Jacob Tierney | Heated Rivalry (Season 1, Episode 6: The Cottage) / 2025 [TV series]

the boyfriend

by Douglas Messerli

 

Jacob Tierney (screenwriter and director, based on the novel Game Changers by Rachel Reid) Heated Rivalry / 2025 [TV series]

 

Season 1, Episode 6 “The Cottage”

 

Scott’s very public coming out is even more openly discussed as he accepts the MVP (Most Valued Player) award, in which he speaks of how he has long recognized that he was one of the different people that his fellow hockey players made fun of in the locker room, and that his lover Kip finally made him strong enough that he could break through the loneliness and exhaustion of having to keep the secret.

      The event has completely changed Ilya’s and Shane’s life, the Russian finally determining to spend several weeks with Shane in his so-called “cottage,” actually a beautiful home built deep in the woods. Both reveal that neither has had sex with anyone else since the months they were last together, something once more than sounds less plausible for handsome testosterone-driven young men than it might for women, but then it is, after all, Rachel Reid’s story, and apparently she sees their abstinence as an important symbol of their commitment to each other, much the way monogamy traditionally defines a heterosexual and many a gay marriage. In any event, they can hardly wait to fuck.

     Finally, both hockey players can truly begin to share their own pasts and difficulties, which the brief meet-ups they previously encountered did not allow. Ilya is able only now to share the trauma of his mother’s death by suicide and his full anger with both his father and his brother, who, as we have previously discovered, are both Russian policemen, the brother often depending his Ilya for financial support.

    They also briefly discuss Rose Landry, of whom it’s clear Ilya is somewhat jealous until Shane makes it clear that their two attempts at sex were both disasters.

   It’s clear that Ilya is ready to seek a US passport, and suggests that perhaps he should marry Svetlana in order to obtain one.

    Now it is Shane’s turn to feel rather jealous, wondering whether, since Ilya actually likes women, that perhaps Svetlana is not the one he truly should marry. Ilya agrees that he likes women and is often surrounded by them. Yet, he has one problem, there is this freckled faced man with a weak backhand that he cannot stop thinking about. “It’s a terrible problem.” Emotionally reacting with a deep swallow, Shane asks: “Do you want that problem to go away,” to which Ilya answers, “I don’t ever want that problem to ever go away.” The double use of the word “ever” may show Ilya’s slight discomfort with the English language, but it truly emphasizes that he now sees their relationship as a permanent thing.

     What’s clear, even if they’re not ready to that to tell the world of their own love, is that they want to be able to spend more time openly with one another, and they are truly in love. Shane, after some thought, suggests another route, although somewhat complex. What if they gradually begin to turn their noted rivalry into a friendship. He suggests that start up a charity of some sort, perhaps for the prevention of suicide, while Ilya changing to the Ottawa team might move closer to Shane. Whether or not that might work, what is clear and what they now finally confess is their open love for one another. What began as a powerful sexual attraction, providing release to both men, they now perceive as gay love, both admitting that they are now homosexual, not just bisexual men who have found an easy sexual release in one another.

     But suddenly everything shifts as Shane’s father (Dylan Walsh) shows up to pick up something, from within the house watching the approaching couple returning from a swim as they pause for a deep kiss.

   The father quickly drives off, but Shane suddenly goes into terror mode, declaring it a fucking nightmare, and burying his head in the couch, an action he will repeat several in the rest of the episode. Williams has explained that he played Shane as being somewhat on the autistic arc, and we now see that in his sense of horror, his inability to even know quite how to handle this new situation.

    We now see how important it is to have someone like Ilya in his life. Ilya suggests that he go to his parents and talk, but Shane is ashamed of having lied to them for so many years. He repeats that it is his “Fucking nightmare,” but Ilya suggests that maybe it’s simply time to wake up.

   Together they drive to his parent’s home, and as they meet with them the entire work begins to someone tilt away from being a hidden rom-com with mostly dark overtones, into being a true comedy.

    As they enter, it is his father who first apologizes, reporting that he had gone to the cottage simply to get a charger to fit into his phone. But Shane quickly changes the conversation, assuring him it’s okay, announcing that he’s gay, and in a quietly humorous manner introducing his friend to his hockey savvy parents as Ilya [pause] Rozanov. But then you know that.” As Shane begins mumbling something about him visiting, and we’re…," Ilya interrupts, putting his hand upon Shane’s shoulder and declaring: “Lovers. Hi.”

     Shane’s mother (Christina Chang) reminds her son: “But, you hate him.”

     Shane: “Yeh, I mean I get that but I mean I actually…I love him. …Can we just sit down please?”

    Together seated around the family dinner table Shane’s parents try to puzzle out the whole story.  Both Shane’s mother and father first reveal that they had certainly thought it possible that their son was gay. In fact, his father observes that they have felt that about their son for quite a while. “What we did not expect is that you were were a friend with Rozanov.”

    Shane suggests it’s a long story.

  “When did this happen?” asks Shane’s father. “Wait. The Allstar game. You two had so much chemistry.”

