I can’t remember the last time I felt this obsessed with anything. Twilight? Gilmore Girls? The Summer I Turned Pretty? It could be a combination of year-end malaise and the distressingly early sunset, or generally the warm embrace of en-masse media consumption. Regardless… Heated Rivalry. It’s an IV drip of yearning and heartbreak straight into my fangirl veins. And, God, if it hasn’t revived me. Each weekly episode drives fans into frenzied panic. The physical books on which the series is based? Sold out, everywhere. The gay star-crossed romance of two rival hockey players in the early 2010s has, I’m pretty sure, everyone in the whole world in an iron grip.
So, why?
This isn’t a unique question. I’ve seen theories as to why? floating around in a few thinkpieces (read: TikTok comments) and Substacks (read: Threads posts). The general consensus is pretty much that we’ve always been this way, but we’re…louder now? More touch-starved than ever before? We feel validated because it’s distributed by HBO? Or maybe the everlooming recession and governmental instability have regressed us into our tween ways. Bridgerton probably helped, too. Really, the obsession is a neon sign pointing to a massive gap. We’re not proverbially touch-starved but actually starved for this kind of media. Media for women. Media for queer people. Anything that doesn’t explore the same boring stereotypes.
Burned out on post-academic life, navigating a sea of prestige television and lit fic was a chore. I barely read. On a whim, I picked up Book Lovers by Emily Henry in 2022 just to feel something. Afraid of the stigma, I’d relegated romance to a guilty pleasure. Something to be kept hidden like the private tabs of Twilight and Harry Potter AU fanfics I’d read as a 14 year old (that’s “Alternate Universe fan fictions” for those of you who missed out). But on the wrong side of my twenties, I didn’t care anymore. And I’m so glad. The acceptance of romance allowed me to find renewed joys in reading. And joys in general, like literally joie de vivre. Not only is the romance genre made for women, by women—there’s so much of it. Office romance? They have that. Cowboy romance? Yee-haw. Canadian lakeside vacation romance? Yes! Canadian…queer hockey romance? Of course. Not only is the genre continuing to flood our shelves, we’ve had a steady trickle of adaptations of these novels. If their success is any indicator, we’re going to get more.
I heard about this show in October and I was already researching crafty ways to stream it from the random Canadian channel it would be on. By some miracle/genius strategic decision, HBO got it and I didn’t have to. In my post-Thanksgiving-leftover haze I marathoned the first two episodes and I couldn’t believe what I was watching. Fresh faces, absolutely breakneck pacing, excellent music supervision, and clunky dialogue with just enough charm to make you fall in love. I could feel the romance-novel banter pouring out of the screen and it made me giddy. I felt seen.
I admit I haven’t read the book series. I plan to, but only after the season ends. I actually don’t want spoilers—a restraint I haven’t always shown in the past. I had to know if Belly chose Conrad, and now I was out to fill the Belly/Conrad-sized hole in my heart since TSITP wrapped earlier this year. Heated Rivalry is filling it…and then some. I love the setting and the queerness of it. We don’t often see queer romances with a happily ever after in mainstream media. How many are there, really? Schitt’s Creek? Modern Family? Heartstopper? (I haven’t read the graphic novels, so honestly I’m just being hopeful with that one). We need more. And we’re getting it. We’re here because of the thankless work by women authors. So much queer media is born of this—women just get how to write these stories. The girls love the gays, the gays are ambivalent but along for the ride.
Jacob Tierney, creator, writer, and director of Heated Rivalry (from an interview on Spare Parts Podcast): “What was so interesting about diving into this world was discovering [...] there is so little interest in what pleases women. And so if you go into this world—they’re writing it, they’re reading it. So, clearly there’s an audience for this. There’s something counter-intuitive about it, but it’s only counter-intuitive because of the general lack of interest we take culturally in anything that women like.”
It’s common knowledge that women and gay people push forward culture.
See here:
Well, if it’s not, you heard it here first, folks. Soon after devouring the show, I opened Instagram and saw Evan Ross Katz had posted about it to his stories and thought, yes, okay, this is as good as I think it is. And also this is going to blow up. With the ERK seal of approval, this show is cemented in The Culture. Alongside the likes of And Just Like That and The White Lotus. Now a permanent fixture in our chronically online lexicon, it’ll go down in history as the shining moment of 2025.
