Life Is Nothing If Lived In Solitude - Heated Rivalry Season 1

My partner (who reads a lot of romance) recommends me such books from time to time. Of those recommendations I will get through maybe 2-3 per year (maybe), but mostly… I stay away. It’s not my scene. I lean more into genre fare and visceral thrills… stories where the romance is a component but not the throbbing heart. Hell, romance doesn’t even have to be necessary in the stories I gravitate towards.

Heated Rivalry, though, is explicitly an explicit romance.

Based on the novel by Rachel Reid, it follows two hockey players: Canadian Shane Hollander (Hudson Williams) and Russian Ilya Rozanov (Connor Storrie). It’s not a spoiler to say that the two “hit it off” immediately. While the hockey world pits them against each other as public rivals, their clandestine hookups start very early in the show (on the day of the draft), and as the years go by, the sexual tension as they grow closer and closer fuels the series’ drama.

While it isn’t entirely for me, it was well worth the time and a very good show. Heated Rivalry is the real deal, a sports romance for mature audiences that can transcend assumed tastes. It appeals to the broad swath of the populace who love a hearty entree of the genre.

Most valuable of all: it’s deeply, unapologetically queer.

“Rookies”

It doesn’t take long for the show to explode into a sudden and graphic sexual encounter, the first of several in the opener alone. There’s perpetual flirtation between Shane and Ilya, but it’s Ilya who really makes the first move. Shane has the attraction, sure, but we figure out later he’s not really sure how to make sense of his feelings.

Just about everyone I know has watched Heated Rivalry. I have to keep reminding myself that’s anecdotal. Our current reality of information silos has made it easy to assume immediate vicinity has translated to universal popularity. The show is certainly big enough that it’s been at the top of the HBO Max carousel and no one’s complained. Still, for any streaming service I always question how accurate that is. Without hard evidence and data, though, it’s hard to know how much of that is the streamer futzing with some weird metric that goes beyond guesses about eyeballs and into the realm of algorithm etc.

The show certainly has a following and that is… somewhat surprising. I guess less so in a world where HBO has long since presented itself as a one stop shop for premium cable dramas featuring sexually explicit content. It’s also worth mentioning that HBO is only distributing the show in the U.S., and the show’s production comes entirely from Canada and Canadian money.

HBO’s content typically reflects the heteronormative zeitgeist. Queer content lives on the platform (and has for quite some time), but Heated Rivalry is extremely queer from the jump and never pretends otherwise while also looking and feeling like a poppy, mainstream prestige drama (albeit with an indie film budget). This is a show about high profile queer celebrities dealing with their queerness. There’s no guarantee that straying away from straight culture and into other twists on that theme would result in something this mainstream. And yet… every day someone else comes out of the woodwork and it surprises me that they didn’t just like it, they’re fresh evangelists.

What makes this possible, though, is the laserlike focus on characters and their grappling with what’s happening. Before the sex starts, the show establishes the central rivalry and how the lives of Shane and Ilya intertwine. That’s the first scene, and it doesn’t take long before Ilya is going to Shane’s room for their first liaison. But the show is careful to also cover their face-to-face in the promo shoot and even the toe taps under the table. The two go through intense intimacy, almost immediately. That intimacy lives in the world of lovers behind closed doors and their inescapable presence as dyadic rookies. Understanding both the stakes and the characters takes no time at all.

Which… brings it back to the sex. A lot of this is my own doubts about the show succeeding given the sense that latent homophobia still infests the larger viewing public. While that… might be a turnoff to a public who “doesn’t want to see that”, there’s also a purity to what happens between these two men. Yes, Shane and Ilya have intimacy and tenderness, especially as the season goes on. But in the beginning it is just so much fucking with only the toe tap to hold onto.

If I may…

Heated Rivalry proves that there is an appetite from within the viewing public constituency that wants to see not just more gay representation on television, but also more unapologetic physical relationships. I was talking about this a lot in the middle of last year with Superman and the way that the mass Disneyification of culture over the past decade and a half (between Marvel and Star Wars) has resulted in art that is positively chaste and that more or less pretends that sex and physical attraction doesn’t exist. It’s why it’s weird when Steve (played by the oozing sexual charisma Chris Evans) kisses Sharon (played by the gorgeous Emily VanCamp) in Captain America: Civil War it feels so weird. It’s not that they don’t have chemistry. It’s just that Marvel movies don’t… do that. From Tony & Pepper to Peter Parker & Mary Jane to T’Challa & Nakia… and two of those couples have a child.

