Heartstopper just got SO much better

Transcript Transcribed by Laura M.

Courtney: Hello everyone and welcome back. My name is Courtney, I am here with my spouse, Royce, and together we are The Ace Couple. And we are once again talking about Heartstopper because season three of the Netflix series released and we have some thoughts about it. Now, we have obviously spoken about Heartstopper, the TV show, before, after both of the first two seasons dropped, and we were critical of certain aspects of the show itself. But I think a majority of my personal criticisms pertaining to Heartstopper as a franchise actually has a little more to do with the fandom and the online discourse side of it as opposed to the show itself. One glaring example being, after season one of Heartstopper, everyone being like, “Isaac is fantastic aroace representation,” when, especially in the first season, he had hardly any lines, hardly anything to do with the plot, did not say or overtly imply anything about asexuality or aromanticism.

Royce: And coming off of those criticisms in the past episodes, that’s something you were definitely keeping your eye on for this episode. Even down to the like, how often is Isaac speaking? Is Isaac actually in frame while speaking or is he just kind of blending into the background? That kind of thing.

Courtney: Yes, absolutely. So I was definitely going into this– Because in the last season there was a confirmation that Isaac is asexual in– in a form that I thought was cute for the show. I thought it was really nice that he was able to have the sort of cartoony flourishes around him that most of the characters feel when they are with a romantic interest. He got these cute little Heartstopper flourishes when he picked up the book ACE by Angela Chen. This is a book we’re very familiar with. I read it years ago. As an obvious book lover, I thought this was a cool way to convey that in the show for Isaac’s particular character. But once again we got a lot of people being like, “Yes, wonderful aroace representation.” And I was like, “Where was the aro part?” He did kind of lightly start tiptoeing into what might have developed into a relationship and then backed off of it. But that, I would argue, is just a more questioning queer experience, if not just broadly aspec experience. It does not guarantee aromantic spectrum there, so.

Courtney: And we said, knowing that the writer Alice Oseman is aroace themselves, I said I do want to give benefit of the doubt. I do believe that this canon will ultimately be handled well. But man, especially after the first season, that was really getting on me. Because I know a lot of people in our community are so hungry for representation on the screen that there are loads of people who will watch a show just because someone told them there is identity representation in it. And I personally would come away from the first season of Heartstopper being like, “What aroace character?” Do you really think that was good representation? We deserve so much more. Especially with how queer this show is and how many other diverse experiences were getting a lot of that screen time.

Royce: Yeah, it seemed like there are people who are very into the fandom, who are coming into the show with external knowledge about what is intending to happen or what these character reveals are going to be, and celebrating them well before they’re due.

Courtney: Yes. And the reason why there can be issues with that is sometimes shows get canceled. This one hasn’t, thank goodness, I’m glad it hasn’t. I, as of the time of recording, do not have any confirmation that they’ll get a fourth season, but I really hope they do. But not only do shows get canceled, people change their minds, shows get edited, they get shortened. An author could theoretically say, “Oh yeah, this character is this identity,” and everyone gets really excited and hyped about that, and then the excitement of just the inherent fact of knowing that this character is going to be this identity might lead to way more hype than actual payoff. And I will say season three of Heartstopper for me was so much better.

Courtney: The first season, I wasn’t too sure if it was a show I’d be watching on my own if I wasn’t looking for that representation, if I didn’t know that the writer is a member of our community. The second season, when they did start teasing Isaac’s plotline more, there were some things we called out like emerging tropes. Like the ace character at, like, a sleepover playing those lightly sexual party games that– that teenagers play, being an emerging trope. The fact that an older aspec character just sort of shows up at the right time to explain what this identity is and then disappears forever and doesn’t become important to the remainder of the story. These are tropes that we are starting to see emerge as our communities start getting more representation. So I think it’s interesting to note those tropes. And some of them are going to be tropes for a reason. I mean the– the sexy party games. Like, I in my own personal life have stories like that from before there was any asexual representation on TV whatsoever. So some of those tropes will be very relatable and aren’t inherently a problem.

Courtney: My biggest critique about the show itself, in second season, was that I felt I understood the social point that was being conveyed when Isaac had a moment of sort of telling off his friends that you aren’t really interested in me unless you think I have a boyfriend, unless you think I’m getting into a relationship, whereas I actually felt like we needed to see more examples of that to warrant how upset he got. But as an ace person with lots of ace friends, I totally understood. Like, I see what the writer wants us to know. I understand the point, but I didn’t think it was necessarily well paced enough for me in the actual flow of the writing. And that is actually something that I found much, much better in this third season as well. I thought that this is hands down, even Isaac aside, this is my favorite season of Heartstopper.

Royce: And part of that, I am wondering a little bit – this is not a show we have gone back and rewatched, it’s been a little over a year from each prior season – but season three did have a new director.

Courtney: It did, yes, and I would be curious to know– I’m sure someday, once the season has actually ended, I will go back to the beginning and watch all of it with the gift of hindsight and knowing where the story’s going, and maybe I’ll be able to analyze it better at that point.

Courtney: But I consistently, throughout watching this season, turned to you, Royce, and I was like, “Does the pacing feel so much better? Does it feel so much more focused? Does it feel like we’re getting more time where it’s important for the plot beats?” And that I truly cannot say, without going back to the first two seasons, how much of that was new director absolutely killing it. It could even very well be – and I say this as someone who has not read the Heartstopper books yet – it could be the fact that Alice Oseman is just genuinely getting much more skilled at screenwriting, having a couple seasons under their belt. It could be that this is really where the show’s just starting to hit the stride, because they’ve tried things they needed to for the first time adapt graphic novels to a new medium. And maybe there were just some light growing pains that have been totally ironed out by this point.

