Hello and welcome to Big Gay Energy.
I'm Caitlin. And I'm Theora.
Come along with us while we dive into the fun and nuances of
queer media. Representation matters, and
we're. Here to talk about it.
Cheers, queers. What's on the big gay agenda
today, Theora? Today we are continuing our
Heart Stopper Season 3 scene by scene recap.
And today we're going to cover episode 7, which is together,
which sounds real happy. I don't know, it sounds like
kumbaya, which is. Happy compared to the the
finale. Why'd they got to?
Why'd they got to slap us with the finale name?
It's like the total opposite. Spoiler in case you haven't
gotten there. I thought you said heavy.
I was like, really heavy From together.
No. Happy.
Yeah, I didn't hear that part. Happy.
Happy then. Yes.
And of course, we have Elena joining us once again.
That's the one actually me. Plot twist, I'm I'm 3 ringos in
a trench coat right now actually.
I would love to see that, actually.
Seriously. Oh my gosh, I'll have to get a
friend of mine to draw it. She's an amazing artist. 3
ringers in a trench coat. Fingers like don't you dare,
Don't you dare, Missy. All right, let's get into So we
start this episode and Tara is at her dance class and she's
getting lost in the world of dance.
Yeah, I this what a great way to open the episode because, like,
Tarm's been on a journey that's been mostly sad and stressful.
So it was really nice to see her in an environment that wasn't
that because she seemed really focused and like, in, you know,
in the zone. Clearly she's been dancing for a
while, but like she seemed like satisfied with like what she was
doing. And it's like the one scene
we've gotten of her where she like wasn't stressed out by like
being in dance class. So I'm glad that like she still
has, it seems like she still has an outlet of something that like
De stresses her a bit because like exercising releases
endorphins and stuff. And so I imagine that this,
like, helps her center herself, you know, at least while she's
dancing. And then, like, when she leaves
dance, you know, the stress probably comes back.
But I'm glad she has this because like, we just see her
stressed out constantly this season.
She doesn't have to think while she's doing this.
Yeah, it's all muscle memory. That's a really good point too.
Yeah. And whatever thinking that she
does, it's it's like it's very structured.
It's like whether it's like the warm ups or the across the floor
exercises or it's the combination that they're doing
at this point in the scene, it's like the mental energy is going
into a very controlled, very like already conceived part of
her. And I really love that that's
really helping her. Also, like you look at the class
and it's like this is obviously like all these dancers are very
different levels of experience, just like looking at some of
their turnouts and everything. Obviously, like some of them
haven't been in dances many years.
And I think that that just kind of indicates that this is
probably a more open class for like all ages and all levels,
which kind of adds on to the idea that this is a class that
Tara is doing just because she loves it.
She's just having so much fun with it.
And it's wonderful. And also even looking at like
the variety of outfits in like traditional ballet classes
usually like depending on what studio you're at, some of them
will require you to wear like very strict uniforms of like
everybody wears black, everybody wears tights, everybody wears a
leotard. I think, I think the leotard
concept without like wearing shorts or anything is like kind
of a little bit going out of style.
Just like in like gymnastics, professional gymnastics leotards
are kind of going out of style because they're like letting
women whatever wear whatever they want now without being
revealing and all that, you know, yeah, saying fuck misogyny
with right women's clothing. Hell yeah.
So I know that's kind of going out of style now with those
traditional ideas of dancewear and gymnastics wear.
But even just like seeing everybody wear like their, it's
obviously like all their own outfits.
Everybody is even wearing like different kinds of shoes.
There's no set uniform. So it kind of also adds to that
idea of like it's a more relaxed.
It's very fun. You're not there to get into
Juilliard. Well, equivalent.
I'm not here. To get into NYU Tisch program by
any means? Yeah.
I mean it's my my guess is it might even be like given the
movement it could be a lyrical ballet class.
Yeah, that's what I was thinking.
Yeah, probably it might just. Be the song that's playing in
the background. Well, traditionally lyrical, at
least the classes I've taken, the lyrical ballet style is a
lot more fluid than like a more structured ballet class, like
more traditional, but also, yeah, the energy and lyrical
ballet, it's a kind of a newer concept than like traditional
ballet. So that's more modern view of
it. Also this this whole scene has
just given me such a sense of nostalgia.
The good old days. Dancing in my mom's ballet
classes. I I used to love her lyrical
ballet classes. Like one of my favorite classes.
So the glory days. I know every time I watch this
scene I'm like I want to do. It I miss taking ballet classes,
I literally could. I literally could, but that
requires money. Yeah.
Also a little detail, I love at the end of the dance combination
that Tara's doing. Obviously we'll we'll get to
Nick and Charlie's portion of in a second, but I love that Tara
is out of breath at the end of this combination.
And I love that because obviously like she's blowing off
steam in a very healthy way and she's exerting her energy in a
more controlled form. But it's also a detail that I
just really appreciate as someone who grew up a dancer
because it's a very common misconception, which is kind of
also going a lot of style. I think it's not as much of A
stereotype now as it was 20 years ago.
When I was growing up in middle school.
I'd hear people say, like, dance is a very not dance.
Ballet is a very easy genre because it's not a fast pace.
It's not an intense genre, which is, by the way, anybody who has
ever danced ballet in their lives knows, yeah, knows that
that is bullshit. Ballet is actually a very
difficult genre. I mean, all dance can be very
difficult, but ballet is very structured.
It is very like, it can be very intense.
Like tell me you've never taken a ballet technique class.
Tell me, tell me you've never heard of the man Finest Jung who
is like one of the. Masters of ballet tell me you've
never seen a ballet Dancers get their shoes ready for ballet.
Oh my gosh. Like just the shoe part is
intense as fuck. Like just to get it ready and
then they last like 2 days. It's insane.
Yeah, the point shoe thing, like, Oh my gosh, it only lasts
a few hours. Yeah, it depends on how much.
You slept and it's insane. I never fucked with point
honestly. Like no, at our at my mom's
studio, it was like you had to at least take you had to be at
least, I think 12 and you had to and you had to be 12 just to go
through the year of pre point before you could actually go
into point shoes because you don't fuck with point.
You don't. You don't half ass point.
Point can fuck you up if you don't do it safely.
And your ankles aren't strong enough.
Your knees, your ankles, your hips, everything about you can
get totally messed up if you aren't careful with points.
So the idea that ballet is easy. Anyway, that's my little rant
about growing up a ballet dancer.
We're saying that Tara doesn't have to think there, but she is
thinking. So she is thinking like elongate
your the lines, make sure your posture is perfect.
Do the hand positions. There's so much to think about
that other people don't realize, which also I would like them to
go spin a few times, do some leaps and then tell me how good
you are and then make sure you spot those turns as well.
Make sure they don't get dizzy in the process, yeah.
But it's just showing that how much like this comes naturally
to Tar, that she doesn't have to think about all these things.
That or like she isn't worried about being the best here and
she can just lose herself in this art form.
Yeah, that that's what I meant by like she's not thinking like,
I mean, it's like this is muscle memory thinking like this.
It's not like Oh my God being prefect or whatever like.
Yeah, she's not at all having to think about.
Thinking the outside world at all like she's.
In this, she's in this space. This is her, like her.
