seasons. I will probably do just that! (Mainly because I don't have time to read graphic novels this week, mind)
RIP Grand Army, which destroyed all the other better teen shows (probably like Heartstopper) for me because now I’m simply no longer able to watch teens who DON’T do insane things like purel their genitals or shove their whole forearm into a friend to detach a rogue tampon from her cervix. (Yes, I’m retaliating against you.)
One good thing about the patriarchy is that it's easier for me to block that one from my memory.
Haha. When I was writing this comment I felt like there was a third traumatic image from this show I couldn’t quite summon so the good news is I think they all may fade eventually.