Royce: Which is interesting that you mentioned both of those points, because I pulled up the transcript from our last episode, and in opening that up we both said that we felt like we enjoyed season two a little more than one.

Courtney: It’s getting better.

Royce: So–

Courtney: It’s getting better every time.

Royce: The creative staff, the cast of characters, like, fully getting their feet underneath them, might be part of it. It might just be coming together.

Courtney: And I’m thrilled that it is to be quite honest. So, that said, let’s actually talk about Isaac’s storyline in this season and the points that I feel were very much improved upon. First of all, right out the gate, very first episode, early in the episode, we start getting into Isaac’s storyline. And I did come in a little cautious. I was nervous during this first scene. [chuckles] I’m happy to report that these nerves were not warranted overall. But there’s– You know, the whole queer friend group is going to the beach, they’re on summer holiday, and Isaac walking along, is just sort of going through all his books that he brought with him. And before they even show the front of the cover, I was like, “Wait a minute, is that Gender Queer?” It was like the back of the book and just the color palette. I knew I recognized. And we did get a better look later. It was Gender Queer. Which we’ve done an entire episode on, if you’d like to go listen to that.

Courtney: But that is an obviously Gender Queer, asexual written graphic novel as well. Graphic novel? It’s a memoir, graphic memoir. And so I do like that they are still putting, you know, easter eggs in Isaac’s book, since he usually always has one in hand. And Charlie and Isaac are sitting on the beach whilst everyone else is off swimming, playing in the sand, and so just the two of them start having a conversation, and it wasn’t bad. But I was so concerned. Given the fact that previous seasons he has been so sidelined, I was like, “Please tell me that’s not the only like PSA conversation and then he’s gonna fade into the background again. Please tell me this!” And we did get more time to sit with him. I would say the first half of the season were pretty Isaac heavy, and then the second half he started fading back a bit more.

Royce: By comparison to past seasons, yes, I don’t think Isaac was more prominent than what have been our main characters. Because there were other–

Courtney: No.

Royce: There were other big plot lines going on. I think my only concern about this conversation, I think my only note for the coming out conversation that felt a little dissonant to me, was– I feel like the show had been giving this indication that Isaac was still kind of in the discovery phase, figuring things out, but the conversation that he has with Charlie it felt like both of them were simultaneously, like, tiptoeing around the unknown or potential misunderstandings, but also more knowledgeable of the topic than you would expect them to be, given what we were showing– shown.

Courtney: Yeah, that was– That was the one thing. Because I would say that this first conversation right out the gate did sort of set off my ‘this is the PSA scene’ alarm bells. Which I always personally prefer when these points that you want to essentially educate the audience about are able to be integrated in a way that feels more organic. This one kind of felt like they’re writing this scene to teach you something while also not really teaching us anything. Because Isaac had a very cute line which I like and I think is very relatable. Charlie’s like looking at his shirtless boyfriend and, you know, being very obviously attracted to him, and Isaac’s just like, “I don’t get the appeal.” But Charlie’s response was, like, that didn’t feel like a natural thing to say. Because, given the context of, like, “My boyfriend is sexy, I’m attracted to him,” it’s like, “I don’t get the appeal.” Like, given the fact that Isaac kind of almost had a relationship with a guy last season, and his friend group knows that that didn’t work out, but they don’t know many details past that, I want to know why Charlie’s response is, “What? You mean like with anyone?”

Courtney: Because I was like there are so many other assumptions you can make there in the quick moment that isn’t directly, “Oh, you must be asexual.” It could be like, “You don’t think my boyfriend’s hot?” Or it could be, “Oh, are you not actually into guys?” I think, like, both of those, I think, are such easier answers. Like if we’re doing almost like an Occam’s razor, like, if you’re just told, “Oh, I don’t get the appeal of your shirtless boyfriend.” Like, why is the response like, “Oh, you don’t get the appeal that anyone is sexy?” And I’m obviously exaggerating the dialogue here, but it was very much like, “I don’t get the appeal,” and Charlie said, “What? You mean with anyone?” And so that– that felt a little forced to me. But I loved Isaac’s rebuttal of, “I think I’m immune.” I thought that was cute, I like that. That’s something ace people can, have, and do say. But then Charlie in response clearly knows about asexuality enough to just be like, “Do you think you’re asexual then?” And Isaac’s just like, “Yeah, probably, probably aromantic too.” And Charlie just says, “I don’t know what that is.” And not impossible, definitely not impossible.

Courtney: I know a lot of aroace people who found and understood and identified with asexuality long before they identified with aromanticism, mostly from having just not been exposed to that word or that vocabulary. A lot of people in their personal lives might talk about just amatonormativity. Maybe they were able to quickly see and identify, “Oh, I’m not sexually attracted to people,” but societal pressures just sort of give you the feeling that you should still try to be romantically involved. So those are very real experiences, very common experiences to pull from our community. But I have just like not ever once– and I’ve had so many real life conversations with people in person, face to face, about asexuality and aromanticism that I’ve got a pretty good flow chart of common responses when you have these, and I’ve never gotten that particular order of like, “I know asexuality well enough that I’m going to preemptively bring it up, but when you say aromanticism back to me, I’m going to be like what’s that?”

Courtney: Because the thing with just a- being a prefix, and talking about just the queer community in general, when we take so many prefixes and suffixes and, you know, use them to try to bolster the vocabularies that might match our experiences a little better, it is such an easy extrapolation to be like, well, I guess I literally know what– If asexual is, very broadly speaking, not sexual, then aromantic is, very broadly speaking, not romantic. You might still be like, “I don’t understand how this works. I don’t know what your experience is, that’s not an experience I relate to.” But I don’t know. There was a little part of me that was like, really? Your response is just I don’t know what that is? But then I was like, you know, maybe they’re just saying that so that Isaac now has the opportunity to explain what this means to him and what he feels. But instead Isaac basically just goes, “It’s not my job to educate you.” He doesn’t say that literally, however, that was the vibe.