I was going to say safe space, but yeah, it is.
It is kind of like a safe space. It is kind of like a safe space,
yeah. Depending on your teacher, but
yes that is very true. Yes.
And well get well. Tara is getting lost in dance.
Nick is getting lost in his lusting for Charlie.
Like, very lost. He can't even think about
Charlie without being completely distracted by his want to take
things further. He doesn't even know what's real
and what's. Not it's true and you know, you
know, romance be like that sometimes.
But I did find it quite interesting that they paired
these two storylines up and intercut them in the opening of
this episode. And I was like, oh, there has to
be a reason. And then I just kept talking,
telling myself that I'm like, OK, well then figure out the
reason. So.
Basically the scenes are showing what each character feels safe
in right now and focused on. So Nick is all in on this
relationship with Charlie and is completely in love with him,
while Tara is in love with Dance because it makes her feel free
and safe when everything else seems like it's falling apart or
is too much. So that's kind of also the song
is perfect. It's just the song tells you
what's going on. Yeah, I agree with what you're
saying. That's a really good point.
This is like to both of your points.
This is like, this is their their version of escapism for
all the things that's stressing them out because like we'll
point it out in the next scene. But like, Tara and Nick have
like very similar arcs this season.
Like in a lot of ways, there's a lot of parallels between the
two. And so this can be like their
escapism from like whatever is stressing them out, like Tara
and all her school stuff. And then Nick also who's been
avoiding his school stuff as well because he's been focusing
on Charlie. So like and here it, hey, you
know, kind of here it is. So like, I'm hoping this is a
hint that Tara will continue dancing in whatever she ends up
doing, like when she goes to university, because it seems
like this is an important de stressor for her, you know?
And and I think it's really interesting that Tara's escapism
is not her relationship. It's an activity that she cares
about, which is really good because because her and Darcy
don't have the same codependent type of relationship that like
Nick and Charlie have developed. So that is also an interesting
thing to think about with them that's different.
It'd be very interesting to see heart stop her in the college
years. Oh my God, yeah.
We should definitely get that. I'm just saying will Volume 6 be
part of that because it's going to be like Charlie in I don't
and then. I think Alice said that they're
gonna that the stories ending when Nick leaves for university,
OK? OK, OK, we'll.
Probably get like mini comics here and there like we have
been. But yeah, I think the actual
heart stopper story is going to end.
I mean there might be novels in the future, who knows?
Who knows. OK.
We'll see. We shall see.
But before we continue on this episode, we have to interrupt
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Yeah, and then join our discord if you haven't already.
Yeah, it's a gay old. Time.
All right, Speaking of gay old time, let's go to the park.
Where Tara, Nick, Henry and Nellie are having a heart to
heart. I love the all the dogs are
there. It's really cute.
I assume Nick's just like I want to go to the dog park, Tara come
with me. And Nick says, cuz these two
characters, like I said, I've been stressed out for different
reasons and kind of like trying to find stress relief.
And so Nick says dog cuddles solve everything, which is true.
That's true. That should just be medicine.
Just pet a dog. That's why there's therapy dogs.
That's why there's therapy. Dogs Henry and Nelly definitely
are. I feel like in real life Echo
probably could be a therapy dog. I don't know about the pugs,
they seem a little rambunctious on set but like the Nelly
probably could has the temperament for a or Echo is the
dog that plays. Nelly probably has the actual
temperament for that. Yeah, I mean he is like a
trained like show, not show dog or whatever.
He's like an agility trained dog or something.
Also makes sense he does. He does have like he does.
Have a lot of achievements. Yeah, let's say he is a very
highly trained pup, so. It's only very calm for like a
dog that like a type of breed that's like energetic like which
is important with a therapy dog. Like I have a dog that is
Goldendoodle, which is a breed for therapy dog.
However, my dog needs therapy and can't be a therapy dog.
So yes. So he doesn't need therapy, he
needs therapy. He does.
That's very accurate. I love her so much.
Anyway, so Tara in this conversation admits to Nick that
she's been stressed all year, which we've pointed out a bunch
of times and that she has a lot on her plate.
But finally, she's like openly talking about this with
somebody. And she mentions that.
She mentions while ballet itself doesn't stress her out, which is
what we just pointed out, What does stress her out is
everything outside of being in the ballet room specifically.
Like it takes three buses for her to get to the class and like
that commute, which probably takes a bunch of time and like
mental coordination and stuff like that, that stresses her out
because she's like, we've seen how busy she is outside of
school. So like taking like an hour or
so to get somewhere one way, like must be super stressful.
So Nick, who now has his driver's license and a ride is
like, Hey, how about I just drive you?
And then like, let's remove that stress factor for you.
And Tara's reflex answer is no. But then Nick's like, wait, it's
not a big deal. Like for real.
I'm like offering. And then she says, well, maybe,
OK, so I, I, I love this because again, Tara and Nick for me
fulfill very similar roles. They're both like the really
strong person in any relationship that they're in.
They're like the person that people, other people rely on.
And I think they fulfill that role in their relationships and
friendships and stuff like that. So of course, Tara's reef reflex
answer is no, I don't need help because I guess I get the sense
that she's the type of person that isn't used to accepting
help. She's the one that helps other
people because she's just very capable and she's a strong
person. And that kind of comes with
that. And so like, being in this
position of like needing help is new for her.
And I feel like that's something she doesn't like.
It doesn't register with her immediately.
So she had to like, think about it when Nick was like, no,
seriously. Like, think about this.
And then she's like, OK, I'll let me think about it.
It's not a yes, but it's not a no.
She had to, like, process it for a minute.
I feel like Nick's in this, Nick's kind of similar to Hat,
but in this conversation. Like from Nick's point of view,
it's just like classic Nick. Like he loves his friends and
he's willing to do whatever he can to support them, which is
just a very Nick thing to do. Like if the roles were reversed,
I feel like Tara would do the exact same thing for Nick.
I know I love this trope about Nick that he he does
specifically clarify and he's done in in previous season.
He goes no, I want to do it. I love that he, he specifies
that it's something he wants to do because I mean, I like you
said, he knows how much it matters to her.
He sees this as a way that he can really support because
obviously, like Nick obviously loves Tara as a friend.
Like they really do love each other as friends.
And I think this is like one of the ways he is able to show that
he enjoys spending time with her.
That's that's the thing about car rides.
It's like car rides can be like such a great way, like such a
private way to like spend time with someone.
That's true, yeah. Because it's just you 2
obviously like one of you has to focus on the road obviously, but
it is like such a private time to like have a one-on-one
conversation with somebody because obviously like no one
else can hear you so. Also, what else are you going to
do? Right.
You have to pass the test, yeah, but that's.
Belong to music together or talk about really deep shit.
Which we see them do later. So like Tara does spoiler alert,
take up Nick on the software, we do get super intimate
conversations to your point, Elena, that like it will get
there. It does happen and it's awesome.
OK, Then the conversation pivots away from Tara to how are you
Nick? How are you and Charlie doing?
And Nick's automatic response is to just sorry, sneeze.
Nick's automatic response is just to talk about Charlie and
he's like, Charlie's doing great.
