It kind of feels too soon for me to be typing a review of Crave Original turned HBOMax liscend turned internet sensation Heated Rivalry. More than any other show in this holiday window, the show has generated the type of conversation most television programs only dream about and launched a whole new fanbase even more rabid than the one that already loved the books. With the finale, the delightful, yet slightly uneven, first season of the show comes to an end in a way that’s befitting of the narrative.
The episode is mostly a two hander where Ilya visits Shane at his cottage. After being inconspicuous at the airport, they make it to the cottage and are soon in each others spaces, but Shane soon makes a request: that they be honest with each other during their time together. With that agreement comes some more sexy times, but startling moments of vulnerability where Ilya tells Shane about his mom and Shane asks/tells him not to marry Svetlana. Shane even comes up with a plan on how they can continue this relationship with starting a charity. Ice gets thrown on the love fest when they’re discovered but Shane’s father. They head over to his parents and in an amazing twist of fate, they accept Shane for who he is and who his boyfriend is.
As someone who has read the book and is a lover of romance novels, I have been fairly critical of this show even as I have enjoyed it. The writing can be at times stilted (this episode had 1 or 2 moments pulled from the books that could have been sharpened) and we do a lot of telling and not showing about the homophobia and racism issues, but I could not help but be charmed by this finale. Trusting that his leads could handle carrying most of the episode, Jacob Tierney crafts an intimate hour that gets to lay bare the strengths of the series. I was as delighted to cackle as Ilya gave Shane head while he was on the phone with Hayden (just call him back Shane!) as I was to be moved emotionally by Shane’s conversation with his mother.
It’s why, for arguably the first time this season, I felt the episode was actually written solely for queer people, allowing the full breadth of the experience to be on display and to revel in a happier world. Much has been made of who the show could be written for or about, and there were moments in the season that felt like they leaned one way or another. But with this finale, we get the sex that made the show the talk of the town, the great acting, and the scenes many of us can relate to and perhaps wish we had. Romance novels are certainly in the wish fulfillment business, but TV a bit less so and with the focus and full range of emotion on display, the finale is the real knock out.
But the MVP is Hudson Williams. I have grown quite fond of him as Shane Hollander over the course of the series. While I found much of Hudson’s performance as Shane in the first two episodes a bit too cerebral and interior, I think he’s done an excellent job at giving Shane the voice he needed in the back half of the seasons while still staying true to his quiet nature. Watching the minute changes in his face as Ilya tells Shane about the potential plan to marry Svetlana was arguably the episode’s most thrilling moment for me, just ahead of the vulnerability and the disassociating talking to his parents about his sexuality but still wanting their love. He was incredible to witness.
And with that comes the end of the first season of Heated Rivalry, a show that’s revolutionary in many respects. For the frank depiction of sex to some swoon worthy love, the show made for some fascinating appointment television this holiday season.