Royce: It was something along the lines of like, I don’t feel up to giving a vocabulary lesson, or something like that.

Courtney: Yeah, because Charlie told him, like, “Oh, you can tell our friend group, you can come out to them, they’ll be supportive of you.” And he’s like, “Yeah, I know they’d be supportive of me, but I don’t want to give them a vocabulary lesson.” And you know, basically just says google it. Which I would be curious to hear from the actual, like real life, aspec people that genuinely hate explaining their experience to people. Because there are those folks. I’d be curious to see what their response was to seeing this on screen, because I don’t know how much this works for a very diverse queer TV show. When what this felt like was: you took Twitter and Tumblr posts that very often are like it’s not my job to educate you, google is free. And you took all those posts from just, like, fed up people venting online and you tried to make it a dialogue between two close queer friends who are accepting of one another. And there was just something about that– that– that I felt– I think you used the word dissonance, Royce, I felt a little bit like.. mh.

Royce: Yeah, it seemed like many pieces of this conversation are things that people say or feel, but it felt out of place for these two characters in this IP having this conversation all at once.

Courtney: Yeah. So I came away from that being like, okay, they dropped the word aromantic, so that is less ambiguous now. They didn’t explain to the viewers what that is, while showing ignorance on the part of the character. And I don’t know, maybe I should compare this to my critique that transcends this show, because I’ve had this in other teenage shows that have sex as a prominent theme, where a lot of the shows will critique how bad sex education is, without actually providing any in-depth or nuanced sex education either. And this was almost just like, yeah, the romantic orientation version of that. Like the show was critiquing people who don’t know what aromanticism is without helping them understand it in that moment.

Courtney: It got better, but I came away from that one scene being like, oh, please don’t let that be it. Please don’t let Isaac come in one of the first scenes of the first episode be like, “Yeah, I do think I’m asexual and aromantic, but google it.” And then just have him fade into the background again. Because we know he has had a lot fewer lines than many of the other characters too. So I was like, oof, I want to hear him talk more. I want to know more about his experience. And maybe part of the issue is that I just genuinely cannot relate to not being willing to educate someone. I am such an educator at heart. So many of the, like, late night conversations we have had with our personal friends in our home have become, like, “Let’s really dig into the weeds of this element of an experience that you aren’t familiar with.” And I think if you’re close enough with someone– I don’t even need to be close to someone to feel okay educating them. I just sort of naturally am that way, and I know not everyone is.

Courtney: But of all the aroace people I know and have deep personal relationships with, the camps I tend to see are: I am pretty much open with everyone, if someone asks I will share, or they are still basically closeted to anyone who is not also a member of the A-spec community. I absolutely know some people who are like, I have ace and or aro friends and they all know my identity, but I don’t share my identity with anyone else. I don’t think I know anyone who’s like, “I’m going to tell this friend of mine what I am and then tell them to google it.” And maybe that’s a generational thing. Gen Z, please chime in and tell me if you actually talk this way to people. So– Because my frame of reference, what I have seen personally as a member of this community, is phrases like that I have only seen on Twitter and Tumblr. And only when someone is just, like, ranting and venting into the void.

Courtney: So, past that, though, I loved the way it developed for the first half of the season with him. And it was even at times a little difficult to watch, because these are feelings I have had. These are feelings so many of my friends have had. It’s sort of just an existential aspec dread that many of us have either felt firsthand, or we fear will happen to us at some point. And this is exactly what I wanted to see last season. Because last season– I think the exact scene that I remember was a friend sitting next to Isaac on the bus and being like, “Oh, what are you reading?” And then the show immediately cut away from that, so we didn’t even get to hear that conversation. And since reading books was basically all we have known about Isaac’s interests, and the only thing he’s ever really shown taking a deep interest in consistently, to then have him blow up and be like, “None of you care about me or my interests unless it revolves around another person!”

Courtney: And it’s like, but I don’t know anything about you except for books, and I saw a friend choose to sit next to you instead of their love interest and ask you what you were reading. So it actually looks like your friends are pretty supportive.

Courtney: And we finally got to see the friends not being supportive. We finally got to see what I wanted more of last season, so big kudos for that. We saw– We have basically three established couples in this friend group. We’ve got the sapphic couple, whom I think may have in the beginning stages both identified as lesbian. One of them comes out as non-binary in this season and starts using they/them pronouns. We have, obviously, Nick and Charlie. They are like the main couple of the show. One is gay, the other is bi. And then we have Tao and Elle. Elle is a trans woman. Tao is, I assume, straight. Is he the only straight one in this show?

Royce: I believe so. I haven’t heard him use any other terms. And just now I looked it up and I see in quotes that he was referred to as the token straight friend of the group.

Courtney: That’s right, yes. So he’s our token straight. And then we have Sahar and Imogen this season, who do not become an established couple but they do make out and have some flirtations and conversations. So the show has absolutely done the thing where everyone gets paired off, except for the aroace character. And what I always would prefer to see– because I’m very in favor of challenging our media representation to go further, to dig deeper, and I’m always in favor of a piece of media being able not only to show us a character with an a-spec label, but can you challenge more broadly the social implications of compulsory sexuality, of amatonormativity. And basically, does the internal logic of the show really value non-romantic sexual relationships as much as the ones that are? Or is the aroace character just the token aroace character, who’s just a little weird and goofy? You know? And this season was a little bit of a mixed bag for me in that sense, but I’m erring more on the side of it did do a good job of illustrating the importance of friendships.