Like Charlie's doing so much better, I'm so proud of him,
etcetera, etcetera. And then Tara's like, OK, but
what about what about Nick? There's like Nick and Charlie,
there's two people in that equation and you're just
focusing on 1/2 of the equation. Nick.
What about the Nick part? And Tara so rightfully points
out that like Nick, because, like, again, that opening
sequence, to your point, the escapism, Nick has been escaping
in his relationship and he's been so focused on Charlie that
he's been avoiding, like, taking care of himself in a lot of
ways, Particularly when it comes to like, looking into the future
of like, what do I want? Because we're at that point in
time with Nick and Tara where like, they're going on to the
next step of their education. And they really need to think
about like, who am I? What do I want?
Where do I want to go? And Nick's been like just
focused on the Charlie piece and ignoring himself in that
equation. And what I find really great to
go back to what I said earlier about Tara and Nick really
having these parallel arcs this season, but learning different
things at different times, is that Tara points out she's like,
you know, I relate to this because Tara has been got really
wrapped up in Darcy's stuff at the beginning of the season.
Because like Darcy went through an actual life crisis with like
getting kicked out of her head, getting kicked out of their
house. And like all the stuff with the
family and living with it was a huge thing that they went
through and like. Tara was really the sole
support. During all of that for Darcy so
Tara's like I get it been there, but like you need to focus on
you, Nick. And I like that she starts
planting these seeds and like, kind of encouraging him to be
like, you're as important as Charlie is in this relationship.
And like, Please remember that because, you know, it can be
easy to escape into the relationship, but like, you have
to take care of yourself too. And I think that's really
important coming from Tara because she did learn that with
Darcy. And we had that cold
conversation with Tara and Darcy where Tara had to like set
boundaries with Darcy because of this very reason.
So I like that she's, she's the one giving Nick this advice
because like, she's been there. Yeah, she was just like
emphasizing again that she thinks journaling is really good
and very beneficial, which we we obviously saw like back in
episode 4. Oh my gosh, Episode 4.
And I don't know, I wonder if Nick told her about his
journaling experience. But of course, naturally, she
has to rope Henry into her gay agenda.
The gay agenda being journaling and being Tara, being a lesbian.
The gay agenda. Journaling can be part of the
gay agenda. Exactly.
That's fair. I would like to think that he
did tell her about the journaling, but I feel like Nick
stopped the journaling once Charlie came back and I was
like, maybe you should go back to the journaling because it
seemed to have helped you. Yeah.
Hey, man, your struggles haven't ended either.
Just because he's home. Yeah.
Keep doing that gay agenda, all right?
There's no transition into this. So afterwards we head over to
Drum where sex Ed is happening. Oh God.
The best class ever. Mean Girls flashback.
Yeah. Anyone.
I'm sure Mr. Lang can agree that it's the best class ever.
No, literally opening in this scene.
You can just hear in his voice, his tone he's not thrilled
about. He's literally only doing this
because it's part of the curriculum.
He doesn't want to be here either.
It's awkward. That sounds awful, teaching
teenagers about this in a whole class format.
Yeah, it does sound fucking awful.
OK, But timely. Because what's been going on
with Nick and Charlie, This is all that they can think about.
South Charlie is with Tao and Isaac in this class, and he's
expressing his anxiety over how he wants to have sex with Nick.
But he's like, in his head about it.
And it's like really reasonable things that he's worried about.
Like, he feels like he's like, well, I don't know what I'm
doing because we haven't done this before and I'm nervous.
What if it's awkward and, and he's like, well, because I'm
having this anxiety, maybe that's my intuition saying I'm
not ready for this. And he's kind of just kind of
spiraling and grappling with it because like, how do you know
when you're ready to do something like this?
Like it, Like no one teaches you any of this.
So like these are very reasonable thoughts that he's
having. And he's really like, he's like,
help me friends. It's a good class which is.
Yeah, I think it's a really good point that he makes like saying
like if I'm feeling this nervous, maybe I'm not ready and
it's like, well, totally. Maybe that's the first step is
maybe at this exact moment you're not ready because you're
freaked out solely he they're not ready solely because he is
nervous and they haven't talked about it.
Maybe part of that nerve is because they need to talk a
little bit more about it. They haven't, like explicitly
said, at least that we have seen yet, like that they want to have
sex. They haven't had that
conversation directly with each other yet.
They've simply just like, like in the last episode, they were
trying at some point and things got a little bit too much for
Charlie. So I think that's also something
that he hasn't quite tackled yet.
Obviously, he's still learning to manage his body dysmorphia,
get his confidence back. So maybe at this exact moment,
he isn't quite ready for it. And that's where a lot of the
anxiety is coming from. So it is, it's a fairpoint like
and honestly the the difference between it like literally could
just be they just need to have another conversation and then he
might feel ready. So those are all really good
points. The other thing too is like
sometimes you're just if you haven't done something before,
you're going to be nervous. Like that's just a part of like
jumping into the unknown. Sometimes you'd have all the
conversations in the world and like, sometimes you're just it
just being nervous is just kind of part of it.
And like, you don't conquer that until you do it kind of thing.
But like, yeah, you're right. Talking about it and creating a
safe environment, all that kind of stuff.
Yeah, super important for anything that's new.
But nerves are normal because, you know, we're animals that
lived in the wild at one point and were like danger.
Let's not, you know, danger. And now we just have anxiety
about like, I have to talk in front of a room of people and
it's not going to kill me, but if my body thinks I am going to
die, so. Yeah, I think they like,
obviously, like in the class itself, they don't tackle how do
you know you're ready either? I think if I remember right,
this might be the Mandela Effect tricking me.
But I think if I remember right, in the comics, there is like
somebody who says how do you know you're ready?
Yeah. And naturally the question
doesn't get answered because they're like this.
But that's not what we're going to talk about.
We're going to talk about contraceptions or whatever.
And it's like, but they it's a real question.
It's a real question that they ask is how do you know you're
ready? So yeah.
Classes stick to facts. Don't talk about life.
Yeah, or like in our. Cases it's we were taught.
Just don't. You're a teenager, don't have
sex. Yeah, we'll get into that.
What's the difference between the US and the UK?
And we'll get into that. OK, so then this scene
continues. And basically because Charlie's
all anxious and Isaac's like, well, it's a good thing we're in
sex Ed, maybe you'll get some good advice.
And then cucumbers and condoms arrive and Isaac's like.
Or not which like what's? My favorite part?
It's all good. I love it.
Great timing, Toby. Great job.
Well. Done, Toby.
Also, where the hell are they getting these cucumbers?
Like I don't know. My, my question is, I don't know
how it works in the UK with how they supply their lunches.
I'm assuming they kind of just have like certain, just like
certain companies that supply their food like they do here in
the US. But like, do do the companies
know that they're supplying these cucumbers for this reason?
I don't know. That's just.
There's a whole company that sells sex Ed cucumbers.
Wow, Wow. It's, it's what, what is it like
April at this point in the show? There's like, wow, April's like
our really busy month for fresh produce.
What is up with that? That's so weird.
What is up with that? They're not, I don't know if
they're in season. I think they're in season in
summer, aren't they? Which is like what makes it
funnier. It's like I don't.
