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Heartstopper Recap: Really Good Mates

Season 2 Episode 3 Editor’s Rating4 stars ****

Photo: Netflix Three episodes in, I’m starting to understand the shape of season two of Heartstopper. Season one ended with a definitive new milestone in Nick’s coming-out journey: not only embracing his identity as Charlie’s boyfriend but coming out to his mom, with the intention of telling everyone else soon after. But that was always a huge step that he needed time to process. If Alice Oseman wanted, Nick could have come out to the whole school in the first couple of episodes of season two, perhaps announced with a spontaneous Instagram post, and it wouldn’t have felt too out of place. After all, Nick thought that was a possibility himself. He never expected this thing to take so long.

But it’s a boon to the story that Oseman doesn’t treat Nick’s friends and family learning about his bisexuality as just a box to tick on the Coming-Out Story checklist, dispensed with some predictable public outing that exposes everyone to the truth simultaneously. No, Nick’s coming out is the central story of this season, which so far is structured around a theoretically simple task that proves to be anything but linear. After all, as Charlie points out at the end of the episode, people treat this like something you owe your friends and family, even though it’s ultimately your story to tell.

In “Promise,” Nick’s newest targets are his pals from the rugby team, mostly characters we don’t know that well. (They make a point of mentioning they’re not friends with Harry, which counts for a lot.) His discomfort around Harry and the other rugby douches who laughed at his homophobic jokes has carried over to the team’s performance on the pitch. In addition to all the other pressures, it suddenly feels like even the Truham rugby team’s success might rest on Nick coming out.

After yet another aborted attempt to tell his mates at practice, Nick finds the perfect low-stress setting to tell them: a party in the woods to celebrate the conclusion of GCSE exams at the end of the week. Luckily, everything seems to go well for everyone, with Charlie cranking out his history essay and Nick nailing a chemistry exam. With GCSEs over and the Paris trip to look forward to, everyone heads to the party in the woods — even Charlie’s sister, Tori, attends, making Nick promise to look after Charlie. Everyone’s in a happy mood by the time they arrive.

Well, not everyone. Elle and Tao go through multiple years’ worth of brutal shifts in their dynamic in this episode, starting from the beginning, when Elle is still trying her best to avoid Tao. That quickly changes when he shows up with flowers after her final exam and explicitly asks her on a date, debuting a new haircut decidedly low on goofy curls.

The vibes are off from the beginning, though. William Gao’s body language clearly conveys just how uncomfortable Tao is in his skin right now; he doesn’t know how to be anyone other than Elle’s best friend, and he doesn’t know how to be the attractive, smooth romantic lead worthy of her affections. He tries so hard to be someone else — even taking Elle to see Moonrise Kingdom, a movie he (ugh) hates — and the whole date feels forced as a result, from the comically oversize concessions to their brief, awkward hand-holding.

The truth, of course, is that the Tao whom Elle likes is the same Tao, her best friend; she’s attracted to his goofiness, his looseness, the eccentric haircut. Moonrise Kingdom is one of her favorite movies, but she’s into the guy who hates it, not the one who pretends to love it. Elle is correct in pointing out that they should’ve done something they both enjoy; the show doesn’t quite articulate it this way, but Tao can’t continually make Elle into an object of desire who needs to be pampered. He’s just as big a part of this nascent relationship as her. That’s a lesson Charlie might also have to learn eventually.

Elle and Tao tentatively make up, but everything blows up spectacularly when they arrive at the party and he learns that she invited Naomi and Felix without telling him. Here, his jealousy boils over, and when she calls him out on his role-playing, he accuses her of forgetting about him. “I guess romance does ruin friendship,” he says, and it clearly stings.

There’s a bit of unnecessary soapiness to some of the miscommunications here — I kind of wished Elle would quickly explain why she’d been blowing him off so much, though Tao’s immature reactions were ultimately the biggest problem — but I still really like the way this story depicts the complexity of intimate relationships straddling the line between friendship and romance. The transition to the latter is always going to be a little bumpy and strange after so much time only seeing each other as friends. People are bound to either try too hard or not enough, according to how they best think they can protect their feelings.

The bad vibes trickle over to the rest of the group quickly, from Tara’s spiraling about Darcy to Charlie and Nick’s near-immediate separation. They’re swallowed up by throngs of wild teenagers, drinking and burning a term’s worth of class notes. By the time Nick is face-to-face with the lads, he’s too discombobulated to tell them what he meant to. He’s bogged down by the sheer weight of other people’s preconceived notions and expectations of him. Tori’s bitter remark about his habit of breaking promises has wormed its way into his head; losing track of Charlie at the party somehow feels symbolic of some larger failure to make him happy by living out in the open. He feels like Ben, essentially.

With time running out to go public before the Paris trip, all the comforting fantasies that were supposed to motivate Nick — kissing in front of the Mona Lisa or on the Eiffel Tower — become burdens in this moment, just like his unfulfilled promise on the beach. In another great use of animation, we see Nick imagine various people taunting him in his mind, encircled by fuzzy, chaotic purple lines. It hurts to see him beat himself up for missing the arbitrary deadlines he has scheduled in his own idealized coming-out timeline.

Seeing that Nick is ill, Charlie takes him home, where he suggests they table the coming-out plan, recognizing how much of a strain it’s putting on Nick. As always, Charlie is very accommodating, and it makes sense; even with Nick’s understandable stalling, there’s no indication that he’ll be uncomfortable telling the world about their relationship forever. He’s clearly going through huge life changes, and a little at a time feels like the only logical option.

I do sometimes worry that these impressively mature conversations between Charlie and Nick could lose their novelty, especially because they tend to circle the same few subjects. This episode, like both of the prior episodes, features multiple instances of Charlie (and others) assuring Nick that he should come out on his own terms, and the repetitiveness might grate on less patient viewers. But I do think Heartstopper typically manages to give each of these exchanges its own function and context.

Here, as with the previous episodes, there’s a lingering bit of melancholy in the final moments alongside the sweetness. After confirming to Nick that he wants him to take his time, Charlie pauses, then says something very simple, vulnerable, and honest to his sleeping boyfriend: “But I guess part of me just wants everyone to know you’re my boyfriend.” When it comes down to it, Charlie will support Nick no matter what, but it’s impossible to deny that there’s one life in particular he wants to live: a life out in the open, loving whom he loves. It’s a truth that Nick knows and fears, and the most frustrating part is that he wants that life too. He just can’t keep every promise he makes to everyone he cares about. No one can.

Love Notes

• Tara accidentally, but truthfully, tells Darcy that she loves her. She backtracks, but Darcy’s freezing reaction, followed by her confidently dropping and ignoring the exchange, hurts to watch. I hope they can communicate about this soon, because it breaks my heart to see Tara left hanging!

• “What about if we went to Ikea, like in 500 Days of Summer?” Unfortunately, this is also something high-school me would’ve barely ironically suggested.

• Waiting to see where exactly this season takes Isaac’s flirtation with James. But with Charlie’s less-than-ideal coming-out experience looming over so much of the show, I’m curious how much the friends have discussed Isaac’s sexuality, and if they do any gossiping about his interactions with James. This friend group gets queerer every day!

• Continuing last season’s trend of teens ordering way too much food, Tao buys Elle and himself each a giant popcorn, drink, candy, and tray of nachos. The drink would probably be bigger in America, though.

• This episode ends with “Lovesong” by Beabadoobee, whom this show features quite often. I’m a big fan!

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