Courtney: And part of that is Isaac’s journey itself. Because we have: all of his friends are sort of paired off and they’re all super invested in their own relationships. We even have a line when they’re coming away from the beach scene which, in the moment, ticked me off but seeing Isaac’s full plot line, I kind of get why the director did that. And I think in the broad scope of things I approve. Because Nick’s going on vacation, he is traveling away visiting family, so Charlie’s gonna be at home alone for a little bit and everyone’s talking about, “Oh, we’re gonna have the most romantic summer ever, we’re gonna spend a lot of time together, we’re gonna go on so many dates.” And Isaac literally just says like, I don’t remember the exact line, I should have written it down, but he says something implying like, “Oh well, it looks like it’s just gonna be me and you, Charlie. And you better not abandon me too, because then I’ll be all alone.”

Courtney: And Isaac was like not even on screen while saying this line. To the point– And it was a little bit muffled, I think visually we saw Tao just sort of looking anxious off into the distance. Like we’re focusing on Tao’s face, and he’s determined to make this a very romantic summer. He’s going to take his girlfriend on so many dates. And I was like I assume that was Isaac who said that, but I don’t actually know. So I turned on the closed captions, and the closed captions didn’t even tell me whose voice it was. It didn’t say like in brackets, like Isaac, so that didn’t help at all. So I had to rewind to the very beginning of that line and you don’t even see his whole face, but you do see his lips, just like right on the side of the screen for like half a second and they are moving when that line starts. So I was like all right, confirmed, it was Isaac who said that. And they could have, I think, maybe made that a little clearer. So I didn’t have to try two different methods to verify that he was even the one who said it.

Courtney: But Isaac’s plotline is basically all of his friends abandoned him and he has a lonely summer. And so that was kind of like, okay, that was, that was foreshadowing. And while Nick is gone, Charlie’s mental health gets even worse. Some of these issues were first shown in the second season, but it does show him, at one point he texts Isaac like, I don’t know, a Wikipedia page about aromanticism, an article… Like can you send a link to a google search? It was just like no words or commentary, just here is an article about aromanticism. I guess to prove that, I did google it, like you told me to. And Isaac just responds with a heart. And it wasn’t on screen long enough for the viewer to read what the definition of aromanticism was without having to pause the show.

Courtney: So I’m– I’m kind of curious, like Royce, how do you feel about a queer show like this where, for the most part, everyone else’s identities are pretty self explanatory, even the character coming out as non-binary, just sort of nonchalantly, “I’m non-binary, I’m using they/them pronouns now.” And everyone’s like, “Yeah, that’s great.” And then having the one aroace character be the one where someone’s like, “I don’t know what that is,” and then not having the show actually explain it in dialogue at all.

Courtney: And we don’t see a montage either, because we’ve had like an, “Am I bisexual?” montage where we’re seeing a lot of different websites and quizzes and a lot of just phone use and text messages and DMs in this show. So there are definitely scenes where we are meant to be reading what’s happening because that’s important to the plot. And then to say this is the orientation that people don’t understand, but I’m not going to teach you, google it. And then not actually teaching the user in that moment. Which then, to me, I feel like it’s kind of telling the watcher of the show to go google it too. Because you aren’t really giving them that so, is– Is that, do you think, the goal? Is to get the consumer of the show to google it?

Royce: Possibly. I mean the show itself deliberately did not try to define it on the screen, considering the quick link with a couple of sentences describing it was not on screen for very long.

Courtney: Yeah, and we did pause it and read it. And it was, you know, what, what I would expect the first couple lines of an article on aromanticism to say.

Royce: Yeah, but there isn’t a nuance, “What does this mean for me as a person, as a part of this spectrum.”

Courtney: Yeah.

Royce: But at the same time we’ve said, like, the big soapbox moments don’t come off well, so.

Courtney: Yeah.

Royce: I don’t know. For a show where the cast themselves are presented as being, for the most part, pretty progressive and knowledgeable, it doesn’t seem too out of place to me, but it does feel like it’s being treated a bit differently.

Courtney: Mm-hmm. Yeah, it’s very interesting because, yeah, we usually don’t like the soapboxy PSA moments. Because it’s very difficult to write a scene like that that feels organic. And I think in terms of this show, where Alice Oseman really shines is some of the moments when these kids are just together, they’re goofing off, they’re having fun, they’re making jokes, they’re being silly. There were several times where I laughed out loud from just a one off quip that one of these teenagers said when they were all just hanging out and having a good time together. So those moments where they’re able to just sort of relax and exist feel really, really nice.

Courtney: But past googling aromanticism, Charlie ceases making an effort to talk to friends, to see friends, to hang out. He’s gotten quiet in the group chat. And Isaac goes over to watch a movie with Tao and Elle, and so they’re all sort of on Tao’s bed and trying to watch a movie and Tao and Elle are just being obnoxiously coupley. They are like tickling each other, cuddling, giggling, having a side conversation. Just the most egregious third wheeling of Isaac that they could possibly make in that situation. And he gets really fed up with it and ends up just leaving, and decides instead to go to Charlie’s house to see why he didn’t come, why he hasn’t been responding. And since he did sort of turn up unannounced, Charlie brushes off kind of the questions and is like, “Oh yeah, I’m fine,” doesn’t really go into the details of his mental health issues, but does agree to watch a movie that Isaac’s really excited about. So they pop open a movie and start watching it there. But that’s kind of the last instance we see of Charlie taking any meaningful time to spend with Isaac and thus continues the descent of poor Isaac not having any good friends at all.