Know, I know zucchini or summer, I don't know, I'm sure my key
covers, but in general, I I really like this scene, though,
from the because you're getting this from the point of view of
the students, and I like that this while like while like safe
sex, learning safe sex practices is important.
There's also this like psychological and emotional
component that comes to this topic that is 100% not addressed
in school and is equally as important, which is the whole
crux of this conversation that's happening in the middle's class.
Yeah, I think, I think we had talked about this too in book
club when we did volume five book club.
But they they don't even talk about consent, which is like the
most baffling thing on top of like how do you know you're not
ready? They don't talk about anything
about consent, which I have no idea if any of that has changed
in modern day. Haven't been in high school in
what, 15-10, Fifteen years? I don't know.
How old am I? Like 10 years.
Yeah. I'm like, how old am I?
I have been in high school in like 10 years.
I have no freaking clue. And my sex Ed was basically
nothing. It was like one day of an hour
lecture and that was it. So it's like, I don't know
what's changed. So, but that was like something
we never talked about at all was consent.
I didn't even understand what consent was until probably
college. Like understanding that concept
at all, which is wild. Like it just says a lot I think,
but. Yeah.
So let's let's compare. That's the great, great intro
into comparing. We're all we all grew up in the
United States of America, which OK, unfortunately, let's talk
about real quick comparison of the USA, how they handle sex Ed
versus the UK. OK, I did a little bit of
research into this. So in the USA, for those that
aren't from America, just remember this country was
colonized by Puritans who were religious fanatics that got
kicked out of England. So that's how they ended up
here. And so those puritanic values of
just like sex's sin is still prevalent.
So I grew up in the southern part of the United States, which
is where the religious fanatics are clustered still.
And so my sex education class was an taking an abstinence
pledge. That's how we learned about sex.
They're like, don't do it. Sign this pledge.
At the time I was like, yeah, no, I never want to have sex
with men. Absolutely never done that.
I'm stuck to that. So like, yeah, like, it worked.
I was like, no, that sounds all sounds awful.
I never want to do any of this. Thank God I'm gay.
There you go. So anyway, when I stuck to it,
good job, Southern school. But OK, the thing about the US
is like sex, and that was my experience because I grew up in
the South. But like, sex Ed in school in
general is not controlled federally.
There's federal funding for things which they're trying to
take away right now. So who knows by the time this
comes out if that would be a thing.
But the actual curriculums vary by state.
So sex Ed is part of the curriculum, but how you
implement that it varies state by state.
So in the state of Florida, you can do religious abstinence only
teaching versus in the state of California, it's more like safe
sex practices is exactly what you saw in this in this scene,
but it's more like here's what it is.
Here's like how you prevent diseases like that kind of
stuff. It's more like biological public
health type of information that you're giving them, which as a
healthcare provider who deals with sex or transmitted
infections is part of my job. Also, it's important to know
these things for sure to keep yourself safe and other people
safe too. In the United States of America
in school, like, you know, for minors, parents can opt their
children out. So it's not it's they have to
teach something as part of the curriculum.
But like kids, if the parents are like, no, because parents
rights, they can pull the kid out and then the kid doesn't
learn it because the parents are like, I'll teach it at home and
then they never do. So good job.
I don't know what your experience was with sex Ed,
Caitlin in Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania.
I don't know what. It was Pennsylvania.
I had some in like they kind of started in 6th grade in New
Jersey with like the anatomy. Yeah, they separate with anatomy
in middle school, Yeah, but yeah, they separate you too,
which is like ridiculous. It's like.
High school biology, yeah, High school, we weren't separated.
We did learn about sexually. We didn't do cucumbers.
They sexually transmitted diseases, safe sex and all that.
It's very quickly because no one, no one actually wants to
talk about it. The teacher doesn't want to talk
about it. We don't want to talk about it.
So we just kind of go through it.
And then we used to go on field trips to get smoothies instead.
Oh my God that's wild. So basically nobody learns
anything in America? So what you're making my
curiosity is how many people can relate to this?
But like most of my actual what I when I genuinely learned
what's about sex. Like everything I learned like
from like high school on was all from reading fan fiction.
Yes. That is, yeah.
Yeah, I actually teach you about sex.
Like for real? Yes, fan fiction is the best
fan. Fiction is the best.
Yeah, and it's like some of it obviously was like written by
people who have also like 14 year olds who have never had sex
either, but. Which is also amazing.
If anything that just made me more scared of it just like oh
God. True.
You know, you're like, OK, this sounds awful.
Like, oh, wait, there's blood involved.
And I find out later, like growing up, like, no, that's,
that's just called they did it wrong or whatever.
Like whatever. Yeah, just when you, when you
listen to or read people's stories that have obviously know
nothing about it, it's really funny.
But that's kind of the beauty of fanfiction is people can just
write whatever the fuck they want, so.
That is the beauty. I do want to say that like my
high school, we did learn this stuff, but it's just so focused
on heterosexual people. Also that that.
I none of it pertained to me. I didn't at the time also
because I'm like just I can't. I didn't understand or I didn't
accept myself yet. So but I knew that I didn't like
dudes. I tried.
I tried to like I just mentally sat there and like, I can't do
it. I can't.
I just can't. But yeah, so like, never knew
what a dental dam was until ATV show, I think.
Like they don't teach you anything else.
It just you have to be straight, Yeah.
Because it's really about preventing babies or whatever
the fuck. Yeah, yeah, that's a really good
point. It doesn't take into account
many, many things. It's very basic.
Again, you can, parents can opt you out of it.
And then what you learn in the United States varies by what
school you're in, because it's up to your state.
And if you have really conservative religious people in
charge of your state, they could be like, no, sex is the sin.
We will not teach kids this. And then it's like garbage,
which is what I learned. It's don't have sex.
That's what you learn, which is not educational at all.
We did not get the abstinence thing.
We have a pledge too. It was ridiculous, The.
Other thing that's always been so upsetting to me, like now as
an adult knowing it, the fact that I didn't know it growing up
is like, because even like just like being so strict about it
being purely heterosexual sex Ed there, there's only ever talk
about like what the man's supposed to do for himself.
That's also the other part of it that's always infuriated me is
like, this is how you put a condom on.
It's like, OK, but like, how do you make sure the woman isn't
hurt by this whole process as well?
Like because they don't talk about how painful it can
actually be if you do it wrong. Specifically for the woman, not
for the man, but for the woman in a heterosexual relationship.
So that's the other part that as an adult has kind of made me
kind of mad. Like just that's another implied
misogynistic concept that is still prominent in even just in
heterosexual sex Ed. It's like, come on, people.
Yeah, from a like mechanical, like actual like sexual health
point of view, that is such a good point.
I will say really quickly before we move over to the UK, in my
education, it was also heavily misogynistic because part of the
abstinence only class was being like, it'll tarnish your
reputation as a woman. And it's like, but it was all
emphasized on like how the woman's reputation is tarnished
by having sex, but then the men are treated like gods for
having. I'm like this.
I'm like, who are they having sex with?
If like the women aren't allowed to have sex, I'm like, can you
guys have sex with each other and just leave us alone?
And like, there you go. Like leave us alone.
Like why it doesn't? I'm like, who are they having
sex with then? Like this is insane.
