Heartstopper Season 2 Review: Teen Drama That Investigates The Queer World In An Adolescent Context
Cast: Kit Connor, Joe Locke, William Gao, Yasmin Finney, Olivia Colman
Creator: Alice Oseman
Streaming Platform: Netflix
Filmyhype.com Ratings: 4/5 (four stars) [yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]
Heartstopper Season 2 is now available to stream on Netflix worldwide. It had already convinced us from its first season but the arrival of the new episodes on Netflix has only confirmed what was already clear: Heartstopper is an incredibly educational series. Gentle, polite, able to speak to young people and not only but also to address very delicate and current issues with great tact and maturity, the Netflix animated series based on the graphic novel by Alice Oseman has been able to confirm its great quality even in the new episodes just released on Netflix. A story, that of Heartstopper Season 2, which surprises for the simplicity with which he managed to build an entertaining but also educational story, imagining inconspicuous characters but capable of acting with their adventures as real examples to follow for many young people who, just like two protagonists of the story.
Nick, Charlie, and their friends find themselves having to deal with identity crises, psychological trauma, a difficult relationship with their parents, eating disorders, and problems with their sexual orientation, all while finding the courage to be themselves and not hide for fear of the judgment of others. One of the qualities of this series is that it gives its protagonists, little more than teenagers, astonishing maturity, sensitivity, communication skills, and self-improvement that leaves you speechless. Here, Heartstopper, as we had already commented at the release of its first season, is a series that should not only be seen by children but also by their parents, even better if together with their children, it is a title that, with grace, not only speaks to adolescents but also to adults and which deals with complex issues of homosexuality, eating disorders, bullying not by commiserating those who suffer from it but by giving viewers useful tools to face them and then overcome them by taking the protagonists of the series as an example.
Heartstopper Season 2 Review: The Story Plot
The first season of Heartstopper focused mainly on the birth of the relationship between Nick Nelson (Kit Connor), a popular boy and captain of the Truham Grammar School rugby team, and Charlie Spring (Joe Locke), a lanky, quiet student, already aware of his sexual orientation. A story not without its difficulties, especially at the beginning, which had to make its way through the prejudice of his schoolmates and the confusion of Nick himself, convinced until then that he was heterosexual. Season two picks up where season one left off: After coming out to his mother (Olivia Colman) as bisexual, Nick feels ready to share his romance with everyone in his life. However, coming out will not prove as easy as he would have expected and will represent a complex and important maturation journey for the boy. Meanwhile, we also continue to follow the lives, dreams, and heartaches of the newly born couple’s group of friends, Elle (Yasmin Finney), Tao (William Gao), Isaac (Tobie Donovan), Tara (Corinna Brown), Darcy (Kizzy Edgell) and Imogen (Rhea Norwood).
Nick and Charlie, more in love than ever and finally “boyfriends”, explore the joys of their relationship, not without colliding with some obstacles: Nick has not yet officially come out to everyone and the consequences of this lead him to wonder about the reasons for that it is so difficult, to be honest about one’s bisexuality; Charlie, aware of the pressure on Nick, feels terrified that her boyfriend will experience the bullying he has experienced. Tao, on the other hand, has to deal with the possibility that her friendship with Elle is jeopardized by her estrangement, while even the perfect couple formed by Tara and Darcy will have some problems on the sentimental front. However, the group of friends is about to set off to discover the most romantic city in the world:
Scripted (as was the first season) by Alice Oseman, mind, pen and creator of the beautiful graphic novel from which it takes its name and inspiration, the Heartstopper Season 2 is everything you could wish for and much more. When it comes to an influential and internationally successful project, as in the case of the British series that has won critical and public acclaim since its debut on Netflix, the fear is always the same: the following seasons will live up to it. any expectations? The answer this time is a resounding yes. Not only that, but we can also confirm that Heartstopper Season 2 aims to become the new comfort TV show par excellence and it succeeds very well. Following the various stages of falling in love with Nicke Charlie, even the viewer finds himself living a parallel love story, the one with the characters: if with the first part, we had an immediate lightning strike, with the second we learn to know and love them deeply through their weaknesses, fears, and defects that in our eyes make them even more special because they are sincere and real.
Finally, in the new 8 episodes the dynamics left out (not due to distraction but due to lack of time) in the first chapter are explored: the relationship between Tao and Elle, the relationship between Tara and Darcy, the figure of everyone’s silent friend Isaac, the families of Nick and Charlie, but what must be emphasized in this season is the skill with which what apparently could have seemed only backstories hid ideas for topics of profound relevance, treated with delicacy and humanity. Alice Oseman, class of ’94, with Heartstopper, has succeeded where many have tried and failed: by re-adapting the words of the comic strip with the mastery of a screenwriter who has already started in the field and with the help of Euros Lyn’s direction who keeps drama and humor perfectly in harmony, the second season makes you want to read more, to continue being part of the Paris Gang even when the colored credits appear on the black background of the screen, signaling the end of another episode.
