(courtesy IMP Awards)
Watching a new season of Heartstopper, just like reading the graphic novels upon which they are based, feels like coming home.
That may sound like an extravagantly sentimental thing to say, but Alice Oseman’s wondrously inclusive creation feels, even at its darkest and most seriously contemplative (and perhaps, most especially then), like returning back to people and a place where you belong, especially if you are represented by one of the identity-defining letters in the alphabet umbrella term, LGBTQIA+.
The importance of this feeling of being a part of something quite special cannot be overstated.
While a good many straight people love Oseman’s five-and-counting graphic novels, and now three seasons of its streaming adaptation, it is anyone who falls within the enveloping reach of the LGBTQIA+ acronym who really finds the story of Nick and Charlie, and their happily thoughtful gaggle of lovely friends and mostly supportive family members, to be something of a transformative moment of belonging.
That matters for a whole host of reasons, but particularly so because when you have been an outlier all your life, and often pilloried, scorned and bullied for not fitting into a mainstream world you have had no say in defining and any sense of community, of being unconditionally known, loved and supported for just being you seems like some kind of overly hopeful fever dream.
In Heartstopper, and it really matters in season three when a whole lot of identity buffeting and defining storytelling rubber really hits the road, all of that seemingly futile wishing and hoping actually finds the kind of form you always dreamed of, and in springing into being, feels like the kind of inclusively warm and loving world that those in the tightly-defined mainstream have simply always taken as their birthright.
There’s often been no such sense of belonging for LGBTQIA+ people, of existing in a time and place where who you know are, no matter how wildly divergent from the norm – and let’s be clear, “norm” is not the slam dunk bit of definition many conservative people in particular think it is; it is, in fact, a unicorn, a myth, a mainstream piece of nothing that has never really existed in the first place – is not weird or strange of unlikely, IT JUST IS.
That is the great joy, reassurance and hope of Heartstopper, and why its storytelling has struck such a chord with so many people, whether they are gay, lesbian, bisexual, queer, non-binary, asexual and a whole host of other beautiful and wondrously rich identifying terms (not everyone likes labels, it’s true but they do add a sense of valuable identity in a world that scarcely often believes you exist in the first place).
In its third, darker but still warmly inclusive season, Charlie Spring (Joe Locke) and Nick Nelson (Kit Connor), and their found-family of lovely and heartwarmingly grounded friends, who may have each other but not always all the answers or a sense of impelling direction or certainty, encounter the salient fact that while family may be everything, it can’t wish away the many vexing challenges of life.
But while it’s brutally honest about how dark and lost things can get and feel, it is equally robust in its much-needed assurance, and this is desperately important when you’ve been on the outer since the get-go and feel like life is often against you, Heartstopper reaffirms at every step that the love and support of family and friends will always profoundly tip the balance in your favour.
Season three is really the story of Charlie in many ways as he deals with some serious mental health issues including an eating disorder, all of it stemming, in some way at least, from the bullying trauma of a couple of years earlier, and finds that while getting through them, as much as you ever get through mental health issues which is to say, not ever completely (you just get the tools to handle them in ways that empower than defeat you), all comes down to not just a changed inner voice and perspective – thanks to Eddie Marsan as Charlie’s transformative therapist, Geoff.
While Charlie is on this biggest of life journeys, one that precedes him turning sixteen in a blur of lots of happiness, streamers, alcohol and close friends on a fairylight-draped backyard sleepover, Nick is doing his best to support the boyfriend he loves passionately and to learn how to be there, when he often feels inadequate, all at sea and getting ready for some pretty major life changes himself, such as going away to university in the not-too-distant future.
Both of these remarkable young men, who have found the loveliest and most unconditionally supportive of homes in each other, are on fairly seismic journeys in season three, one more obviously impactful than the other but no less important for that, and much of the joy of Heartstopper‘s latest batch of pitch-perfect episodes is watching how they navigate these changes as a couple and find their North Star in each other repeatedly (which includes lots of heartfelt “hi’s” and “hey’s, lots of pivotally “I love you’s and lots of s*x – yes, they go there in the sweetest and most naturally lustful of ways – and kissing.
But they are not the only story in a season which balances the light and dark of life, all the more amplified in a queer context where there’s a whole level of complexity to deal with simply because you live outside the mainstream, so beautifully it makes your heart ache and your spirit soar in equal measure.
Trans woman Elle Argent (Yasmin Finney), is both flourishing as an artist, an arts student at her new school and loving her new group of friends and her boisterously fun and caring relationship with the sweetly earnest (too earnest sometimes maybe?) Tao Xu (William Gao), while confronting the fact the world, the cruel outside world which has already caused so much sadness and pain, is quite capable of doing it all over again.
Confronting a similar reality shock is Darcy (Kizzy Edgell) who, though she is blissfully happy in her blossoming relationship with Tara (Corinna Brown), who is dealing with some fairly weighty issues of her own and some sizable expectations too, discovers there is much more to herself than she suspected, which is a wonderful thing but which comes with its own challenges too.
And finally, good old Imogen (Rhea Norwood), the straight ally who once fancied Nick (or did she?), is finding out that she has a long way to go to work out who she really is, and it’s possible, quite possible, that Sahar (Leila Khan), a bisexual band member who is also coming to grips, rather joyfully, with who she is.
There’s a lot of self-discovery and adjusting to new realities in the third season of Heartstopper, and while they are rightly celebrated as good and perfect developments on the way to full personhood – sorry judgmental world but diversity and richness of queer experience are not aberrations but celebratory truth – they also come with some big, sometimes, messy, sad and painful issues.
What makes this season of Heartstopper such a blissful joy is that it acknowledges head-on how exhaustingly difficult growing up queer can be in a confrontational world, often nasty, world, but how much of a difference it makes to be surrounded by friends, family, love and unconditional inclusion.
Heartstopper has always celebrated this, in print and in its streaming iteration, and it has always felt like a big, warm hug of hope and possibility, but it even feels even more visceral. real and meaningful in a season where life gets very real indeed and having people who love and get you have your back, really have your back, matters more than it ever did before.
Heartstopper streams on Netflix.
And another interview …