Courtney: And what I kind of think, simultaneously– While Nick is with family, he’s obviously concerned about Charlie’s mental health issues, he’s trying to figure out how he can fix him, how he can help, and he ends up having a conversation where he is told by a family member and also a therapist of some kind that he cannot fix Charlie. It is not his job to do that. It shouldn’t be his burden to cure him of his mental health issues. That, even though it might feel like, as his boyfriend, you’re responsible for this and you need to help, you can’t be the only person in his life. You can’t be everything to him. And he needs his family. He needs a mental health professional. And I think that ends up becoming a very good parallel to the point they’re driving home with Isaac, where just because you’re in a romantic relationship doesn’t mean that you can become a terrible friend to everyone else. It does not mean you can shut everyone else out of your life. Because even though a new romance is really fun and exciting and you might feel like you want to spend all your time with this person, your friendships are also important. You also need to make time for them.

Courtney: So there’s sort of this parallel of two different contexts of: one person can’t be your everything. On both sides of it. In your own interpersonal relationship, that one person is not going to be everything to you all the time, and nor should they be. But also then in turn, you as a friend, as a family member, also need to be mindful of the other people in your life. Because you are also important to other people and it’s important not to lose sight of that.

Courtney: And I liked seeing those two sort of plot lines unfolding side by side. Because even Charlie’s sister, Tori – who I think is still my favorite, I like her so much – she starts feeling really shut out by Charlie also. And she doesn’t have a lot of friendships. She cares very, very deeply for her brother and therefore gets really upset when, for example, Charlie, like, leaves in the middle of Christmas and leaves her alone with the rest of their dysfunctional family when she proposed that the two of them just go off and play Mario Kart together and that the two of them can spend Christmas together even though their family’s being terrible right now. And– and Charlie’s like, “But no! I want to go see my boyfriend.”

Courtney: So we definitely see this sort of single minded focusing on your romantic relationships from multiple couples to the detriment not only of the one single friend, the one aroace friend, but also other people in their lives. So it didn’t feel like Isaac was like the only punching bag in the only context. But I do have– I do owe you a riot. I– I don’t– What was the restaurant that they were going to go to? I don’t remember. We had to look it up.

Royce: It was Nando’s.

Courtney: Nando’s! I had never heard of Nando’s. But they had all apparently agreed that they were going to go to Nando’s together after some sort of, you know, they were getting, like, test results back at school or something to that effect. And Isaac came along going, “Great, we’re going to Nando’s after this.” And then all of the couples are just like, “Well, goodbye, we’re off to go do a couple things now.” And Isaac’s like, “But wait, guys, I thought we were going to Nando’s after this. It’s kind of the only reason I came.” And they’re like, ooh… [sucks teeth]

Royce: no, peri peri chicken for you.

Courtney: Sorry, bud! They’re like, “You know what? Next time, Isaac, let’s go next time.”

Royce: So the demand for season four:

Courtney: They better fucking take my man, Isaac, to Nando’s! After they all left, he turns to Charlie because Nick is still away and he’s just like, “Well, I guess it’s just you and me, let’s go to Nando’s.” And Charlie – who Isaac does not realize at this point is grappling with an eating disorder that is heavily tied in with OCD symptoms – Charlie’s obviously very hesitant. He’s like, “Oh, you and me alone together, getting food that doesn’t sound like a good thing for me right now.” And so he doesn’t even really say anything. He just sort of does like, “Uh…” And, and Isaac gets the hint and he’s like, “Okay, fine.” And leaves. And it was at that point I turned to you and I said if Isaac doesn’t get his Nando’s this season, I’m going to riot. And I did not see Isaac at Nando’s, not even once! Not even after all his friends realize they’ve been such assholes to him. Not once did anyone take him to Nando’s. So yeah, season four, if Isaac doesn’t get his Nando’s…

Royce: We quit!

Courtney: We quit! [laughs] We quit.

Royce: We quit Heartstopper, not the podcast, to be clear.

Courtney: [laughs] No, that’ll be the last episode we ever post is just like a 20 second clip of being like, “Well, Isaac didn’t get his Nando’s, so… Bye everyone.” And it definitely it shows Isaac getting a little bit spicy the longer this goes on. He starts getting a little more of a temper, gets in a fight, most notably, with Tao at one point. And he’s just obviously very hurt, very lonely. We did get to see, I think, a lot more of his personality, which I appreciated. Because I have noted that, yes, we see him with a lot of books, but we do not usually see much else from him. We haven’t seen any of his family members, which– even some of the other characters who are more side characters than Nick and Charlie, like we’ve seen– We’ve seen other characters’ parents, we’ve seen even a grandparent at one point. I don’t think we’ve ever seen Isaac just at home, even if it was just alone in his room.

Royce: That’s an interesting note, because one thing you were talking about while we were watching it, there were a few scenes, particularly when Charlie was pulling back from Nick, where we were seeing Charlie texting Isaac, but we saw the vast majority of those scenes from Charlie’s perspective, not Isaac’s.

Courtney: Yes. Because even the little nod to, “Hey, I googled aromanticism.” We see Charlie open the phone and see that Isaac sent back a heart emoji. We don’t even get to see Isaac, like, wherever he’s at right now, open up the phone, see that he googled aromanticism, and, like, give a nice warm smile or see visually how he responds to receiving that text. It’s– it’s very much all from Charlie’s point of view on those text threads

Courtney: But even though we don’t get a lot more of other relationships in his life, other – you know – scenes to flesh out what he’s like or what he’s doing or where he is when he is not with all these other people, we did at least get to see him banter a lot more. And he had some really charming lines and some very funny scenes. And I was just very happy to see more of him, and to let him talk more and to see him be a little goofball. He’s a very cute little goofball!

