Heartstopper 2 review: Crackling queer romance comes into full bloom with a coming-out saga

Queer coming-out rom-com 'Heartstopper' is streaming on Netflix.

A few days have passed since Nick picked up Charlie in his arms and ran into the beach, joyfully saying “I’m your boyfriend. You’re my boyfriend. We’re boyfriends'', thus making their relationship official. In the second season, the love-struck duo must navigate life at Truham high all-boys school — submit coursework on time, appear for GCSE exams, adhere to curfew timings, all while stealing passionate kisses in between breaks when no one is looking.

"Coming out is a lot harder than I expected", Nick tells Charlie via Instagram DMs as the two lie on the couch, their heads next to each other and their friends fast-asleep after a sleepover party. Heartstopper 2 follows Nick’s struggle to come out to his friends and family — his homophobic brother David, his French father Stephane, his ex-flame Imogen and his mates in the rugby team.

Nick and Charlie steal a kiss in Heartstopper 2.

Nick finds it difficult to open up, especially in front of his school nemesis Ben, who at one point in the previous season, dated Charlie. Nick is still grappling with the loss of hetero privilege which is inevitable if he came out. An overprotective Charlie, who has been bullied for his sexual identity, doesn't want Nick to have the same fate as him.

The portrayal of Nick’s internal conflict through unexpected run-ins with friends, the voices in his head — ”I knew you’d turn out to be gay”, “pick a side”, “are you sure you aren’t just gay?” — are painfully realistic. At one point, Nick’s rugby coach discovers Nick and Charlie making out after a rugby match. The coach, who is a queer person herself, tells Nick about her own time in school when she used to play women’s rugby. She had first met her wife in the team.

Besides this, Elle and Tao go through several ups and downs. At one point, Tao, who is struggling with self-image, makes drastic changes in his appearance to woo Elle, who on the contrary wants Tao to be himself. After much “will they, won’t they” back-and-forth, the duo does end up together.

Over at art school, Elle befriends Felix and Naomi, who wants to be known as Naomi, not “the trans girl in art class”. Meanwhile Darcy and Tara go through a rough patch in their relationship, where most of Tara’s attempts to connect with Darcy are thwarted by her offbeat humour. It is revealed much later that Darcy’s mother is homophobic and isn’t supportive of her daughter’s pursuits.

Tao and Elle watch a Wes Anderson film in a still from Episode 3

There’s also a drama-filled Paris trip and a rager thrown in the woods post-GCSE exams. “You don’t owe them that information”, Charlie tells Nick at one point when the latter is struggling with the idea of coming out to his peers. Much of Nick’s internal struggle manifests in these awkward run-ins and accidental outing of his identity.

Heartstopper addresses hetero privilege, homophobia and the intricacies of allyship while still being a breezy crackling queer romance which doesn’t come across as heavy-handed. The show offers a nuanced commentary on queerphobia while still being a true-blue celebration of queer love.

Elle befriends Naomi and Felix at the art class

In its second season, Heartstopper is still the dreamy, mushy queer romance it was in the first one. There are cutesy animations of birds and butterflies when characters share a moment of intimacy; firecrackers explode when Charlie and Nick share a passion-fuelled moment. The warm, fuzzy vibe of the show is intact in the second season.

Heartstopper's world is no utopia like that of Schitt's Creek but it seems that the two shows are cut from the same cloth. Homophobia exists in Heartstopper’s world but its lens of queer romance is not heteronormative.

Despite its many wins, Heartstopper does have many dramatically inert sequences — long stretches where nothing monumental happens. The sequences are understandably meant to celebrate Nick and Charlie’s love but after a while, they come across as unnecessarily stretched.

Heartstopper gang at the sleepover.

Fundamentally, Heartstopper 2 tries to touch on a lot of relevant social issues. While on a Paris trip, Charlie suddenly faints when he is touring the Louvre museum with Nick, thus revealing in a revelatory moment that he is struggling with an eating disorder. Isaac, whose reading list includes Les Misérables and Book Lovers, comes out as asexual. In the penultimate episode, we discover that Charlie has a history of self harm, for which he holds childhood bullying responsible.

In its attempt to touch on socially relevant issues, Heartstopper 2 ends up making the mistake it should have avoided at all costs — reducing living, breathing characters to their gender identities and sexual orientations. In an effort to tick all the points in the checklist of a woke drama, Heartstopper 2 glosses over many important issues, barely addressing some of them and glossing over most.

The second season ends on an ambivalent note where Charlie types “I love you” on Instagram DMs but doesn’t hit the ‘send’ button, The cliffhanger ending hints at a possible rough patch in Nick-Charlie’s relationship in the third season of the show.

Nick and Charlie communicating via Instagram DMs at a sleepover

While Heartstopper 2 is a warm, fuzzy celebration of queer love, it leaves much to be desired in terms of fleshing out the characters. The show does, however, succeed in replicating the magic of a crackling queer romance comic book which is its biggest win.

Heartstopper 2 is streaming now on Netflix