That's our sex with class. OK, so let's go over to the UK.
So the UK is very is different but there's some similarities.
So I looked this up. So things have changed.
I don't know from when heart from when heart supper was
written it looks like, but I don't know how this went in the
show. So correct me if I'm wrong if
you live in the UK, but this is what I found by looking this up.
In 2020 a new standard came out which makes this a mandatory
part of their curriculum. It's called the Relationship,
Sex and Health Education Initiative or it's now the
standard for UK schools. I will say just like in America,
parents can opt their kids out of this if they don't want them
to learn it. But it's mandated to be taught
in schools. And I think it goes, I forgot
how far back it goes, but it can start when they're younger.
But like the guidelines are different from when they're
younger. I'm focusing on high school
because they're in high school, but I have a link if you want to
look into it. Actually no idea right now.
So in primary school, when they're younger, it focuses on
building healthy relationships like from among family and
friends. So there you go, your boundary
setting. That kind of stuff they do teach
us as of 2020. I wish we'd learned that.
Right in secondary school it deals more with the health
focused approach to sexual relationships.
So like the cucumbers and condom demonstration we see in heart
supper, but they're also taught about sexuality, gender
identity, which is now illegal in American schools as of the
time of this recording. So in the UK it seems to be less
hetero focused and I, I appreciate the here's what a
healthy relationship looks like for kids.
Like that is an age appropriate thing to talk about for kids to
protect themselves and like be equipped with that knowledge.
And so I do like that the secondary school, at least as of
2020, the initiative was like, hey, let's broaden the scope of
this and deal with some of this more emotional, psychological
stuff that has to do with the actual relationship part between
humans. So that is really cool.
I don't know how effective it is or what that actually looks
like. If you're, if you've had
experience with this, let us know what it was like.
Sounds great. Their website.
Yep. OK, so back to the scene.
So Tell and Isaac are in agreement that Charlie should
just do it because they're tired of hearing about this.
And like, clearly Charlie wants to because he wouldn't be so
fixated on this if he didn't want.
To Why did my brain just go? Just do it.
Like, yeah, it's very Nike, Charlie.
Just do it, yeah. But specifically in China, Boss
boys just. Do it.
Oh yeah. Make your dreams come true.
I don't know. That's just remember when.
That's really funny because like also courtesy of closed
captioning. I wouldn't have caught this
otherwise. Again, Caitlin, thank you for
introducing me to captioning and how great it is.
But there's a point at the end of the scene where Mr. Lang
starts scolding some of the other students because they're
like, playfully like trying to whack each other on the head
with their cucumbers. Boys.
I'm like, I bet this was improvised if it wasn't still
like genius writing. But this is like, that is like
so painfully accurate to like how high schoolers would act in
a sex head class. And yes, I'm calling myself out
on that because that would be me because I didn't I didn't have
cucumbers in my high school class probably for that reason,
because I would have done that shit.
Also, again, like we just hear him say like at the end, we're
here to talk about contraception.
Again, I would have missed that without captions.
But it's like, yeah, apparently that's literally all we're here
to talk about, not anything else that we just that we just
covered. Great.
Good job, Mr. Lange. I do wonder though, because like
in in the United States, like back, well, like, I don't know,
who knows sex that might be illegal by the time maybe this
comes out. Who knows in sex in America,
probably, it's probably where this is all headed.
But I know that like if the standards say you can only talk
about this stuff like the the teacher legally cannot talk
about anything else because then it takes one one parent to be
like they were doing this and indoctrinating my kid and blah,
blah, blah. And they're trying to fire the
teacher for just trying to answer questions from kids.
So like in the comic, like we talked about, this devolves into
a whole bunch of questions from the students who are like, how
do you know when you're ready? Like they, they want to know the
things that Charlie and Isaac and Tao are kind of all talking
about. But like the teacher kind of
doesn't really answer because I wonder legally at that time,
they couldn't answer these questions.
It's not what they don't want to.
It's just like, I legally cannot answer these questions because
your parents will fire me. Like, because it's always like,
parents should have these conversations, but then the
parents don't have the conversation and the kid never
learns anything so. Yeah.
And also just like the question of how do you know you're ready?
That's a very, there is no straightforward answer with
that, with that kind of question.
So that's that is another tough spot for a teacher to answer
that. But yeah, like how how do you
answer that to a student? Like in a way that like makes
sense to where it's like it kind of just depends.
Like, I mean, what else do you say?
Like it really just depends. That's what you want to talk.
About what's going on with your partner.
Yeah, like that's really like, it's like having to have a
one-on-one conversation to really gauge properly.
But like, talk to your partner. That's like, yeah, the long and
short of this, talk to your partner, but what do we talk
about? I don't know.
That can be. Well, Charlie in the midst of
this decides to talk to his partner, so he starts texting
Nick with a very playful smile on his face.
And then we cut away. So let's see what they're
talking about. Oh my God, yeah.
So in this next scene we go to, it is Nick and his rugby
friends, Cy, Otis and Christian. They're all sitting together at
this table. They're trying to fill out these
charts. What they're trying to plan out
their future, which, first of all, they make these poor high
schoolers do this kind of shit. At 16, I'm like, I have to have,
like, everything figured out about themselves.
Like, at this age, it's so stressful.
Like it's crazy that that has not really changed in the last
20 years. You know, like having to figure
out what career do you want for the rest of your life.
Yeah, it's like. Also, you see family on here
like, oh, you should be getting married and having kids, OK.
That's that. Yeah, that's fun.
Also, this chart for my brain. I just just a little rant about
where my brain is. This chart is very visually
confusing for me because it's like you look at the center box,
it's like, OK, that makes sense. It's like almost like, OK, is it
a web chart? Like what is this?
But it goes to like the four corners and it's like, OK, but
it's corners. So like where where in the boxes
do I feel? Wait, which box is assigned
where? Which box is assigned to which
empty space? I like it's probably not that
deep. I'm probably overthinking it but
for my brain that would have me sitting there just like the fuck
so it. Kind of just looks like a
jellyfish to me. Yeah, so that's that's the whole
thing. It's like that would stress me
out. But then also just like thinking
about my future, like good God. So.
And of course, at the same time we hear at the other table, we
hear Harry, who this is only the second time we've that I think
we've heard his voice in this season and he's at the other
table and he's bragging about some alleged hookup that he had
Speaking of sex, some hookup that he had with some girl.
And it was raising the question of did this actually happen?
Did he actually hook up with her?
Because he makes it sound like he did.
But but I think it definitely stopped right before and then
he's just making it up. I didn't know that he got in a
room with a girl. He gives me in cell energy.
So I'm going with no. And this is all like, again, to
go back to the misogyny, like it's like the woman is the prize
in order to impress other men. So he's just trying to impress
other dudes. That's the only reason he's
telling those stories. So like, I guess my assumption
isn't didn't happen. He's full of shit.
Yeah, it would be pretty typical of Harry, just be that kind of
bullshit, wouldn't it be? Yeah, he's misogyny and a
character. So like, I'm going with Insel.
He's red pill boy. Yeah, you stand up for one
friend for being called a bitch and suddenly you're a feminist.
No. Right.
Yeah. No, absolutely not.
A feminist, Yeah. Yeah, right.
