Heartstopper Season 3 Review: Finally a Series That Knows How to Talk About Eating Disorders

Cast: Kit Connor, Joe Locke, William Gao, Yasmin Finney, Corinna Brown, Kizzy Edgell, TobieDonovan, Jenny Walser, Rhea Norwood, Leila Khan

Created By: Alice Oseman

Streaming Platform: Netflix

Filmyhype.com Ratings: 4/5 (four stars)

Heartstopper Season 3, the Netflix adaptation of Alice Oseman’s famous graphic novels, brings us back to the sweet and sincere world of Nick and Charlie, but with a decidedly more mature tone. Where were we? The second season ended with moments of personal growth for both protagonists: Nick came out in front of his friends, while Charlie confronted his fragilities, especially about his mental health. This new season starts from there, but with a different awareness, diving into deeper themes such as Charlie’s eating disorder, sex, and the boys’ future ambitions. Even though the series continues to be wrapped in that patina of good feelings and sweetness that distinguishes it, at times it seems to idealize the characters a little too much, depicting teenagers who are all too perfect and caring. However, it is precisely this optimism – which remains the beating heart of the series – that allows Heartstopper to delicately explore even the most complex challenges, making it a unique product in the contemporary television landscape.

New episodes and new adventures are coming for the two protagonists Charlie and Nick, played respectively by Joe Locke and Kit Connor, who this time will have to deal with new challenges, not always easy to face. The Heartstopper Season 3, in fact, unlike the first two decidedly lighter and more romantic seasons – where the theme of LGBT love was mainly at the center of the story – turns the narrative towards much darker topics, talking about eating disorders and mental health problems and does so with impressive delicacy and intelligence. If the second season focused on the complexities of coming out, in particular on Nick’s (Kit Connor) journey through understanding his bisexuality, this season, directed by Andy Newbery, focuses on Charlie (Joe Locke) and the difficult period he is experiencing but will also investigate the situation of his friends. They are each in a delicate moment in their lives: they are growing up, and there are many choices to make, and paths to take.

Heartstopper Season 3 Review: The Story Plot

Heartstopper sensitively tells Charlie’s struggle with an eating disorder – narrated since the first season – which here becomes even more ruthless. For Charlie everything becomes more complicated, a picnic with friends, someone who offers him chips for lunch, and a day at the beach in a bathing suit; for the boy his body becomes a cage and a protective screen. Locke is sober and nuanced in his portrait of Charlie’s hidden pain and accompanying his interpretation are the animated illustrations of Oseman that help to convey the panic, the pain that takes him, and that inner voice that pushes him to self-destruction. Always following him with love, and respect, silently and even with warm and tender tears, at every moment, there is Nick, support and support for him: he is his anchor, his safe harbor. When Charlie feels lost he runs to Nick, when his house seems like a prison, full of rules and impositions, he escapes to his boyfriend’s house. It tells the complexities of caring for a loved one who is suffering from an eating disorder.

Connor is perfect and can convey Nick’s deep feelings for Charlie but also his deep fear of making a mistake so much so that he seeks help from his aunt, Diane, who takes care of this very thing to behave at her best and be there for him. This new chapter of the series sees Charlie enter the dark vortex of depression and manifest serious symptoms of anorexia that he tries to hide but that will then come to the surface. His boyfriend Nick does not know how to help him, well as his family initially does not realize how bad the boy is and how much he needs help. Thus begins Charlie’s journey towards recovery helped by professionals but also by his friends and his own family to become more self-confident, make peace with food, and understand that, from the disease, one can get over it. Heartstopper with this new season confirms itself as a very well-made teen series, an extremely educational, formative, and emotionally impactful story whose purpose goes beyond entertainment becoming a manual on adolescence for kids and parents.

The new episodes of the Netflix series act as a real help for those who suffer from eating or psychological disorders but also a very useful tool for those who, instead, do not know how to be close to young people who have a bad relationship with their bodies, to kids assailed by intrusive thoughts that cause them panic attacks, to those who do not know how to manage and overcome their insecurities. Tao (William Gao) and Elle (Yasmin Finney) are in the “honeymoon” phase where they have to always be together, especially now that she has to start art school again; Tara (Corinna Brown) and Darcy (Kizzy Edgell) live together after the latter left home, but they have to find another solution from the grandmother of the former (a fantastic new entry). After all, they are still teenagers to face problems that are much bigger than them, like Nick himself. He will have his aunt psychologist Diane (Hayley Atwell) on his side, along with a specialized therapist (Eddie Marsan) and maybe even a professor followed on social media (Jonathan Bailey).

