With great aplomb, the new show Heated Rivalry has finally arrived. Adapted from the best selling Game Changer series by Rachel Reid, the show was produced by Crave in Canada, but has received a US release thanks to HBO Max. As someone who read the book this year, I was intrigued to see what the opening episodes would bring and much like the book, there’s a lot to like and a significant amount of things to ponder.
Episode 1 and 2 cover the first few years of the burgeoning situationship between up and coming hockey superstars, Shane Hollander and Ilya Rosanov. The two men meet as young men at an international competition in 2008 and after meeting on occasion, get hot and steamy in 2010 after a commercial shoot shower reveals some simmering feelings. Thus begins their relationship.
First Impressions
With the book fresh on my mind, I will say that I think this show has done a decent job of translating the story. This relationship builds over such a long period of time that it’s not a surprise that these first two episodes feel like they fly by (we get through 6 years worth of their lives). I wish there was a more visually interesting way to show the passage of time as cutting to new title cards is functionally, but a bit below par when the rest of the series seems so visually interesting. Now, does it help the show that Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie do not look like they age at atll? No. But luckily, both of their performances are so fun and the chemsitry is so great, I can somewhat look past the fact that I do not believe them as young kids.
Speaking of visuals, I think this is one of the best shot shows of the year, a real surprise for what essentially is an intimate character drama. Now do I think the hockey stuff, much like in the book, suffers a bit? Sure. But the Heated Rivalry more than makes up for it in the way that the conversations are shot and how considered everything is. Knowing what moments are are about to unfold as a book reader made some of the two shots or slight camera moves really thrilling to watch as they fleshed out thee world. There will certainly be a lot of reward for fans once the show is fully out to go back and see where the seeds were planted.
The show is getting lauded for its sex scenes and they are very good, in particular because the show is doing great word to show how these scenes can not only titillate the audience, but that they’re crucial to moving the story forward. In an age of people wanting stuff to cut to black or imply sex, this feels like a breath of fresh air. That being said, I’m not the biggest fan of the the cut to black, wait a few frames, then move on to the next act vs. just cutting and immediately going to the next act because it feels less like an artistic choice (though it is) and more like a way to cut up moments to get to the major beats of the sex scenes. These scenes have great height, but the Vegas scene in particular lacks a bit of flow. Also, I did laugh at every time one of them would put a leg up or twist just so for the camera to not see everything and allow them to simulate the acts.
One of the things I’m most happy transferred over from the books is the humor. Though I have jokingly said that Rachel Reid must do time in jail for a couple of things she did in the book, it is one of the funniest things I’ve read in a while. Jacob Tierney finds ways to wring laughs out of so many different moments, as well as adding in little bits and pieces from the other books in the series, to build up the surrounding moments.
All in all a solid first two episodes and I am intrigued about how they’re going to bring in the other characters.
Deeper Thoughts – The Curious Case of Shane Hollander
Shane Hollander presents a really interesting case of a main character: he’s just as good, if not better than Ilya at hockey, he’s half-Japanese, and perhaps most interesting of all, he takes to bottoming without much emotional fanfare. It’s quite the amalgamation of things to put in a character and Hudson Williams does a fine job playing him, but after seeing these two episodes, Heated Rivalry has left us a bit bereft of the interiority of Shane’s thoughts, particularly as it pertains to his sexuality, and showing us the fully complexity of that life.
In a world that’s stuck in gender roles and feelings, even in non-hetero relationships, I admire that in this show, Shane doesn’t seem to be averse to bottoming and that we don’t make the moment a capital B capital D Big Deal outside of Ilya being careful with him when they have sex. Hell, it provides us with the funniest moment of the two episodes, Shane mentioning that he has a dildo to Ilya…and yet outside of this, it feels like a missed opportunity to at least show Shane exploring what this means to him and how he feels about it, outside of the encounters with Ilya.
Heated Rivalry might be a fantasy as many romances are, but in its world, the world at large is just as homophobic as this one is. In a bit of clumsy execution, the show is currently portraying something as monumentally important to oneself as discovering your sexuality and what positions you might like in the bedroom, as if this is but a simple bump on the journey of our story. This would certainly be grounds for exploration on screen for any character, let alone a high profile athlete in one of the most toxic sports on the planet. There’s no subtle glances at other men or firing up PornHub or looking too long at a magazine or hastily retrieving his mail for the aforementioned dildo he purchased for Shane in this story so far and it kneecaps the impact of Shane and Hudson’s performance a bit. As Hudson plays him, we can definitely feel him wrestling with his feelings for Ilya, but it feels too quick given the time that has passed and not fully fleshed out.
Nothing about the arrangement is simple or easy, they have to coordinate so much just to have sex, but in getting to those moments it has felt like anything that could potentially be superfluous for Shane was excised. Compare the level of detail and care we get with Ilya – multiple scenes in Russia (which are GREAT) and not one, but two lovers that give the show a chance to show the type of person he is and was, to what they give Shane in terms of additional story; it’s night and day.
If we’re doing all this jumping around between time, wouldn’t it have been nice to fill Shane’s dance card up with something meaningful? I know there is much to come for Mr. Hollander, but two episodes in, there does seems to have been a missed opportunity to help flesh out his character even more to make stuff that happens later in the tale feel a little more earned.
One additional thing I will be tracking when it comes to Shane is how the show deals with race as one of the charges I have levied against Ms. Reid is how flippant she treats Shane’s heritage. It’s seems like Jacob at least heard some of the criticisms and peppered in a couple of moments in the pilot, such as the conversation with his mom about kids seeing themselves in him, to try and give us something. Despite that, we move on from that moment and haven’t quite dove back into those waters. Heated Rivalry takes so many pains to talk about the media and expectations and different things when it comes to them being good players, but doesn’t quite dig into how Shane’s race might affect how he moves through the world in a sport that is so predominately white. Especially now that he’s hooking up with a man, how will the double whammy of race and sexuality hit him? I hope the show will explore that in an interesting way.