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Heartstopper Season 2 Review

The second season of Heartstopper was released on Netflix in 2023. It consists of eight episodes. It is inferior to the previous season.

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“I think it surprised me how homophobic people were.

I thought things were better nowadays“

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Whenever your main characters get together, your movie or show afterward will inevitably become more dull as nobody is really interested in seeing what comes after happily ever after. This is what happened to the second season of this teenage show that was overrated before, but is now ridiculously praised to the point that I wondered whether or not the critics and fans watched the same show as I did.

A show that was sugar-coated and overly innocent before, Heartstopper here has become pretty much a fairy tale. It is clear to me that the asexual author behind the graphic novels doesn’t know or care about the sex lives of teenagers as this story leaves out the most important aspects of growing up, which is sexual maturity and the feelings of being horny all the time. Here, these teenagers just kiss and hug, which made me question if this was Victorian or modern-day Britain.

The finale of this season tackled some serious issues as Darcy faced her homophobic mother and Charlie had to grapple with his PTSD from past bullying as well as his anorexic issues. That is why this episode is the only one that worked as it was grounded in reality and at least trying to depict any problems that these teenagers would face in real life, but it came way too late in the game unfortunately. Having a season be anti-climactic and happy-go-lucky in the first two thirds and then include serious issues only to resolve them awfully quickly made for a horrible structure for your television season.

Kit Connor and Joe Locke are still excellent in their roles, but Nick and Charlie were too happy together and way too enamored with each other. I got sick and tired of seeing them kiss and hug all the time and never argue at all. It was so unrealistic. Nick’s coming out process was also needlessly dragged and again not rooted in reality – they would constantly hug and kiss everywhere and yet they were apparently closeted. It made no sense at all.

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Tao and Elle were much more interesting and fun as a couple as their dynamic was less cheesy and more genuinely charming than vomit-inducing. I really like these two characters and they should be the prime focus of this entire show. Tara and Darcy were solid as well, but Isaac’s realization that he is asexual was needlessly prolonged and not all that interesting. The straight/side characters were handled poorly and unfairly in this season and having these LGBT teenagers be in a clique basically was very outdated and odd for a 2023 show. I liked the comic book touches employed here, but the soundtrack isn’t the greatest and the pacing is all wrong.