When Rose Landry, the supporting character played by Sophie Nélisse on Heated Rivalry, first appeared in Episode 4 of the affectionally nicknamed “Canadian gay hockey show,” some audience members were quick to compare the fictional actress’ superficial but public romantic relationship with athlete Shane Hollander (Hudson Williams) to the early days of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce. But now that we’ve seen more than a starlet wearing a jersey in a box seat after Heated Rivalry Episode 5. We have a better sense of who Rose is as a person and, hilariously, which IRL actresses may have inspired her.
In the fourth episode of the series, Shane meets Rose shortly after an emotionally intimate encounter with Ilya (Connor Storrie) spooks him. He’s still figuring out his own sexuality. Having a rivals-with-benefits situationship with a bisexual guy, while not Ilya’s fault, doesn’t help make that less complicated. So when he seems to click with Rose, he gives dating her a try. On one hand, publicly dating a woman may have been a bad idea. This could have been a disaster, right? Thankfully, Rose turned out to be exactly what he needed.