Courtney: But the sort of climax of his aroace plotline was when they were all at a zoo and all of his friends have been, like, completely ignoring him for a long time. He’s clearly very lonely, he’s clearly very over it. And they’re in front of the aquarium, in front of moon jellies, the jellyfish no less. Which I found fascinating for personal reasons. Sort of all the main couples in this friend group walk up and they just start making comments about their– It’s just, like, silly and goofing off, but what was it? It was like, oh, that jellyfish is in love, or that jellyfish is gay, or do you think these two jellyfish are in love? Like that kind of a thing, like putting human relationship, social roles on the jellyfish for no reason except that’s where their heads are at right now. And I should mention that this follows a scene where Tao was absolutely vicious to Isaac. Elle, like, goes off alone and leaves Tao standing next to Isaac, and Isaac – being fed up with this pattern of behavior all summer – is just like, “Oh no, now you’re just left to hang out with me.” And they end up fighting.

Courtney: And Isaac outright tells him he hasn’t been a good friend, he’s been ignoring everyone who isn’t Elle. And Tao just takes this as like, “Why are you so bitter that I’m happy and I’m in a relationship?” And even says like, “Oh well, if you are so bitter about being single. Then what happened with that guy from last season?” To which Isaac just says nothing and walks away, and that hurt. There were actually a couple of times this season where I was crying. I did. It got me. I think that one got me a little bit. I think there was one other one that I don’t remember specifically. And then Elle had a moment where her artwork was blowing up and she was going to be interviewed by a local radio station and it just turned into like asking her about the– the quote “trans debate”. And being like, “Oh well, we had a feminist on last week who worries about protecting same-sex spaces,” which obviously like TERF flags all over. And like poor Elle, who is still a teenager and going to school and just trying to talk about her art… Oh, that scene really really got me. I was crying, but yeah.

Courtney: So after Isaac left he goes to the jellyfish, and Elle in the meantime kind of tells Tau off and is like, “Yeah, that was kind of mean. And we have kind of been bad friends lately and I know you still care about your friends, they’re important too.” And so Tao does swallow his pride a little bit and go to try to find Isaac to apologize. And what sort of sets up the, I guess, big coming out moment was when they’re like, “Oh, which of these fish are gay?” And just being silly ones, like do you think they fall in love? And the response was, “Aw, I hope so.” And that’s what prompted Isaac to be like, “But what about the ones who don’t want that? What about the ones who don’t fall in love? What if all of their friends are couples and flaunting their magical relationships all over the place?” And Tao even says, like, “Yeah, but my relationship does feel magical.”

Courtney: And Isaac’s moment is saying, like, “Yeah, and that feels bad, when I don’t actually think I want that for my life, and you all are making it seem like this is the best, most wonderful, magical thing ever. And what does that mean for my life and my future if I don’t want that?” And he does, in this moment, to the entire friend group, end up coming out as asexual and aromantic. And he expresses for the first time what this means to him at this moment in time, which is what I always really like is when it gets personal and specific and not broadly, “This is what the orientation is.” So I can definitely forgive the, like, google it, what aromantic is it, at the beginning. Because we get this more in depth what it means to him later.

Courtney: And what that ends up being, is that he is anxious for his future. He thought he knew what his life was supposed to look like and now, coming to terms with his aroace identity, he doesn’t have that clear picture anymore.

Courtney: And he sees everyone else who seem like this is the best way to be, is in a relationship. And so he’s struggling to figure out what an aromantic asexual future looks like for him, and it seems kind of fuzzy right now. And so he expresses these concerns and he gets a lot of reassurance. I mean, everyone is very supportive of him when he does have this conversation. We get a little charming line from Nick where he says, like, “When I first started liking Charlie, I cried over an ‘Am I Gay?’ quiz.” And so he’s like, yeah, it’s really normal to go through this sort of– they don’t say the word grieving process, but I interpret it as sort of a grieving process for the life you thought you were going to have, or the life you thought you imagined, or the life that would have been more easily socially acceptable. And when all of those preconceived notions come crumbling down, there is sort of a rebuilding phase as you’re coming to terms with that.

Courtney: And while he’s having this conversation he gets a little animated flourish again that’s a little like jellyfish floating around his head. Which is just personally interesting for me for a few reasons. I mean, there’s something about aquatic creatures that is very aspec identity, very– I mean the asexual community, for example, like, axolotl was such a big symbol, mascot of the community. It hasn’t been as much lately, but like 10-15 years ago axolotls everywhere when you go into these ace spaces. And that is of course the reason why the first asexual character that Todd tries dating in Bojack Horseman is an axolotl creature.

Courtney: But jellyfish personally for me has been a very big theme at very point– various points in my life. Especially pertaining to my relationship with QPR friend. That is like– We have consistently exchanged little jellyfish gifts back and forth. We uh, watched Princess Jellyfish – the anime – years ago together and loved every minute of it. I’ve got a very fascinating jellyfish on my fireplace mantle, which is not a story I’m gonna tell on the podcast for legal reasons…? Let’s– Let’s go with that. Legal reasons. But if any of you ever find me in the wild, ask me for my jellyfish story and I’ll gladly tell you.

Royce: Legal reasons is good because it is both accurate and not what listeners are probably thinking

Courtney: [laughs] And I’ve actually on, like, multiple occasions with friends of mine who are ace and/or aro have had a conversation where it’s like, what is it about sea life and our, like, community and our interpersonal relationships? Because I know someone who is like, “With my QPR our symbol was an octopus.” And I know someone else who’s like aroace, single for life, just absolutely love starfish. Like there– I have– I don’t know what it is, it’s not a known, specified named thing, but it’s been– It’s been a pattern that’s been emerging themes in the way aspec people do or do not choose to engage in relationships. So not a thing that, like, I’m gonna be like, “Wow, what a win for representation,” because the average viewer is going to know all these things, because it is not that case at all. But was just very fun for me personally watching that scene that he got a little coming out moment with a little cartoon jellyfish.