Heartstopper Season 3 Review and Analysis

The beauty of Heartstopper is that since its first season, it has always known how to communicate effectively with a teen audience but also with a more adult audience, reaching everyone’s heart with extreme ease, managing to hide the depth of the themes covered behind the lightness of the story genre. It is not easy for a TV series to be educational without being “heavy”, to talk about mental health or anorexia without being sad – an example is Everything Calls for Salvation, the Italian series that addresses the topic of mental health by choosing the drama genre and consequently becoming a very psychologically challenging title and therefore not suitable for everyone. But Heartstopper manages to go a step further: it makes a story that, underneath, is dark, very serious, and potentially very sad, very light, colorful, enjoyable, and for everyone. Not only does it show how easy it is for a sixteen-year-old boy to fall into the vortex of eating disorders or depression, but it also shows the way out without ever being a sappy, depressing, or superficial story.

Heartstopper Season 3 is a gem, don’t make the mistake of missing out. And even if you’re an adult and don’t like teen series, take a look at this Netflix title because it will open your eyes to the world of teenagers and maybe, help you judge them less and understand them a little more. In the new episodes, which also address issues such as transphobia, the “outsiders” of the group become central, that is, those who remain uncoupled, thus broadening the discussion on gender identity. Imogen (Rhea Norwood) could better understand her tastes while the avid reader Isaac (Tobie Donovan), a character invented specifically for the TV series, since it is autobiographical for the author, must face his asexuality and aromanticism**, trying to understand something about it and to make his group of friends understand it too.

Friendship is as important as love: this seems to be the cardinal mantra of the entire third season, which could be the penultimate for the show, given the source material. The characterization of the characters continues to be one of the strengths of Heartstopper, so much to reward both the interpreters who are growing together with their characters, giving us not only a comfort show that makes us return to being teenagers but also a few tears for the more mature themes inserted in the story, and the writing and representation of Oseman: punctual, complete and never forced. The other fundamental structural element is, as we mentioned, the visual rendering of onomatopoeias and animations on paper to communicate, first to the spectators and then to the characters themselves, what they feel inside themselves. Before being able to give a name to that emotion and understand it completely. The sexual impulses of the protagonists also begin, yet they never exaggerate on that front. After all, there has never been that intent of the show. After all, there are other titles if you are looking for that type of vision.

Heartstopper Season 3 continues to be based on good feelings, with thoughtful and kind protagonists who face every obstacle with a certain grace. However, there is one aspect that, in the long run, risks making these teenagers seem almost unreal: the lack of those uncertainties, conflicts, and clumsiness that characterize real adolescence. The characters are always so confident and aware in solving the problems of their friends, and the tensions between couples, such as those between Tao and Elle or Tara and Darcy, dissolve with a few sweet words and a few kisses; in this sense, it is as if the chaos of adolescence is mentioned, but never actually experienced. Sure, if the kids of Heartstopper were more selfish, impulsive, or confused, the series would lose its tender heart and its contagious optimism, but one cannot help but wonder if some unresolved mistake or a more complicated situation could make everything more authentic. At times, all this emotional perfection begins to weigh on us, transforming the good intentions of the series into a sort of idealized morality that distances us from realism.

The cast of Heartstopper once again proves to be one of the strengths of the series, bringing intense and touching performances to the stage. Joe Locke and Kit Connor, as Charlie and Nick respectively, continue to demonstrate surprising maturity as actors. Locke manages to perfectly capture the delicate balance between the happiness of a young man in love and the internal pain that afflicts Charlie, giving an emotionally complex performance. On the other hand, Connor faces the challenge of playing Nick, whose love for Charlie leads to a deep codependency, while not knowing how to truly help him. But the rest of the cast shines this season, too. Corinna Brown shines as Tara, dealing with the challenges of being seen as the “smart friend” and the complexities of a queer relationship where her partner is still exploring her identity. Tobie Donovan also stands out, bringing Isaac to the screen, who is living his journey of acceptance as asexual and aromantic, making him one of the most authentic and sensitive characters in the group. Even the adult characters – Olivia Colman’s Sarah first and foremost – grow and face new challenges, offering the audience a complete and close-knit ensemble that enriches the narrative and the heart of the series.