So yeah. And then then his next slide,
he's like, so I thought, why not about like hooking up with her?
Like, like she was just kind of like, oh, why not?
I'm just like, first of all, my only response to this was EW,
eww. No, yeah, absolutely not.
No, get out of here. Throw my man away.
Yeah, like I he's only been in this season twice so far for
like all together like probably 10 seconds.
And I think that's the biggest ick I've had this whole season
so far. And that's valid, but a moment
of appreciation to the rugby lads because they start talking
with Nick and basically they look really put off by Harry's
display of toxic masculinity, which I appreciate about them.
And then they go off in this little side conversation where
they talk about like, oh, like losing your virginity and that
kind of stuff. And how like they feel nervous
now. Like virginity is a concept.
I understand that. But like, I'm still nervous
about this. And I appreciate that, again,
coming from boys because normally we only ever get hairy,
the toxic masculinity point of view when it comes to sex.
So I really appreciate this more realistic version of what like
boys actually feel versus what they're projecting out loud.
So because patriarchy, so like this type of representation to
me is really, really important to show like, like it's OK boys
to also be nervous. Like that's life.
Like it's OK. You're not supposed to know
exactly what you're doing and be the tough guy and like you're
you're allowed to not know what the hell is happening because
you don't know what's happening. You're 16.
Right. You go with your life.
I like this friend group because like, even when Christian like
openly says like I am nervous about it.
The other boys are kind of just like, yeah, yeah, they don't You
you would think in like a typical, you know, toxic
masculinity group, there's going to be this whole like, oh, come
on, man, it's not going to be that big of a deal, right?
But they're all just kind of collectively like, yeah, it is.
It's a bit scary. So I appreciate that this whole
group is like supporting each other with that whole idea.
And of course, while they're having this very supportive
conversation, Nick gets a text from the the text that Charlie
sent about him being in sex Ed. And Nick asks, what are you guys
learning about? And Charlie responds, they're
putting condoms on cucumbers, the same thing they did last
year. That's really.
Yeah. So basically haven't learned
shit this year because it's the same thing they do every year,
Nick. Oh Nicholas.
It's like it's like perfect timing that they're talking
about it at the same time that Charlie sends this text.
I wonder why cuz then Nick decides to respond.
Maybe you should try it not on a cucumber sometime.
OK, that response point. But then Charlie's iconic reply
is gay. It's perfect.
It's so funny, yeah. I'm like Nicholas Nelson, you
are bold, and you're lucky enough that the other boys are
not peeping over your shoulder right now because like,
Christian could easily just peek over and be like, what the hell
are you saying, dude? So Oh my God it was so funny
though. But Charlie's not lucky, because
who's not so stealthily looking over his shoulder?
Tao. Tao comes in the frame.
He's like, what you doing, Charlie?
He's like, how dare you, Tao? I love, I love his response is
just the way you 22 flirt is so weird.
And I'm like, hey, you know what?
It's just he's not wrong. But it's really funny.
I think there's no. Wrong way to flirt.
It's fine. I don't, I don't remember.
I feel like it is in the show. Maybe I'm wrong, I don't know.
But it's in the comics when Charlie says gay, Nick says, Oh
no, I've been outed. Oh yeah, I can't remember.
I don't. Think it's in the show?
I think it's. The comics.
But it's the comics. It's so funny.
Gay. Oh no, I've been outed.
That's the best response. I know, it's so cute.
Yeah, yeah. Oh.
So then also, like in this last scene when they're talking about
Christian being nervous about losing virginity there, there
was a scene in the comics where Nick at this point hasn't really
thought about having sex with Charlie yet in the story.
And so it kind of just all hits him all at once where he starts
realizing, like, wait, he starts having like this big fantasy
montage about like Charlie. And like, suddenly he's like,
oh, wait, hey, I kind of like that they switched it up for
this show because it feels a lot more like a natural gradual
progression. I like that it's not just all at
once. Suddenly Nick's having these
feelings. It's like it's been a very, very
gradual progression with these two.
But it could also just be because there were like like a
lot of time jumps in the in the story.
Like obviously we go from was like January all the way to
April in the comics. I mean, it's we do also in the
show, but it's a little bit more gradual.
They they had a lot more to work with and trying to progress the
timeline in a much more gradual pace.
Also something I forgot to talk about last episode because this
is when it would have happened I guess In the comics Charlie has
this dream right after the night after him and Nick.
Like try to have. Try to have sex and Charlie has
like his episode of like his body dysmorphia kind of freaks
him out. He has this dream that night
where he takes his shirt off in front of Nick and Nick just
calls him disgusting. And I honestly like that they
took took it out of the show. I mean it though, it worked
perfectly fine for the comics because it did show like kind of
that whole idea of like progress is not linear, like healing is
not linear. But it seemed to show a much
more drastic backslide then I think that Alice really wanted
it to, especially with the show, especially just like the the
flow of the show with the limited amount of screen time
that they actually have. Obviously comics have a little
bit more room, a little bit more wiggle room, but the show like
there was a lot of it. There was there were some
restrictions with how long they can go with this progression.
So I do, I do kind of appreciate that that was cut out because it
seemed like it wasn't really adding to the story in this
moment. Like it, that's like it kind of
did in the comics, especially because then we transition over
to Charlie's therapy session and it just makes a lot more sense
in this context. Then we switch over to Mr. Lang
goes, and now we're going to look at some St. is.
This is great. I'm so happy they kept this, the
scene in the comics, from the comics because it made me cackle
in the comics and it made me cackle in the show because it's
just so freaking funny. He just like, we don't see the
actual photo that he pulls up, but he pulls up some photo and
the whole class just goes, oh God, yeah.
It's better in the don't show kind of situation where you just
get the reaction. It's just great.
It's such a teenage boy thing too, to be like, Oh my God,
could you imagine what they're looking at?
Oh, I'm so curious. Like I wish we could know if
like in the actual filming of that scene, like did, did he
actually was there an actual photo that came up?
Not necessarily of like what he was supposed to show, but like
did they put up something in the boys were supposed to react?
Or is that just purely them acting like I?
I want to know like was there an actual photo they would react?
I was. Wondering that too when I was
watching and I was like, yeah. I love the idea.
Like especially 'cause they would have to time it to where
everybody reacted at the same time, right?
It might. Be easier to like, be like now
or like something where they're like, oh, like, give them a cue,
some kind of cue. Yeah, or like the whatever the
little gesture that Mister Lang does, like whatever it was, I'm
like they had to obviously time it to where everybody reacted at
the same time. So I'm like, totally.
I like to think that they they put something like really funny
up on the projector. Like one of the career cast
members, Like, it's like a picture of that.
Yeah, that's what I'm picturing. Something like that.
I'm like, oh God, yeah. I'm just like, they don't tell
anybody. When did they film this?
It would have had to. Yeah.
OK. Oh my God, it would have had a.
Picture of America. Oh God.
Yeah, no, just like it just would be like some inside joke
between that was my. Yeah, I like to think it's just
some inside joke, for sure. Yeah.
So after that, Tao kind of openly confesses, like he he
admits that his first time with Elle wasn't as cinematic as he
kept saying it was. It was actually kind of kind of
messy, like they were in some random person's bedroom, which
is still really funny to me that people just do that in some
other people's houses. Yeah.
