See You Next Season

NOTE: This essay technically does not contain plot spoilers but does reference overarching themes, moments, and characters in Heated Rivalry so read on accordingly. If you haven’t watched Heated Rivalry, that confuses me but I will be right here waiting with open arms once you do.

Meet me at the cottage.

We will always ask each other, “Where were you?”

We will tell each other exactly where we were when we watched Episode 5.

We will always remember where we were when the credits rolled on Episode 6.

I was in my bed in my pajamas on a blissfully quiet NYE 2025.

At a moment when we have been fighting to collectively remain conscious amidst the anaphylaxis constricting our capacity to breathe and survive, Heated Rivalry has delivered us a shot of epinephrine.

And we all gasped in a life-affirming collective breath.

We are still alive.

There will be think pieces for years to come.

Some day maybe I will write more nuanced thoughts and link to even more nuanced and coherent think pieces.

Dots are being connected.

Eyes are opened.

Hearts are bursting with joy.

The masses are gathering. On platforms that once promised to do the thing the masses want to do.

To connect. To commune. To share. To celebrate. To acknowledge. To illuminate. To cheer. To cackle with delight. To bask in joy together.

Yes we are madly in love with Shane and Ilya. Their story. The arc of every micro expression, every touch, every text, the hidden smiles before the puck dropped, shoes inching closer, time passing, truths growing, walls of self-protection crumbling, sunshine creeping in.

We are in love with what Rachel Reid has created in her books and what Jacob Tierney has created in his directing.

We are in love with the gorgeous dance of yearning, power, consent, intimacy, tenderness, and care that Chala Carter choreographed as Heated Rivalry’s brilliant intimacy coordinator.

At no point are we called in to be voyeurs. We are invited in to bear witness. To feel. To love. With them.

We are in love with Svetlana and Elana and Rose in ways we didn’t see coming.

We are in love with the relationship between Kip and his father. We are in love with Kip. And of course Scott Hunter.

And if we were able to catch it amidst the roar of the crowd and Wolf Parade, we are in love with the faceless hockey announcer in Episode 5 who says, “Good for you Scott Hunter.”

If it was just this, it would be a triumph. A work of art.

But it’s not just this.

We are madly in love with real-life Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie.

We are in love with their brilliance, their humor, their affection with one another, their genuine care, their goofiness, their dedication to their craft, their awareness of what they are carrying and how they are moving through it all.

We are madly in love with the queering of cis masculinity in spaces that have been littered with the carnage left in the wake of annihilatory fragile toxic masculinity, patriarchy, and imperialism.

And…

There are no words to describe how madly in love we are with each other.

Every meme, tweet, post, reel, analysis, and the accompanying tidal wave of comments amplifying the unhinged joy of this moment. Every heartfelt touching message from people across every spectrum processing what this means to them.

There is a groundswell of awareness that queer love is touching all of us and maybe, just maybe, we are starting to see why.

Cis heteronormative gender essentialist patriarchy is a prison with no walls.

It only exists through policing, abuse, and enforcement of artificial cis heteronormative gender essentialist patriarchal narratives, norms, laws, practices onto our bodies whose true existence is infinitely expansive and rooted in a desire to love and connect in our totality.

Maybe, just maybe, we are madly in love with setting ourselves free.

There is far more nuance and complexity and I love nuance and complexity.

But sometimes it is OK to let simplicity wash over.

We are all cheering on men. Together. We are loving on them as they love each other. Ilya and Shane. Kip and his father. Hunter and his love. The hockey announcer.

Hudson and Connor. We are cheering on their loving friendship that is free from the shackles of heternormative patriarchy.

We are cheering on everyone who is seeing this with their own eyes widening like our sweet Ilya as their own brain rewires to see that the prison of their own making has no walls.

We can all go to the cottage.

Heated Rivalry is not a utopian fantasy.

It is a mirror showing us what is real. Not just what is possible. What is.

Heated Rivalry has the audacity to acknowledge but decenter shame, punishment, and policing and center a profound journey toward intimacy, connection, and love.

For everyone.

The world is not just exploding in unhinged joy. We are in love together.

We opened our eyes. We needed sunshine.

See you next season.