     “No, it was before then.”

     “Wow.”

     “So when?” inquires his mother.

     “Since a, rookie season.”

     His mother is even more astounded. But Ilya interrupts to remind it that it was actually the summer before.

    “In love since…” begins his now truly incredulous mother.

    “No. No. No. No,” both men agree.

    “Just….” They try to get Ilya to complete the sentence, obviously, “just sex,” but Shane's mother interprets it to mean “Just lovers,” Shane insisting that no one is allowed to use that word again.

     At this point Mrs. Hollander decides it’s time to break out the vodka.

     “And there were no other men in Montreal?” asks Shane’s dad.

     Soon after, he asks the important question: “So you plan, what, to just keep doing this in secret until you’re both retired?”

   The two players look at one another, as confused now as Shane’s parents, Shane answering, “Probably, I don’t know.”

     But we do know that something has changed. First of all, their love is no longer a secret, and Shane, if nothing else has come out after all these years, admitting he is gay.

     Ilya concurs, Shane explaining: “We just can’t come out and announce it.”

    The father throws into another coal upon the fire, “Ilya, have to say I’m surprised. You have such a reputation as a ladies’ man.”

      “It’s not untrue.”

     Shane adds, “Ilya likes both.”

     It’s true, Ilya admits but adds, “But I have only been in love with only one person.”

     Shane answers, “Same here.”

    Suddenly Mrs. Hollander stands up and walks out to the terrace, tearing up a bit, as Shane follows. Shane begins to attempt to apologize for his being gay, explaining what so many gay men have said over and over through the last century, “I really tried very hard, but I just can’t help it.”

    But his mother immediately insists that he has nothing to apologize for. Her sorrow is about the fact that she had made him feel that he couldn’t tell her. As they both openly cry, she declares that she is so proud of him. And again she begs his forgiveness. There have been similarly understanding mothers in the hundreds of gay coming out movies I've seen, but I haven’t yet experienced one so honest and loving as Yuna Hollander.

     But when they return for dinner she is already plotting on how they might represent themselves to the public, moving far beyond any plans they have made. She also wonders if Ilya would leave Boston for Shane, Ilya insisting that yes, he would, even though they drafted him. This is one tough hockey mother, and Shane now grows even more uncomfortable with the whole discussion. And as the conversation turns to Scott, Yuna wondering whether Shane has talked to him, Ilya admits that he has, but he said nothing about Shane and himself. But all agree that what he did was very brave.

     Again, however, as the conversation gets increasingly complex Shane shows his inability to handle all the details, slumping down at the table, burying his head once more a bit like an ostrich unable to cope with it all. Ilya tries to rouse him, explaining “You’re good here. Your family is here. Your boyfriend is here.”

      This episode need go no further. Ilya in those words has established that everything has changed. He now fully acknowledges his love in front of Shane’s parents. Shane is now in good hands.

      Shane raises his head a little. “My boyfriend?”

      “Yes. I mean I think so. Probably.” He lifts Shane’s head and kisses him.

      It’s hard to describe such a beautiful comic moment that it leaves you in tears.

 

Los Angeles, February 21, 2026

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (February 2026).

Rainer Werner Fassbinder | Händler der vier Jahreszeiten (The Merchant of Four Seasons) / 1971

a remarkable loser

by Douglas Messerli

Rainer Werner Fassbinder (screenwriter and director) Händler der vier Jahreszeiten (The Merchant of Four Seasons) / 1971

Fassbinder’s Hans Epp (Hans Hirschmüller), like so many Fassbinder characters, is a kind of remarkable loser, a man seemingly determined from birth to fail. While some of these figures live lives of petty thievery and involvement in the gangster underworld (as in Love Is Colder than Death, Gods of the Plague, and The American Soldier), others are hopeless dreamers (Fox and His Friends) or simply ordinary men driven to insanity (Why Does Herr R. Run Amok? and In Year with 13 Moons) by the unaccepting world around them. None of these “remarkable losers” are quite alike. They are simply all incapable of living within the confines of post-war German life.

     Epp is perhaps the most commonplace of these individuals. The son of a domineering bourgeois mother (Gusti Kreissel), whose husband probably died in World War II, Epp is simply not brilliant enough to live in the world which his mother and elder sister imagine for him. He might have made a good mechanic, but his mother will have nothing to do with people who live what she calls “dirty” lives. She would much better that the “dirt” be of the intellectual kind like her journalist son-in-law, Kurt (Kurt Raab), who works for a Catholic newspaper without truly believing the tenants it espouses. The only family member who seems to comprehend how they have treated Epp and loves him despite his shortcomings, is his younger sister Ann (Hanna Schygulla), an intelligent college-going beauty. But she has no major influence over the other family member’s behavior.

     Failing at his school studies, Epp escapes to the French Foreign Legion, but even there he fails, as we find out later in the film, when, upon being tortured, he reports the whereabouts of his legion base. His torturer, having gained the information, is ready to shoot him, but two Legionnaires, observing the scene from nearby, save Epp. One of the two turns out to now be Epp’s closest friend and, as in many of Fassbinder’s films, a kind of surrogate male lover—Harry (Klaus Löwitsch), who later moves in with Epp and his wife.