Like, OK, yeah. So anyway, it it's really sweet,
like what he actually says in this moment, he says like, maybe
we get things wrong, but blah, blah, blah, we love each other.
It's me and Elle. It's if it's awkward, we can
just laugh about it. And I think it's really sweet.
Like it's very important. Like we don't hear this enough
like in media about this. Like, yeah, you can.
There's no right way to do it except for whatever way that you
want to do it with your partner. That's really the message from
this. And I think that that's really
it's really well said for sure. But also, Tal, there's no need
to wave the cucumber for emphasis, Sir.
He goes. He just I don't I don't remember
what he says exactly, but he like waves the cucumber in
Charlie's face to emphasize his point.
And I'm just like, Sir, Sir. Keep that cucumber to yourself.
He. He had no consent with the
cucumber being in his face. Oh my God, yeah.
And what does Mr. Lang do? He he says, and remember
students most importantly points to the screen and it says
chlamydia equals bad. That is, that is his final notes
for this lecture. And I'm like, I mean yes but
aren't all St. is technically bad?
This just gave me Mean Girls reference for their like we're
like the sex Ed being taught by the coach and he's just like OK,
you'll get chlamydia and then you'll die and then he tries to
spell it and he spells it wrong on the chalkboard.
This just gave me like a call back to that by just singling
out chlamydia specifically. To have sex you'll get pregnant
and die or something like that if.
You get pregnant and die if. You get pregnant.
That that's literally sex Ed in America.
Like it's literally that. Like it's just like the South.
It's just like that. It's terrible.
I know when we hear Tal say, honestly, I think I should be
running the sex Ed lesson and I'm like, yeah, yeah, 'cause you
probably just taught a bunch of, you probably taught Charlie way
more than Mr. Lang's teaching them right now.
Like I think Tao and Isaac should Co teach it because I
feel like from Isaac you'd get like more like detailed
description of stuff and Tao would like romanticize a bunch
of shit and it's like between the two of them they'd balance
each other out and have a good lesson that's engaging and not
Clemente and funny and funny. Yeah, Isaac would get.
They were dicker. Isaac would be the more
practical side of it, and then Tao would be the much more
emotional side of it for sure. Yes, that.
'D be actually, Yeah, they they should.
I want a mini comic of that now. It doesn't even have to be part
of the show. Like I just want to see those.
Well no because it wouldn't be Isaac in the damn.
OK so I need it in the show. Just write Isaac in as like a
guest character just for that. One scene Isaac transfers in.
Isaac, cuz I took the chat. Oh, man.
Yeah. And then at the end of this,
Charlie asks about Elle's interview, which we obviously
know from last episode what happened.
And we we are understand that Elle at this point hasn't told
the group given that question. She hasn't told the group what
happened. Tao only knows because he was
there. And Tao or Elle very
specifically does not want to talk about it.
And you know, I definitely don't blame her, honestly.
Like I don't want to talk about it and I I appreciate that Tao
respects her privacy. Charlie asks how it went and Tao
said I think they decided not to air it.
And it's not a lie like it, it's definitely the truth, but it's
not revealing everything. It is still respecting her
privacy and and all Charlie says is oh, that sucks.
That's it. Yeah, I mean, this is similar to
when Nick was getting the questions, where is Charlie?
Why is he in school? And it's like, it's not my story
to tell kind of thing. I know, romantic or not,
normalizing people, not prying into people's business.
Yeah, exactly. Boundaries, boundaries.
Love to see it. Yeah, Speaking of the interview,
it's still getting to ELF, which fair.
I mean, it just happened. That was, it's always going to
be an impact in her mind. So Elle is an art class and
she's scrolling through Instagram and.
Basically all. She's seeing is headlines about
what's happening in politics and everything is being super
transphobic, and she's just getting extremely discouraged
and frustrated. And at the risk of like, saying
this too much, especially in this episode, Elle is all of us
in the US right now. Because this is exactly what it
feels like to open your phone and just scroll.
This is all you see. Yeah.
And I thought, and unfortunately, like that is the
reality, like trans people are being scapegoated, not just in
America, like across the world with this far right extremism
stuff that's taking over the world, unfortunately.
So yeah, it is. It's unfortunate to see that
and. What's also interesting about
this scene is that Elle is in the art class where she's doing
the self-portrait And so she's the teacher comes up to her and
is like, how you doing Elle, blah, blah, blah.
And then Elle's like, I don't like my I don't like this
anymore, like the self-portrait that she's doing.
Which made me wonder if like this is Elle kind of speaking
about herself or like the way the way the world sees her.
Because like you said, scrolling on the phone seeing all the
transphobia and how for being just for being trans for no
other reason. She's hated by many people
politically, used as a political pawn, that kind of stuff that
interviews fresh off her mind. Now here she is trying to do a
self-portrait and she's like, I can't even look at this and say
I like it because the world hates me basically.
So to me, it's almost like this experience she had with the
interview hurt her so deeply that it's like making her second
guess a lot about herself. Because if you think about Elle,
like, yeah, Elle like it wasn't smooth, complete, smooth sailing
like the her transition, things like that.
But Elle does have a really supportive friend group,
parents, Tao, like a really supportive boyfriend, that kind
of stuff that kind of like insulates her from a lot of like
the transphobia out in the world.
So then to like leave the safety bubble and then get attacked by
a stranger basically in that interview, like it must be like
this like regressive kind of thing in her mind that it's like
not her fault whatsoever. It's just like being attacked
for no reason other than that. And like when she's usually in a
safe space, like, and I feel like that's making it really did
hurt her personally in such a very deep, deep way that she's
like, how do I look at myself portrait and say this is
beautiful anymore when the world is now?
I just had this experience again where the world is telling me
otherwise, which is really horrible and really sad.
But especially if it's like a strong, beautiful person like
Elle, it's really hard to watch or.
Go through this. And in the last episode, we said
that the interview treated her like she's an object, not a
person. So especially looking at this
self-portrait, she's not seeing herself anymore because these
people made her feel I'm not really less than, but they they
took her joy away. And really, like you said, this,
this used to be her safe space. And we could have gotten L in
the opening montage with the with Tara and Nick, and she
would be losing herself an art to cope with everything that
happened in the interview. But because this interview, it's
like it stole a piece of her safety net and love of art that
she doesn't even want to do it anymore.
And that's the most damaging aspect of all of this is that
now, because we're not treating these people like people, we're
telling them that they're less than and taking away their
humanity. And it's awful.
I think there's something else to be said about like the
parasocialism of the fact that she got this big following on
Instagram and that's kind of where this whole thing started
with getting the interview and everything.
And just like the whole, I mean, it's this has been an issue like
just with people on the Internet in general is like people not
understanding that the people you see on your Instagram feeds,
the people you see on your YouTube videos you watch, hey,
they're all living people with minds of their own, with lives
of their own, with feelings. And it's so interesting.
Like not like this hasn't been said a million times on this
platform, especially by queer people or felt.
Yeah, right. So it's interesting like this
kind of this in that way kind of also like approaches this like,
hey, you got famous on Instagram and you're also a human being
who does this thing that is art person with feelings.