Courtney: And once this big conversation happens, we do get to see a little more moments of Isaac being a cute little goofball, being silly, having conversations with other friends. Which I liked just seeing him settle into role of active engaged friend a little more. I wasn’t sure how I felt about all of the established couples having sex this season, because I know that some people have been critiquing Heartstopper for being sexless, and that’s one thing I very adamantly defended. Like not every show needs to have sex. And the author is aroace. And they are still teenagers and not every teenager is going to be having sex right away. And so essentially by the end of this season it is established that all three of the established couples are having sex in some capacity. Some longer than others.

Courtney: And I think the conversations around it were very good and kind of refreshing for me. Because we’ve kind of critiqued the trope of immediately sexually confident teenager, in a lot of these teenage shows, that end up having a lot of sex, and end up having threesomes, and end up, you know, just not having any first time anxieties at all that a lot of teenagers tend to have even when they want to start having sex. And so it was kind of refreshing that a lot of these teenagers did have those conversations about like, “I don’t know if I’m ready yet” or “I really want to, but I have this concern and I have this anxiety.” With Charlie, he’s concerned about his eating disorder and some of his scars from previous instances of self harming. And with Elle and Tao, Elle is very concerned about gender dysphoria hitting her. And so every, every individual instance of those conversations, for the most part, I thought was good and different from other things that we tend to see on teenage shows.

Courtney: But there was a moment where I was like, come on, you were just critiquing how bad sex education is. They showed some of the characters in, like, a sex ed class and had, like, condoms and cucumbers put in front of them. Which is such a trope in media, but I have to know if anyone actually did that in their real life sex ed classes. No one ever broke out like the banana and condoms or taught anyone how to put them on in any class I have ever been in. And it’s like Charlie texting Nick being like, “Oh, I’m in sex ed class. It’s useless, as always.” But then we have Tao and Elle who are like, yes, we want to, you know, start taking things to a physical level, but also Elle had some reservations and Tao was very patient and heard those concerns.

Courtney: But then their first time ended up being spur of the moment at someone else’s house, in someone else’s bed, on like New Year’s Eve. They just like grabbed each other and went to whatever bedroom was in this house and they had sex. They didn’t explain what kind of sex. But I was led to believe that it was probably penetrative sex, just given the fact that later on Nick and Charlie do not have penetrative sex and they specifically mentioned that. And they were like, “Well, it’s still a type of sex. We can still call it sex, even if there wasn’t penetration.” And so the fact that that conversation was had in one context but not in the other? Maybe that’s bad of me to assume that that is the default, maybe that wasn’t what happened at all. But I was like– I guess, it’s not a stretch to believe that a teenager in a relationship would, like, have a condom on them or, like you know, in a wallet or in a pocket. But I don’t know. There was something that felt very… [sucks teeth]

Royce: I made the comment about the two of them having this conversation and being so openly hesitant about it. What are the chances one of them was just carrying lubricant on them, just in case?

Courtney: Were they? Like that– That was exactly the thing I was like, do you have all the things you need to make this a success? At a random someone else’s house, in someone else’s bedroom. You made the comment while we were watching it, that sometimes in media, queer sex in relationships, especially like oh the first time kind of a thing is maybe they skirt over some details, maybe they’re emulating, like–

Royce: I said–

Courtney: –cishet first time scenes from other media?

Royce: That’s what I was saying, yeah. Like it– it framed scenes that we commonly see in cishet relationships depicted in media without, you know, accommodating for differences that queer relationships would have.

Courtney: Yeah. And so to me it was just like, all right, we have a gay teenager in sex ed being like, “This class is useless to me.” But then we have another queer relationship who’s just like, “Fuck it, let’s have our first time right now. Spur of the moment, let’s go!” In someone else’s house, someone else’s bed. And I was like, that– [sighs] That– Cause that makes it sound too easy. That almost undermines the, “The sex ed I got doesn’t actually help me in my relationships.” But, um, ’cause that conversation we were having after watching that being like, hmm, kind of got addressed later on, super lightly.

Courtney: Where Nick is out with, like, all the girls. He’s like, “Oh, the– the girls and I are going to look at–” oh, I better say universities. They’re going on a university trip. I don’t know if it was a British show or if it was the Australian show, but I said college at one point and multiple people were like, “We don’t go to college here, we go to university!” And I was like [sighs] college and university are basically synonymous in the Midwestern United States. I’m used to saying college and that also means university. I am so sorry. They were going on college trips, college visits. Which was also very weird for me as a Midwestern American, because Nick was lamenting the fact that he was thinking about going to a school that is a whole four hour drive away from Charlie. What is he going to do being four hours away? Royce, how long was your drive to get to your college? Which you did drive instead of taking a plane.

Royce: It was 24 hours. I mean three, four hours is still daunting. That’s– that’s a drive that I won’t– don’t want to make very often, but it’s– A lot of Americans see that as more doable than a lot of people from other countries.

Courtney: Oh yeah, midwestern Americans, who all grew up with cars and interstates, were like, “Four hours, that’s easy weekend trip. Easy.” But while they’re gone, I mean, Nick was sort of like, “Yeah, you know, we’re– we’re starting to take things to the next level. We’re having these conversations. We haven’t, you know, done this yet.” And everyone else in the car is like, “Well, we’re already all having sex. So let’s take you to the pharmacy right now. And all stand looming over your shoulder as we make you purchase a tube of lubricant.” [laughs] And he was like, “I hate you all so much.”

Courtney: So I was like, okay, that almost like retroactively covered one of my critiques that we were, you know, talking about real time. Because then they didn’t just completely ignore that there are certain types of queer sex that do actually need different types of education and preparation that don’t get taught in schools. So that wasn’t nothing.