     Returning home from the Legion, Epp is met with utter disdain by his mother, but finds a decent job, soon after, as a policeman—that is until he is caught receiving a blow-job from a prostitute he has just arrested. With no other choices remaining, Epp is forced to take to the streets as a fruit vendor, selling the “Frische birnen” (fresh pears) with which the film begins. Having been rejected by the “love of his life” (Ingrid Craven)—again because his working status is below her family’s standards—Epp is now married to a sensible and forceful woman, Irmgard (Irm Hermann). Despite providing a working-class living for his wife and daughter, Renate, however, and being gifted with a full and melodious voice that draws the neighborhood women to his cart, Epp, it is clear, is still ashamed of how he makes his living, particularly when called up to deliver fruit to a woman he once loved, while being carefully watched by his now somewhat dictatorial wife.

     One might say that Irmgard’s careful watching over of her husband quite literally drives him to drink, except that, once he begins to become inebriated with his equally failed friends, we realize that Epp is himself the cause of his own problems. He simply can’t resist destroying nearly any good thing that so rarely occurs in his life.

     Tracking him down when he doesn’t return for dinner, Irmgard tries to bring him home from his drunken binge without success, and when he does return him, he beats her brutally (even if Fassbinder presents all blows and slaps in these early films as melodramatic gestures that symbolize rather than actualized the real violence of his character’s lives).

Insisting that she will leave him, Irmgard, with Renate in tow, retreats to Epp’s family, who, with the exception of Anna, predictably once again take her side against their own flesh-and-blood. When Epp finally shows up, everyone including the viewer expects further violence, but Epp is rendered meaningless by the familial wall of disdain so effectively that he can only sing a few lines of the ditty that brought him and Irmgard together, before he falls to floor as a result of a heart attack. Only Anna has the perspicuity to call for an ambulance, as the others stand around in simple startlement.

     Visiting her slowly recovering husband at the hospital, Irmgard swears she will stay with him, but when he is eventually released, it is clear he can no longer lift the fruit crates or maneuver the cart; the doctor wards that any serious drink will immediately result in his death.

     Somewhat like Maria Braun in Fassbinder’s 1978 BRD trilogy, Irmgard suddenly springs into action, suggesting that she take over a permanent vendor stand and that they hire someone else to handle the cart. She even bargains for a new cart, while Epp interviews a clearly unqualified immigrant, Anzell (Karl Scheydt) with whom, unbeknownst to him, his wife has had a sexual encounter during his hospital stay.

    If that coincidence seems exaggerated, one must recognize that throughout this film, the director has used all the conventions of melodrama (particularly in the manner of US, German-born director Douglas Sirk), adding to them the numerous tableaux and heavily theatrical gestures (such as Anna’s melodramatic drop to the floor upon hearing of her brother’s decision to join the Foreign Legion) that also dominate his very next film, The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant. These gestures further help, in their success in alienating the audience from simple realism, to create temporarily comic of slightly-camp scenes which point against the mimeticism of the work in general.

    When Anzell turns out not only to do a fairly good job as Epp’s fruit-selling replacement, but also honestly reports his sale—which Epp nefariously watches over during the day—Irmgard plots to protect herself from the knowledge her sexual transgression by suggesting Anzell overprice the fruits and share the difference with her, all the time knowing that her husband will observe the maneuver and fire him. While the inevitable happens, Anzell retaliates by telling Epp that he has been sexually involved with his wife.

    While Irmgard emphatically denies the charge, Epp recognizes the truth and, soon after, begins to fall into even deeper depression. Momentarily, he is buoyed up by meeting his old friend Harry, inviting him into their home and placing him in charge of the cart. But Epp soon shows signs of even deeper depression, staring for hours off into space through their apartment window, as Harry takes over Epp’s previous help with Renate’s homework and other daily family chores.

   A would-be sexual encounter with his “great love” ends with Epp leaving before engaging in sex; a visit to his sister gives him little pleasure as the student continues working on a manuscript during their conversation. Bit by bit, we watch the man stitching together the numerous failures of his life to end, finally, in his recognition that he would be better off dead, echoing the same feeling when he had upon his rescue in the Foreign Legion. And even Harry, he now perceives, has betrayed him in watching to see if he would confess before saving him from death.

     Dining with his drunken friends, Epp swallows down shots of liquor, one by one, toasting to all the people who have slung arrows into his pain-racked body: mother, sister, wife, daughter, lover, Harry, and all his would-be “friends.” Predictably, his head falls to the table, as Harry, coming to his side, reports that Epp is dead.

     At the funeral, Irmgard, practical and sensible as always, suggests that Harry continue to live with her since it would be better for her daughter, for Harry, and for herself. The final line of this comically-tinged melodrama of another of Fassbinder’s “remarkable losers” is a banal “okay.”

 

Los Angeles, July 22, 2016

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (July 2016).