Paired with romcoms’ relegation to the infinite sea of churned-out streaming service slop, it’s easy to see why there’s concerns in studies nowadays about Gen-Z’s (and even Gen Alpha’s) warped relationship to sex and physical intimacy.

As art has succumbed to the loud Puritanical voices within American society1, it’s left this massive void where physical affection, tactile intimacy, and sexual chemistry should be. There are any number of reasons to throw at why mass media shouldn’t act this way (almost all of them wrong), but there’s one really great reason why that needs to stop: it’s just not accurate. The zeitgeist has strayed from a perfectly natural, necessary, and universal aspect of the human experience. Art has had to connect to audiences with one of its arms tied behind its back.

And it’s quite an important arm.

“Olympians”

With a title like “The Olympians”, it’s remarkable that the show can pull off something this audacious while having a budget so strained that the finale necessitated a full bed (because they couldn’t afford the king Shane lies says he has).

Writer/director/creator/showrunner Jacob Tierney has been really transparent about the limitations the show had with regards to its budget, and has spent much time since the premiere transparently laying them out. It helps that the show’s rabid fanbase is hungry for information. Luckier still is Tierney’s democratization of that knowledge

That the show works on this scale is down to incredible producing. It was a 36-day block shoot, meaning they shot an episode’s worth of material on average every six days while shooting scenes from all throughout the season at once. Sometimes back to back to back. Shane eats with his parents in several episodes, but it’s always the same restaurant which means they must have shot all of those in one day. For that alone Hudson Williams had to track years of character development and growth without getting lost.

Only two of those 36 days were actual footage of anything in the hockey rink. That’s absolutely insane.

But this is just old school filmmaking. It’s like how a good establishing shot provides serious production value. Or how a great location seeded throughout the season can make the series feel vast and expansive. Count up all the time on the ice. There’s practically nothing there and they probably used every single shot.

How does Tierney pull this off?

Simple: the sex is the action, not the hockey. Hockey games themselves are interesting… if they’re hockey games. As character drama a game really only matters in how it affects the characters and mostly that plays out off the ice. Outside of the score line, none of it matters. The two most fascinating hockey moments in the show are both in episode five. Shane going down on the ice speaks to Ilya’s care as we watch him anxiously circle his lover and the medical staff. More obvious is Scott beckoning Kip down to be with him for the Cup celebration. Otherwise, there’s just enough to make the audience believe that real hockey is happening and even that is just because it’s one of the words in the four word “gay hockey player lovers” premise.

Instead it goes other places. The locker room for sure, but what makes the Sochi Olympics believable is the grandiose, old school Russian hall for the Olympic gala. It’s costuming and gorgeous production design and that soft yellow light. It feels much more opulent than it probably is.

This isn’t a slam. The show is doing far more than most other shows while having far less resources. This behaves like a major prestige drama but without the gluttonous excesses. It’s glorious.

Great production is not recognizing limitations, but embracing them. It’s all in the way they use lighting to both cover up the seams and provide a trendy, color pallet that can evoke emotion, reveal character, and establish tone all at once. Tierney is also smart enough to recognize that audiences aren’t going to keep watching his show for the hockey. If that’s what they wanted, they’d just go turn on a game. No. They’re showing up for Shane and Ilya and the other characters.

Which… seems to be happening to tons of fans anyways. People who’ve never watched hockey. Maybe next season he can show… even less.

“Hunter”

Because my partner read the book, I spent the time around episode three’s release hearing a lot about how it was just an ep to get through. This one-off standalone covers the first novel, the one with Scott & Kip, how they meet, and the complications of their relationship given Scott is a high profile athlete who feels he needs to stay in the closet. Rachel Reid set the first two books over the same stretch of time, and Scott’s eventual coming out is a major catalyst to Shane & Ilya’s full embrace of what they mean to each other.

Without the tension of Shane & Ilya’s rivalry, where the explicit hookups slowly transmute into a more intense and loving relationship, there’s less excitement in watching something as rote as Scott Hunter flirt with Kip and their slow circle eventually evolving into a tale about life in the closet and trying to find true happiness.

What makes “Hunter” such a savvy move at this point in the season is because it’s an episode for “all the normies”. It’s not an accident that a lot of uninitiated really click in once the show makes Scott & Kip a thing. It’s a much easier story to wrap the mind around, playing as it does with well-trod paths of queer stories as they’ve appeared in media over the past few decades. If it’s boring, it’s because it’s an episode not for the die-hard fans who can watch lots of hook ups but who don’t need the buttressing of a promise that the love and intimacy is coming.

Which… also means it’s a bummer.

