Euros Lyn | Heartstopper: Boyfriend / 2022 [Season 1, Episode 8]

various sports

by Douglas Messerli

 

Alice Oseman (screenplay), Euros Lyn (director) Heartstopper: Boyfriend / 2022 [Season 1, Episode 8] [33 minutes]

 

O the endless problems of youth! And this is just the first season of this popular series. Tori begins this episode as well, calling out her brother for hitting his drums so very loudly and comically wondering whether or not he’s angry about someone or going through a new rebellious stage. The truth is, of course, he suffering both forms of madness. The guilt, as always has shifted back to the most bruised. Confiding in his sister, Charlie is afraid that perhaps he does just ruins people’s lives by being who he is. You can’t see clearly at his age, when everything and everyone sees you as an outsider and a villain. And even the usually level-headed Charlie admits perhaps it might be better if he didn’t exist.

     A sister’s hug and reassurance means everything.

    Charlie tries to make it up to Tao, but Isaac (Tobie Donovan) the asexual stand-in has to speak for him since Tao refuses. It’s also sports day at Truham Grammar School, and even the sports Charlie used to share with Isaac and Tao are now forbidden, since he is on the ruby team. Sports always seems to matter in Grammar School or “high school” as we call it in the USA.

      Before he became a Superintendent, my father was a coach, and later my brother, and his three sons. Which should make obvious what a disappointment I was as the eldest who didn’t like sports and wasn’t very good at them. So the long sports scenes is this TV series episode somewhat resonate.

      Charlie not only refuses to have lunch with Nick but talks to Coach Singh (Chetna Pandya) about quitting the ruby team.

     Finally, Nick and Tao meet up—something that happens alas only in movies—and talk about Charlie, realizing that in some ways they’ve both failed him. Tao summarizes it: “Look, I’ve known Charlie since we were 11, and he’s always had a tendency to believe that him just existing is annoying for other people.” Nick has noticed that, and now the two agree that what Charlie really wants is more than a series of secret kisses on “the down-low.” They bond in realizing what is best for their friend, but both also feel hurt over his temporary rejection of their love.

     The Higgs girls evidently join the Truham boys for sports as well, and Tara and Darcy try to comfort Elle for returning back to Truham (remember she was once a boy) for the big sports events. Maybe they might all three manage to sprain their ankles. No, Elle wants to return as who she is.

      Headmaster Truham (Stephan Fry) announces over the loudspeaker what they have all been waiting for: Truham School Sports Day, just as Elle and Tao meet up again, both afraid of being asked to participate, but secretly want one another’s company.

      Charlie crawls back into Mr. Ajayi’s art room, who today is not so very receptive, telling Charlie what he has long needed to hear: “Don’t make anyone make you disappear.”

      Back at sports day, Tao is assigned to the role as a runner, which since his feet move sideways is absolutely pointless. But, if you remember, Charlie is a true racer, who sorrowfully replaces Tao in the race, running against—you might have guessed it—Ben Croft. This is fiction, and obviously the plot cannot permit anyone other than Charlie to win. And Charlie finally speaks up, telling his ex-would-be lover: “You don’t get to have an opinion about anything I do?” Ben counters, “You want me to go around telling people about you and Nick.” Charlie answers in true cinema logic: “Do you want me to go around telling people about you and me?” Gotcha. Were real life only so simple.

     Inevitably, Charlie and Tao make up and hug, knowing what they have tried to do to love and protect one another. Tara jumps the “high bar,” Isaac tosses the javelin even if not as far as others, and Tao and Elle run off together to finally, well almost, express their love. They need the time it takes, and after all we’ve got a whole new season waiting.

      And now the feature of the afternoon, the rugby match is on, with Nick looking for Charlie, and Charlie secretly looking on in trepidation. Nick makes a goal, but suddenly he can’t move forward as in the magic of fiction, he spots Charlie looking on and wanders off the field, and out of his closeted world, to pull Charlie off, announcing in one of the final speeches of this season: “I don’t want to break up. I know people have hurt you. And you feel like I’d be better off without you, but I need you to know that my life is way better because I met you.” Isn’t that just what we have been waiting for? Nick is now fully out. And yes, there’s the final wonderful fully engaged kiss we’ve been waiting for through about four hours of TV history. Come-on, who wouldn’t tear up?

     And predictably—since all gay boys these days must visit the beach—Nick takes Charlie on a trainride to Herne Bay in Kent. They eat fried shrimp and chips, take their picture in a photomat, and kiss and hug themselves into cinematic bliss. I don’t even care if it’s so hokey. The background music score is all pop, and the bubbles and kisses and flowers and sweet little fireflies of the animated background we’ve had to suffer through before is just fine since we’re now entering a gay world where most young men and women have never truly been but surely wish they might have experienced or, like me, once did or imagined themselves having done so. Does it matter? Heartstopper is a wonderful TV myth.  

     Nick even comes out to his marvelously loving mother, Oliva Coleman. Who could ask for anything more? Tune in to season 2 in 2023.

 

Los Angeles, November 8, 2024

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (November 2024).