Courtney: And I did think just the, like, uncomfortable teasing of your friend and being like, “No, this is what we’re doing right now. We are going to the store now. We are gonna sit here and watch you as you buy this.” That was kind of a very brand new, like, newly sexually active teenage scenario. I think that I could see real life teenagers doing that.

Courtney: So I don’t want to be too harsh on it, because we did see things that we don’t see often in teenage shows like this and conversations around queer teenage sex that we don’t see much. And I think for the most part it was handled very well. But there was just something about last season that I thought was very refreshing when Nick and Charlie were like, “Yeah, I just don’t think I’m ready yet. Like, I want to, but I don’t think I’m ready yet.” I thought that was really refreshing to see.

Courtney: And the fact that now every single couple, all in the same season, have sex and now the only one not having sex are the ones who aren’t part of a couple. So it does sort of show like, all right, from our limited sample size of three couples, 100% of those three couples start having sex as teenagers within a certain amount of time. Which was, I think, under a year. I think at one point it was like, what, eight months that Nick and Charlie were supposedly together by this point? So whereas I think the driving home the fact that romantic relationships should not be the end-all be-all, there still was sort of a like, but if you are in a romantic relationship sex is inevitable. That– I hope they can find a way to subvert that a little bit with the next season. And maybe that is through Tori.

Courtney: Tori did not come out as asexual in this season. But the second half of the season, after the main Isaac plotline had resolved, we do see Tori get a new friend. She’s very adamant that they aren’t dating. He’s also a goofy guy and I love him. I love both of them, so I wouldn’t be mad about them continuing to have some form of relationship. But Tori definitely has unresolved, or at least unspoken, feelings about it. And I think there was a moment of foreshadowing where Isaac sort of gives a pointed look in relation to Tori and this new guy, where he seemed to have some level of understanding that maybe the other characters didn’t yet. Like, I kind of see something I recognize here maybe. And we do know, in the Heartstopper books, Tori does come out as asexual.

Courtney: I’ve tried to avoid seeing the entire panel and the entire context up until this point, but you know, on ace Twitter, ace Tumblr like you’re going to see the panel where the coming out happens. A lot of people are going to be posting it very excitedly. So I know that that does happen. I half expected it to happen within this season, the way they were building up, but it did not. So I don’t actually know how detailed her entire coming out was or will be, but it could very well be that she is asexual and heteroromantic. It could be that she is asexual and just somehow interested in a relationship with this guy. I don’t know the specific details. From what I understand is that when Tori was first written as a character, Alice Oseman did not know about asexuality. So the character was originally written without that intention necessarily, but now has been at least canonized in the Heartstopper series, in the graphic novels, as coming out as asexual.

Courtney: I’ve seen a lot of people say that she is asexual and aromantic, but I haven’t seen a panel saying she’s aromantic, so I will reserve judgment for that. I do think it could be interesting to have her as an asexual character who does explore a relationship or want a romantic relationship of some kind, because that will give another set of relatable concerns for a different aspec identity. And I just love Tori. So I’m happy with the idea of Tori being asexual. But as always, different adaptations of media can have different canons. So I am not yet looking at Tori being like what great asexual representation we have in her, in the TV show at least. Because technically speaking Isaac was not even a character in the books. Isaac was created just for the TV show, so.

Courtney: Isaac did replace a character called Aled which was a main character in the book Radio Silence. Which technically I did read long before I ever knew about Heartstopper, or even before I knew anything about who Alice Oseman is, because of a very goofy recommendation I got for it, which I don’t necessarily agree with. Someone told me I would like it because I liked the Welcome to Night Vale books and this was nothing like the Welcome to Night Vale books. So I was pleasantly surprised that the character in this book was demisexual, because that’s not a thing you see very much. So I was happy about that. But I was like, mh, this is a vastly different genre even. But Aled was in the Heartstopper books. I don’t know if in the books, in Heartstopper, if he ever came out as demisexual, but I know that I saw, like, a Heartstopper art book where he was holding, like, a demisexual flag. And I saw a round of people talking like, “OMG, is it confirmed? Is Aled demisexual?” And it’s like, well, the book I read I knew that he was and I haven’t even read Heartstopper, so I don’t know if that’s addressed or will get addressed.

Courtney: And then Tori is also in a book called Solitaire, which I have not read. But given the fact that Alice Oseman has said that they did not know about aspec identity when writing Solitaire, this character was clearly– Like, there isn’t going to be a scene in that book where she’s coming out as asexual. That happened in the Heartstopper books. So those kind of can be different canons even if they’re the same character. And I do look forward to hopefully seeing that explored on the screen. I still haven’t read the Heartstopper books, although I did purchase the first four of them in Swedish. So I’m gonna read that and see what all the fuss is about. So I’ll be eager to get started on reading these books and I will definitely be looking forward to a season four renewal of the TV show. Here’s hoping.

Courtney: And so on that note, I think in the name of aroace representation, we ought to feature a MarketplACE vendor who has some fabulous Pride merch for us. And today that is going to be Maybird. There are some very cute stickers here, some that are a little more subtle pride with the colors and some symbolism. The one I actually got, which I think is gorgeous, is like a little potion bottle that has a swirling mixture of the asexual pride flag colors, with the purple and the black. And the stopper for this bottle looks like a spade. And it is just very, very pretty to me. And there’s a variety of designs for these potion bottles, and there is even one that has the colors of the aroace flag, if that is your flag of choice, with the oranges and the blues. Or we have some way more overt merchandise that actually says aromantic or even says alloaro, or ‘I am aromantic and proud’, ‘I am aroace and proud’. So links to find Maybird, as always, are going to be in the description. And we will talk to you all next time. Goodbye.