Heated Rivalry has all the makings of the can’t-get-enough type show we all crave (pun intended) on a quarterly basis. Beautiful actors, pretty decent production quality, fluffy fodder with nods to meatier, more emotional themes. That formula doesn’t always result in armageddon-like obsession. So, why is this working? Particularly, why are women such champions of these stories? Some theories I’ve seen point to the fact that a relationship between two men is a safe space for women as much as queer men. Any power imbalance inherent in a heterosexual relationship is removed and we can enjoy the flirting and longing for the sake of it, earnestly. There’s no direct misogyny or fear of violence against a woman. Too often media portrayals of straight couples are unable to smother the underlying patriarchal predation of a courtship. Bridgerton skates this line, giving its queer and female characters some agency but the Regency-era setting gives that agency a short leash. Other, queerer pieces of media like Heartstopper and Red, White & Royal Blue come to mind, but those adaptations pale against Heated Rivalry’s open intensity. It plunges into the core power of the romance genre, using the dynamics of an unrestrained sexual relationship to tell the story. Seeing it on screen, without shame, without pretext, creates a different sensation than just reading it. The medium forces you not to look away.
There’s no shortage of sexually charged film and TV. Shows like Euphoria and House of the Dragon and movies like Anora give the appearance of full agency to women. The reality is that the male gaze is hard to evade. For the characters (and too often the actors in the respective roles), there’s an exploitative, danger-filled undertone seeping into the intimate scenes, whether intentional or not. A feeling that at any moment, things could turn sour. The thoughts cross my mind: Does she want this? How would I feel if I were her? Safe? While Heated Rivalry necessarily imbues the anxiety of closeted characters getting caught due to its very real grounding in the homophobia of professional sports, it offers up genuinely intimate scenes with no gender imbalance. It’s a relief. It’s no surprise that these novels have passionate fans. And they deserve this adaptation. Moreover, the pro sports setting (Challengers-core but less stressful) is like stepping into a fantasy. The stakes are a tiny bit higher than your typical contemporary romance. But we know nobody will die. That quasi-danger makes the show all the more satisfying.
Also, it’s just frankly so much fun to watch and really there’s no full scientific explanation. As with any runaway hit, it’s got an unquantifiable spark of magic that the creators have captured and alchemized for our streaming pleasure.
Heated Rivalry author Rachel Reid has written on her blog:
“I write sexually explicit queer romance novels about hockey players. You probably know this, but I’m saying it because it’s something that I don’t feel comfortable telling everyone. I love talking about my books, and other books like them, to romance fans, but outside that wonderful (and thankfully, enormous) bubble, talking about what I write can be stressful and embarrassing. [...] When I read an early draft of the first episode of Heated Rivalry [...] I felt a lot of things (all good), but the thing that made me the most emotional was the respect I saw for my work throughout that script. It was touchingly faithful, but also so thoughtful about the characters and the story. My writing had been taken seriously.”
I love this show. I love what it represents and what it might do. I love the romance genre because it puts a new narrative out into the ether: love can be real and honest and it doesn’t have to look like anything you’ve seen before. With the onslaught of more romance novel adaptations comes more opportunities for deeper inquiry. A new default. People We Meet on Vacation is imminent. The Love Hypothesis on its tails. The Red, White & Royal Blue sequel, Heartstopper’s finale. The list is endless. It’s a collection of stories that lay out the most secret parts of ourselves right on the bed.
Recommended reading
TV/Film: Overcompensating, Fire Island, Interview with the Vampire (series), Happiest Season, Bottoms, Along for the Ride, Challengers
Books: Old Enough by Haley Jakobson, Female Fantasy by Iman Hariri-Kia, Meet Me at the Lake by Carley Fortune, Hungerstone by Kay Dunn, We Could Be So Good by Cat Sebastian
Songs: “Runner’s High” by MUNA, “All the Things She Said” by t.A.T.u., “catch these fists” by Wet Leg, “Stay” by Leith Ross