Consolidating Scott & Kip to basically one episode (and a scene in each of the last two) is the correct choice. It means their story can be tragic, and while the whenever-they-can sex between Shane & Ilya is certainly a way of doing things, it serves as a flash forward to what a potential future might be once the excitement of the sex gives way to a promised evolution. Kip is extremely sure of himself and knows who he is, while Scott has a similar knowledge but without the sense of security that he can live his open existence. If Shane & Ilya are going to be anything in the future, it has to come with the sorts of difficult quandries Scott spends the entire episode wrestling with.

To skip ahead, what makes the final moment of episode five such a sucker punch is in its quiet revelation amidst the chaotic noise of the Admirals winning the Cup. In recognizing his accomplishments mean nothing if he is alone, Scott’s moment of clarity is seismic. As a social creature, all Scott wants to do is celebrate the crowning achievement of his personal life with the person he’s in love with. The victory means absolutely nothing otherwise.

And so he makes it the best victory he can.

“Rose”

Halfway through “Rose”, Shane figures out he’s in love with Ilya.

It’s an extremely intimate moment, where the two men say each others’ first names to each other in the midst of a mutual climax. Shane recognizes it and has a total freak out, bailing on Ilya and soon thereafter hooking up with rapidly ascending actress Rose Landry.

This is a classic story, a standard complication in the midst of a romance. Shane’s first (and only) attempt at a real relationship is his bond with Rose. What makes it work for him is a sense of companionship. Where it doesn’t work is in the physical intimacy even as he tries to pretend otherwise.

I admit, this is the episode where I most engaged with what was going on. And it’s not because this is when Shane & Ilya have their “we should fuck other people” moment. Rather, it’s because Rose Landry is like… one of the only women in the show.

This is a problem I have. Sure, there are loads of stories I love where men dominate the main cast. Chris Nolan films, the writings of Aaron Sorkin… but every so often those creators will come out with a story featuring incredible female characters who pierce through their standard masculinity’s musky fog. I’m talking Brand and Murph in Interstellar or Molly in Molly’s Game. It’s like a breath of fresh air to see something that was already so resonatey get that little nudge into a groove. I didn’t realize I was missing it. Or I didn’t think I needed it.

Seeing Rose and Shane connect, watching her spend time with him and grow in her infatuation, seeing Shane finally meet someone who sees him and whom he can talk to… Their shared meeting at the club and Shane starting to have like… an actual friend… All of that was stuff I really held onto. While the moment Ilya realizes he and Shane are at the same club is a terrific one, and the show still steadfastly centers itself on the two of them, there’s just no replacing an intrinsic interest like this.

If there’s a joke here, it’s that Heated Rivalry is super guy friendly because it’s just dudes hanging out. Chicks like Rose Landry or Svetlana are means to an end and really only get in the way of the real action.

Heated Rivalry: it’s a show about bros being bros. While I enjoyed it, no wonder I bounced off of it like I did.

“I’ll Believe In Anything”

There’s a lot of great moments in the series’ fifth episode. Most obvious is the aforementioned Scott & Kip payoff at the end. Flashier is Connor Storrie’s delivery of Ilya’s five minute, all-in-Russian monologue confession. It’s marquee “this kid’s gonna win some awards” moment and that’s not even mentioning that Storrie himself is giving an entirely phoenetic performance.

But…………… for me, the best thing in episode five is Shane.

Surprising no one (based on the previous episode), the scene I love most is the one where Shane has his last date with Rose and she cuts through the artifice and bullshit to get to the real heart of the matter: she figured out he’s gay, and tells him as such. This is their break up.

It’s a remarkable scene, one with all the tenderness and empathy of a savvy actress who loves someone deeply and is also capable of incredible discretion. It’s beautiful. Her talking him through his first coming out. Her immediate comfort as she gets ahead of his concerns, assuaging them before he’s even brought any up. The way she laughs when he says he likes to “be the hole”… all of it is utterly wonderful.

But key to the scene is Hudson Williams’s performance. He’s been subtle about it all season, but the dude plays Shane as wound so tight that it’s easy to miss how present that is. There’s always been something off about Shane, that vague sense of discomfort and solitude he can’t seem to shake. Like he’s uncomfortable in his own skin.

Only after Rose sees him does he allow himself to drop the facade. A little air out of the balloon and it’s jarring to realize his systemic unhappiness and loneliness. While he defensively tries to maintain their relationship because it’s something he truly does value, she coaxes him into a reality where he doesn’t have to hide himself and they can be best friends forever. This reality is liberating, almost intoxicating.

No wonder he’s found so much solace in his relationship with Ilya. Their physical intimacy and sex masked his emotional vulnerability, and the two saying each others’ first names ripped that mask away.

