Attending secondary school in the early Noughties, in the immediate wake of Section 28’s repeal, was not an enormous amount of fun if you were a queer teenager, to put it mildly. Any crumb of positive representation felt like a distant pipedream; instead, we were treated to the polar extremes of Naomi from Skins sobbing through a cat flap because she was so sad about being a lesbian, and t.A.T.u. frolicking around a playground in school uniforms while their homophobic peers tried to claw at them through a chainlink fence.
Casually homophobic language was rife in the classrooms (everything from running to class to owning a particular pencil case was apparently “gay”). Those brave enough to come out were often bullied relentlessly.
In light of all of this, Heartstopper is frequently touted as the dreamy school-days experience that was missing for past generations; an assessment I don’t necessarily agree with. Though the plotlines are handled with empathy that has been missing in the past, and there’s an underlying sense that acceptance will prevail, the queer students of Truham Grammar School still have a tough time.
Heartstopper season one began in the aftermath of Charlie (Joe Locke) being outed before he was ready, now trapped in a cruel, secretive situationship with the self-loathing and closeted bully Ben (Sebastian Croft) before getting involved with the conflicted but infinitely nicer Nick. For much of season two, meanwhile, Nick, played by Kit Connor, grapples with the pressure he feels to label his sexuality and come out as bisexual in one single grand gesture. As he soon comes to realise, the reality is much more complicated (the storyline bears certain parallels with the actor’s own experiences – Connor, who is also bisexual, has spoken about feeling “forced” to come out publicly by fans).
With the gang back in full force, we’re quickly reacquainted with a loved-up Charlie and Nick, giddily infatuated even in the face of school bullies and fast-approaching exams. Connor’s Nick is even-handed and even-tempered, possessing quantities of emotional intelligence that would surprise me in a qualified therapist with a decades-long career, let alone a teenage boy. Though almost as earnest, Locke brings an infectious and slightly naive energy to Charlie which often feels slightly more believable. Once again, the chemistry between the two actors makes for sweet and incredibly wholesome viewing.
William Gao, brilliantly sulky as the arthouse cinema-loving Tao, provides plenty of comedy as he attempts to give himself a glow-up in the pursuit of romance with his dear old friend Elle (Yasmin Finney). We see more of her too, as she begins making exciting new friends and looking to the future. While we first met Elle in season one as she was settling into the all-girls school Higgs, the hints we were given about her difficulties transitioning midway through secondary school (mention was made of one teacher who refused to address her by her chosen name) come into focus in season two, as her feelings about it are explored. Meanwhile Isaac (Tobie Donovan) remains much the same, the show’s resident no-drama king, devouring library books as his peers harbour gigantic crushes.
As with season one, the dramatic tension here is often pretty low-stakes. Though exams are looming, the promise of a school trip to Paris glimmers romantically on the horizon. While the Skins generation probably would’ve spent the remainder of term trying to secure enough M-Cat to fuel at least four destructive house parties before setting fire to their own geography block, the Heartstopper crew are most looking forward to strolling around Montmartre hand in hand, and sleeping together. In dorms. In the most literal and innocent sense of the word.
Though there is a little more teenage hedonism this time around – at one point Charlie gets a hickey, and our band of students celebrate the end of exams by necking (responsible-ish amounts of) booze in a way that doesn’t involve any peer pressure, and (carefully) setting fire to things in the middle of the woods – bad behaviour is mostly off the menu. Though Charlie and Nick briefly have one conversation about sex, they very responsibly conclude that they’re not quite ready.
In the run-up to this grand adventure, our gang does still face a number of obstacles. Nick is briefly stolen away from Charlie by dreaded GCSE revision, while jealousy around cool new college friends, overbearing older siblings, and the politics of dropping the L-word for the first time also feature. Charlie is endlessly patient as Nick works up the courage to come out, insisting that he must take things at his own pace – he does, after all, know the pain of being forced into the open too soon. Though Charlie’s friends Tara and Darcy seem blissful at first, able to strut around loud and proud having both come out as lesbians, they also have their own hiccup to overcome.
The most satisfying (and perplexing) thing about Heartstopper is just how neatly all of the loose threads are resolved. Even when characters are hacked off, upset or annoyed with each other, they have an uncanny ability to put themselves in other peoples’ shoes – imagine that! – and the conflict rarely sticks about for long as a result. Things are frequently resolved by calmly talking it out. There’s even a level of compassion for Nick and Charlie’s bullies; perhaps they’re dealing with their own demons?
After rattling through the show’s pacy episodes in no time at all though, I was left wishing I’d had a teacher like Coach Singh to sit me down, clap me on the shoulder, and tell me that everything would be all ok one day; or a kindly figure to advise us that, no, going to a remote area of woodland with no phone signal and setting fire to deodorant cans for thrills while swigging on paint-stripper cider probably wasn’t a very smart idea after all.
Is Heartstopper a particularly realistic portrayal of teenage life? You’re probably asking the wrong person – I was born on the wrong side of the Millennium for that – but I suspect not. Either way though, it makes for incredibly heartwarming, if slightly rose-tinted, viewing.