This way of acting does not apply to the real world, perhaps this is why the series is so successful and has such a firm hold on its audience, it is a comfort series, and it offers impossible perspectives and dynamics applied to very serious problems and issues that are always faced calmly and openly. It could probably even be unintentionally didactic and suggest how to face some difficulties that arise along the path of an adolescent. Heartstopper virtuously shows what it means to have a pure and honest relationship, not only of love, but of complicity, understanding, and support. Whether it is sex, experienced as an all-encompassing experience (even if not explicitly as in Sex Education ), whether it is self-discovery (asexuality peeks out among the various facets of the identities that are represented), or even mental health problems (the series looks at the world of eating disorders and dysmorphia), Heartstopper offers a positive, constructive, sweetened and romantic perspective on how to deal with the issue.

The small animations that underline the moods of the protagonists reproduce the aesthetics of the comic and help to charge the images with an additional emotional dimension. Putting aside the wonderful character of Olivia Colman, who plays Nick’s mother, who was unable to take part in the filming of the third season, Heartstopper tried to make up for it with three very special guests. The first is Jonathan Bailey, in the role of a writer who is very popular with Charlie, the second is Eddie Marsan who with his tender face and smiling eyes plays Charlie’s therapist, and finally Hayley Atwell, in the role of Nick’s aunt, who teaches her nephew that you can stay close to the one you love even when you can’t solve their problems. This season of Heartstopper takes the young protagonists toward adulthood, and given the pace of the narrative, it is likely that a fourth cycle, although not yet confirmed, could close the story arc for all the characters who, already now, seem close to a happy and complete conclusion, even if not easy, of their adolescence.

Heartstopper has often been criticized for being too tied to feelings and not enough to the sexual sphere, experiencing this as a limit for the series itself, in this third season things change. The young protagonists talk, tell their stories, and bring to the center what they feel and experience. These episodes make it clear that they too have desires, and feel passion, this is also possible because the show is now a safe space, non-judgmental and without pressure. They are insecure, they don’t feel up to it, they touch each other to understand how far they can go, and everything is narrated with delicacy and without voyeurism. The characters hesitantly try to understand their sexual desires and limits. Charlie and Nick, Tao and Elle let themselves go headlong into their feelings and desires in this season trying to understand if they are ready for their first sexual experiences. Everyone is extremely respectful when they approach others, they are delicate and understood, Nick is with Charlie and Tao is with Elle, this is because this is a generation that also knows another type of language, knows sweetness and consideration towards others.

Heartstopper Season 3 has become a more mature series that has grown like its characters, ready to analyze themes that it was not yet able to deal with before. The series, with delicacy, gets closer and closer to Nick, Charlie, and all the others, entering their rooms to hear what they say, what they feel, thus listening to the thoughts, the reflections of a group of young queer people. Heartstopper is a poetic and delicate, deep and complex story about two boys who love each other and the queer community that revolves around them, about human fragility, the fear of not being good enough, and the need to be accepted and loved. The eight episodes represent a safe haven, a place where you feel protected. When the series talks about eating disorders, dysphoria, and transphobia, it does so with a very delicate and respectful but not superficial touch.

Heartstopper Season 3 Review: The Last Words

The third season of Heartstopper confirms the qualities that had characterized it since its debut, trying to raise the bar with even more mature topics such as eating disorders and transphobia. Some dynamics are repeated, but the characters evolve and show new sides of themselves, while couples fall apart and reform and new gender awareness comes to light, starting with the beautiful character of Isaac. Juicy new entries and comic-book visual effects now peculiar to the show do the rest. Even though the series continues to be wrapped in that patina of good feelings and sweetness that distinguishes it, sometimes it seems to idealize the characters a little too much, depicting teenagers who are all too perfect and caring. However, it is precisely this optimism – which remains the beating heart of the series – that allows Heartstopper to delicately explore even the most complex challenges, making it a unique product in the contemporary television landscape.

Heartstopper Season 3 Review: Finally a Series That Knows How to Talk About Eating Disorders - Filmyhype

Director: Alice Oseman

Date Created: 2024-10-03 19:44

Editor's Rating:
4

Pros

• Nick and Charlie and the other couples, along with their maturations.
• The more adult themes like eating disorders and transphobia.
• The evolution of the character of Isaac, Alice Oseman's alter ego.
• The visual rendering of the characters' feelings.
• The new adult entries are precious but not bulky.
• The tone is more mature than in previous seasons.
• The entire cast demonstrates surprising acting maturity.

Cons

• The almost disarming sweetness of some sequences might annoy someone (but how can you not melt in front of these teenagers?)
• By now a certain type of narrative pattern is repeated.
• It shows a somewhat idealized adolescence