This might not be the thing that people most react to. Again, the Scott/Kip of it all or Ilya’s emotional Russian confession might be the thing most of the die hard fans live for… but… damn Shane Hollander. His subsequent coming out to Ilya, his confessing the love, and the two starting to grow more casually compassionate are all wonderful. Even more than the Scott & Kip stuff, Shane’s journey to self-acceptance is indescribably invaluable for the straights watching. Most don’t (and will probably never) understand the weight of closeted existence and eventual (if at all) self-acceptance.

It matters so much that he doesn’t have to go through anything else alone. His call with Rose feels like the sort of companionship Shane has missed for the entire series. More than teammates, she’s someone who truly wants him in her life for exactly the him he is. If the point of the end of the episode is that nothing matters if it’s done in the darkness and solitude, Rose is the key to paint that larger picture. Shane’s existence with Ilya is something, but it’s even richer with a community. Relationships don’t have to just be about sex or even the romantic overtures he engages in by inviting Ilya to the cottage. She is the beginnings of the family Shane is starting to build for himself. His will last him the rest of his life.

Also, as a final point, isn’t it interesting that what many consider to be the best episode of the season is also the one with the least sex? Given the “action sequence” nature of all the previous episodes, Heated Rivalry proves that’s it’s more than just “the sex show” or some other derogatory flingable mud. This is a show about self-acceptance and self-actualization through relationships with others. That’s an incredible, valuable statement. What’s more, it’s universal.

“The Cottage”

To then end with an episode with absolutely zero hockey should be a death knell. But Tierney (like Reid before him) understands that things with Shane and Ilya are so complicated that it takes basically an episode-long two-hander to sort things out.

By this point, the show can support it. To buttress, Tierney (and his team as well) made the brilliant decision to shoot everything at the Cottage last in production, where Williams and Storrie are at their most comfortable playing their characters. Shane’s cottage is an edenic paradise far from prying eyes, where the two men can finally just… be with each other in every way that matters. Yes, we’re back to them having sex and the moment where Ilya blows Shane during a phone call is terrific. But what lingers are not the sex moments. It’s Ilya on Shane’s lap while the loons cry in the woods. Shane asking Ilya to not marry Svetlana, then staying up well into the night to solve the Russia problem. Ilya whispering that his mother would have loved Shane.

It’s also the payoff of Shane finally, finally coming out to his parents.

Ilya might seem like the standout character. He’s matter-of-fact and funny and brash and broody and shithousery. Qualities that make a character like him pop.

But what “The Cottage” does is cement Heated Rivalry (at least season one) as Shane’s story. Everything with Shane’s coming out is tremendous, and Tierney approaches it with all the grace and perspective of someone who’s absolutely lived through this experience. His parents are gracious and loving, but also try to get ahead of things by saying they’d guessed that Shane was gay. There’s the glorious moment where Shane and his mother talk and also the way Shane’s dad praises Russian vodka to Ilya.

There’s a bravery to Shane’s, but it’s only possible after the many, many years it took to get here. It’s not just Shane recognizing he’s in love with Ilya, it’s the awkward moment of them saying their first names during a mutual masturbation sesh. It’s Rose Landry supporting his first-ever coming out and Scott Hunter breaking the ice ceiling with Kip at the final.

Other shows can do this, and plenty have even done this well. Heated Rivalry, though is one that embodies the experience in a way that is esoteric and unique but accessible to the broadest possible audience. It pays off the promise of romance with true intimacy and never once questions if its queerness is right or wrong.

This is what real representation looks like from creatives who are actually walking the walk as opposed to patting themselves on the back for days of work to have Will Byers say “I think I’m gay.” Tierney might have rewritten the scene with Shane and his mom overnight, but with the right experience, that scene is what happens when a creator breathes into life into it.

The show ends abruptly, with Shane & Ilya getting back in the car the second they’re done at Shane’s parents. As the show ends and we drive with Shane & Ilya into the distance as the credits roll, there is the sense of not just hope but invincibility. The sun shines and the intimacy is of the two boyfriends sitting in silence holding hands.

Their relationship is not about the sex or the passion, it’s about the embers of companionship. They might not burn as bright or as hot as the kindling of sex or the logs of sleeping over, but they will persist long after those have withered to ash. What they now provide to each other is the start of something that can run forever. It might not always work. It will almost certainly have any number of bumps (they are going to go into business together after all). But as long as the embers glow, they will have something that is both universal and rare. It is a foundation upon which they will build the rest of their lives.

That, though, is for next season. I’m very much looking forward to it.