THE INTERNET'S IN HEAT

Came for the sex, stayed for the romance

At this point what hasn’t been written about pop culture’s latest craving, Heated Rivalry? With a few strokes of a keyboard and some light scrolling, you’ll find everything you need to know about the hit show by Jacob Tierney, who also wrote and directed half of the first season, and was adapted from the Game Changer book series written by Rachel Reid.

Chaitanya Srivastava and Ekta Sinha did such an excellent report for ELLE India, explicating why this show is smoking hot, it almost feels silly to summarize the premise here. I figured mostly it would be fun to weigh in on some of the latest discourse proliferating my social media feed and share some of my initial thoughts of the series about closeted, hockey players in search of hot sex and romance.

In fairness, I think it’s important to say right off the bat that most of my opinions are based on the first two episodes of the show (and half of the third episode), mostly because I have no access to the CRAVE streaming service in the Netherlands and sadly the show is not streaming on HBO Max in Europe at the moment. But between all the discussions and opinions of gay actors and culture podcasts, reaction influencers on YouTube, and just by simply being a human with eyeballs, I think I’m good. (At this point, I’m basically edging and waiting to watch the rest of the first season in one go). So just between us: I’ve seen the peaches, and I know about the blueberries and bananas but I haven’t tasted the tuna sandwich yet.

If you haven’t seen the show yet, then buckle your seatbelts and definitely watch it in the dark, in your apartment, in your room, preferably alone. It’s an undeniably steamy, sex forward show, and it makes no apologies for basically being soft core and smutty. It’s a stand out in the cultural zeitgeist for truly being a guilty pleasure.

Should the actors about gay people be gay in real life? I mean, sure but I’m not mad at it. I think the broader issue is the historical queer-baiting that has been happening in Hollywood for decades. It’s what people seem to be addressing on social media and it’s a discourse worth having. It’s no secret that “playing gay” has been a strategic career move for many straight actors to garner industry exposure that lead to awards. Tom Hanks, Matthew McConaughey, Timothy Chalamet, Sean Penn, Leonardo DiCaprio are just few of the actors that come to mind whose careers have benefitted from playing gay roles.

Two of my favourite reactors who also reacted to the original SKAM (should those actors come out as gay too? How about Young Royals? Why do some actors in certain shows get a pass while others don’t):

And yet actors like Matthew Broderick, Paul Mescal, Rupert Graves, Heath Ledger, Gary Oldman, Josh O’Connor and Daniel Day Lewis have all embodied gay characters with a sensitivity and care that feels rooted in a desire to connect and expose the universal human experience. In fairness, I don’t think choosing a role strategically to garner awards is necessarily a bad thing and I also applaud these actors for bringing queer stories to the screen during periods where it was often risky to do so. Mostly, I think queer people want a better open-door policy that allows the possibility for queer people to create and act in their stories, which I totally support.

And there are positive signs that show that this is happening. More and more queer actors are taking up space and filling our screens and openly gay actors are playing straight roles. I get how woke-lib it sounds to advocate for “the best actor for the role” but I do feel we are slowly turning the corner where that sentiment may be more of a reality. All this to say, I’m riding for these actors in Heated Rivalry. I think the casting is on point. Recently, Jordan Firstman came under fire for his recent comments surrounding this issue which he later apologized for. I mean, can we just enjoy the fact that some hot, queer content has made it into mainstream culture before we tear it down?

Francois Arnaud who plays Scott Hunter, responding to some of the online backlash

Some random thoughts:

· White Lotus walked so Heated Rivalry could run. Thank you Mike White for pushing the boundaries of what could be seen on television.

· A friend shared with me a post of an online commentator who didn’t find the gay sex believable enough. Ok, sure, but also what show, gay or straight, actually depicts sex anatomically accurately and do audiences really want to see that? Also, it’s pretty darn close in some instances so what are we complaining about? This is a show that’s selling a sexual fantasy, not a PSA on gay sex and how to do it in real life. Grow up.

· This is also a show about selling romance and it feels like the world is starving for male romance. The way Sex and the City was about four women but coded for gay men, I think this show has a cross appeal for gay men but is coded for straight women longing for man to talk to them the way Scott Hunter intimately asks Kip to stay in his apartment. The world is starving for romance.

· Hot take but whether these actors choose to share their sexual identity or not, I think Heated Rivalry, in a broader sense, exposes how fluid sexuality can be. I feel as though there is an exuberance both from the actors and the characters they embody regarding sex, sexuality, physical connection and play that is intentionally titillating but also somehow charming.

· Watch this show if you’re into romance. Don’t watch it if you can’t stomach steamy sex scenes.

· As much as I enjoy beefy hockey players exploring their sexuality, I do worry of the media’s continued reinforcement of a certain kind of patriarchal, white, masculine gayness. Heated Rivalry borders on Sean Cody.com but with a plot.

· Yes, I will now probably read all the books before season 2 comes out

Obviously, these are just my thoughts and I do realize there is plenty of queer erasure going on in media, with many queer shows being cancelled and I think it’s vital to support queer content that is out there. If we’ve learned anything in the last decade is that progress is rarely a straight line.

Years ago, I had read Aciman’s Call Me By Your Name which I truly enjoyed, and I thought the performances in the film were equally as compelling (was a great industry push for Chalamet though a bit rough for Hammer in the end. Glad James Ivory won award for best adapted screenplay). But I remember telling a friend that I also felt sad and drained after watching it. Over the years, I’d grown tired of movies of gay people in pain, suffering, lonely. I was longing for stories that would point to something aspirational, that didn’t just feed into the common narratives I grew up watching.

Yes, the sex is hot to watch in Heated Rivalry but this is just a part of why I think this show is successful. In a big, over-the-top, in your face kind of way, I think it’s signalling to a lot of gay and queer people out there that we deserve content that is affirming, where the hot guy actually does like us, where a man will say the awkward, intimate (and intense) thing, where romance and love is not fleeting thing but something to be worked through and explored.

Lastly: in a world where romance is often seen as cringe, Heated Rivalry is unabashedly leaning in and I, for one, am here for it. More reckless, romance for 2026.

*****

We love a bilingual king: here’s Arnaud again, doing an interview in French with the most Québécois accent. The fact that this show even exists, that there was a Hockey game in Canada that celebrated Pride, a young me could have never imagined this in my lifetime… this feels like a fever dream. Y’all, we need to enjoy this win