Heartstopper Season 2 Review and Analysis
Watch Heartstopper Season 2, dive into this colorful and sweet adolescent world where every emotion is amplified, every relationship the most important in life, every occasion, beautiful or unpleasant, the way to understand who you are. And so also for the spectators, as happens for the characters of the series, every fear will become an insurmountable mountain, every small act of courage something to be extremely proud of, every beautiful emotion a sign of destiny that the right thing is being done. Light and flowing but at the same time deep and communicative, this series created by Alice Oseman and directed by Euros Lyn, is a real charm and also a beautiful example of a teen drama that strips itself of that forced sexuality and superficiality that many other series of the same genre they have wanted to stake everything lately and return to give the time of youth its innocence, its sweetness, its magic.
Give yourself this gift, especially if you are a little more adult than the Heartstopper protagonists, go back to being dreamy, and excited in the face of life’s opportunities, go back to being innocent and rediscover that part of you that, perhaps, you were forced to keep hidden behind that patina of concreteness and mistrust that adulthood brings with it a little too strongly. There’s so much to learn from Heartstopper and missing out on this little life lesson on Netflix would be a real shame. A problem that we often encounter in shows about teenagers is the representation that they are made of, decidedly unlikely and very far from what are the hopes, anxieties, and real experiences of the boys. The value of Heartstopper, on the other hand, is precisely that of providing a genuine representation of the adolescent universe: those who are facing this complex period of life will be able to reflect themselves in the protagonists and dynamics of the show, while the more adult audience will be easily led to remember what it means to be a teenager.
While questions about being queer are the focus of the episodes, there’s also ample room for exploring how wonderful and painful it is to try to adjust to life’s constant changes while you’re busy trying to figure out who you are. In this way, some of the milestones of adolescence are also brought to the screen – such as classwork, school trips, and the complex relationship with parents – always represented in a sincere way and with a language suitable for the very young. Within an overall maturation of its characters, the Heartstopper Season 2 investigates the complexity as well as the importance of the coming out process. These new eight episodes focus above all on Nick’s various attempts to bring to light his relationship – mostly still secret – with Charlie, sharing it with the most important people in his life. Through Nick’s struggle, the series effectively shows how, for people in the LGBTQ+ community, coming out represents a continuous and different process for everyone, not always easy when you find yourself within a context that continues to favor and give heterosexuality for granted.
In the show, we see Nick’s friends assume that he and Charlie are just “good friends,” while some deeply toxic characters discourage boys from living their love carefree. Heartstopper also explores the reasons why people choose to come out, examining the very concept of this process, undertaken primarily for themselves but in a certain sense also forced by society. Kit Connor (Nick) and Joe Locke (Charlie) bring back to the screen the same sweetness and the same vulnerabilities that made us fall in love with the couple in the first season of Heartstopper. The characters maintain the same extraordinary emotional intelligence and genuineness, while the two interpreters prove incredibly capable of giving expression to the constant changes that Nick and Charlie must face. Although the two remain at the center of the story, the second season of the show also does a great job of delving into the other members of the group – who are granted major story arcs – of friends as well as some adult figures such as Nick’s mother – played by a perfect Olivia Colman – and beloved art professor Professor Ajayi (Fisayo Akinade).
In all likelihood, the answer lies in the fact that this story, born from the pen of a person in his early twenties at the time (we are talking about 2016), was created to claim for himself and others a comfort with these characters outside the heteronormative schemes, give voice, through a product for young adults, first with the graphic novel than with the TV series, to those who had remained silent up to that moment. There is Elle, played by the wonderful trans actress Yasmin Finney, no longer a marginal character as often happened in the past for trans people, but one of the protagonists of the story who shows us the rebirth of a teenager after her transition; there is Nick (the very good Kit Connor), an important voice of the bisexual community for all young people who are unheard of and accused of being only “ confused ”. But the inclusiveness of Heartstopper does not focus only on the point of view of sexuality and gender, and perhaps it is this small but great detail that makes the difference with other teen dramas: Alice Oseman‘s TV series also leaves room for the importance of mental health, which this season assumes a thick relevance through the character of Charlie (Joe Locke) and his DCA.
Heartstopper is a sort of serial miracle because it can show feelings that many of us have experienced at least once in our lives, without ever making them vulgar, leaving them there, floating in this sort of limbo of absolute adolescent purity that suddenly lights up like a spark, between animated butterflies that animate the stomach and flames that make a feeling explicit, constantly underlining the senselessness of homophobic hatred, the absolute evil it can cause, its devastating consequences. This is what differentiates Heartstopper from anything we’ve seen to date on the small screen. It’s difficult, if not impossible, not to empathize with Nick and Charlie, it’s difficult, if not impossible, not to get emotional with them, to be moved by them, by the two splendid actors who made them real. It will be difficult, probably in a couple of years, to have to say goodbye. In the meantime, let’s enjoy them because stories like this are good for the heart and the mind.
Heartstopper Season 2 Review: The Last Words
Heartstopper Season 2 equals or even exceeds the quality of the previous one, exploring the sweet love story between Nick and Charlie and providing the audience with a genuine representation of the teenage world. In short, Heartstopper continues its ascent to success with a new chapter full of surprises and French words that make you blush, of youthful dramas and unexpected crushes, of indie film quotes and lots of tenderness: a new season that will take your breath away, indeed, your heart will stop.