What? So yeah, that's that's just been
an underlying thing for so long. But what's even more
heartbreaking is L goes, I should have expected it because
part, I mean, partially because of that parasocialism, but more
especially because being a trans person, being a trans woman, she
should expect that this is how she's going to be treated.
And of course, the teacher immediately jumps in and says,
no, no, you shouldn't, which absolutely the teacher is fully
right. No, she shouldn't expect this.
It is unfortunate. This is the pattern, but no, you
shouldn't expect it. It is it's fucked up what
happened. So that is so heartbreaking.
That is what what she says is I should have expected it L, And
then L basically says, I don't want to talk about it anymore.
She feels so stuck in this endless cycle of she's she's put
in this box, she's treated like this object.
She's become so resigned to this idea that she will never be
accepted by the world. And that that is heartbreaking
to think about. But I get it, obviously.
Like I don't empathize because I haven't.
I'm not in those shoes. But like, I, I get it, girl.
Justice for Elle, Yes. Justice for Elle and all of the
people who identify with Elle around the world.
Justice for trans, trans kid trans people.
Justice for trans people? Yes, everywhere.
In the scene, I also feel for the teacher though, because the
teacher did help facilitate this interview and probably feels
responsible for at least a little bit of it, even though
it's not the teacher's fault obviously.
But they're also witnessing one of their talented students love
and passion for this art fade away.
The Elle is a shell of herself right now and that is
heartbreaking to watch, especially when the teacher is
basically else mentor in this world right now.
So I just the the teacher's going through it as well, not
knowing how to help her. I don't know how to
transposition to this next scene either, so.
Let's go back to Nick and Charlie.
Yeah. So Nick is still lost in
Charlie, and Nick can't handle the electricity that's literally
radiating off of them whenever they're in a scene together
right now. So he basically drags Charlie
back to his house and like, did he even tell Charlie like
anything? Where Charlie just like, why?
Why are we doing this? Why are you so excited to get
home? They both have sex on the brain
so no thoughts, just hormones. That's their scenes together.
So this is normal. I wonder if like they're just
still have the the previous text conversation in their minds of
that too. Try it on a cucumber, not on a
cucumber, some type gay. I wonder if that's like because
I know in the comic Charlie goes like so that text you sent, Do
you know how cringe you are? And next, like what are you
going to do about it? And that kind of instigates it.
So I wonder, I like to think that maybe that's the
conversation that was happening while we're running home.
That's fair. OK, so things do get a little
heated in bed. And of course David barges in
and Nick overreacts in my opinion and starts yelling at
David not to come in. Not cool at all.
Just like starts flipping out on him.
He's like. Nothing is really happening.
Like you could have played it cooler and made it look like you
were just cuddling or something. Still, David would have said
something. About it.
But yeah, but to be fair, in Nick's head he's already 2 steps
ahead of what they're actually doing right now, which is why he
freaked out. I just love the way everyone
forgets about David because I forgot about him until he barged
into the scene. I was like God you again.
David. Why does this fuck head never
knock like first of all like that he has never knocked once,
he's rude and anytime he's appeared in the show he never
knocks ever. It's like, dude, like could you
imagine growing up with a sibling?
I don't, I don't know if anybody else has, but like growing up
with a sibling who first of all comes into your room
unannounced, doesn't knock. Like, first of all, that's got
to take a toll on your relationship if you have one.
Second of all, privacy. Who?
Absolutely not. Seriously, that would drive me
insane. I'm sorry, but like that
somebody who doesn't knock before entering somebody's
bedroom, I think is like one of the most telling things about a
person. Privacy, man, come on.
But it was really funny is Charlie just says, well, I'm
glad. I'm just glad it wasn't your
mom. I'm like, it's OK, boys, you're
safe in that department. Mom hasn't been home all season.
You're fine. Because she doesn't exist at the
moment. So you're fine, woman.
'S doing things right now you're good.
You wouldn't have cared. Yeah.
That's like, here's some condoms to your to you.
Bye. Right.
She'd be like, OK, so did they do sex Ed still like how they
did it before? Yeah.
OK. So we have to talk a little bit
1st and then I'll let you guys do go to it.
Just not when I'm home. Maybe, is what she'd probably be
like. Just maybe not when I'm home.
So eventually Charlie probably leaves, like very quickly after
that because, you know, they're, they're freaked out.
David's home. He can't do anything now.
So later that day, Nick and Charlie are texting about being
nervous and not knowing what they're doing.
And Nick starts this conversation.
And I love that he's the one opening up here, especially
because we've been so focused on Charlie and Charlie's feelings.
And now it's giving Charlie a chance to be there for Nick by
telling him he isn't alone because, you know, Charlie also
has no idea what he's doing. Of course, in Nick's mind is
like, Charlie's been with technically Ben, but like, not
like that. This is new for both of them.
And again, you're teenagers. That's the point.
You don't know what you're doing.
I mean, you don't know what you're doing at any point of
life because you know, you're all your experience at all for
the first time. Yeah, it's really true.
And I love that in the scene, like, again, the two of them are
going to get into their heads a little bit after they're texting
each other about the things that's caused them anxiety.
But I love that Nick is supported by both dogs in the
scene. I didn't notice Nellie at first
because Nellie kind of like blends in a bit more, but like
he's got Henry, he's holding and then Nellie's next to him, which
is very cute. And then Nellie's just living
well. Echo's living his best life,
just being able to lay there. Laying on the bed just cuddling
and then as we know from the bloopers that that pug just does
not like to sit still. So how many takes did it take
for them to do this? Just one shot.
Seriously, this dog is such a brat.
Yes, I'm. Surprised they did not.
I mean, I guess they really couldn't get rid of the dog
because the Henry's in the book. Well, yeah, they they had to
switch out which dog it was. I know that like mid season they
had to swap out or something. Yeah, they got a new dog.
Yeah, but it had to be a pug. Looks like pugs all basically
look the same so. I mean, yeah.
I mean, you know what I mean? If they had to like swap out
Nelly, it'd be a lot harder to find like another Nelly that's
exactly like echo. Like pugs all relatively look
similar so it's a bit easier. Yeah, that's true.
Yeah, it's like you. And my dog, they all look very
different. Yeah, their coats can really
vary, like collie's. Collie's coats, like patterns
can really vary for sure. Whereas like Pugs, it's pretty
much like either it's like this color pug or this color pug,
right? It's with the size.
How many rolls do they have? Yeah, there.
You go. But I do want to thank
production for giving me both dogs in a scene again, because
Nick definitely needs both of his motion support pups and I do
too. Yeah, so very true.
So at the end of the scene, like after they they're texting for a
bit about I don't know what I'm doing and sex and being
vulnerable or whatever, Charlie is at his drum set.
And then he looks over his shoulder and sees his reflection
in the mirror, as if to hint to the audience that, like,
Charlie's body dysmorphia is still one of the mental blocks
that he's having when it comes to physical intimacy with Nick.
But what I found really interesting when I was watching
this was that like there is a there are similar scenes that
we've seen with Charlie looking his self reflection.
And like you see that kind of doubt happening.
I think in the prior episode or a couple episodes ago, basically
we had the scene where Charlie was like looking at himself in
the mirror with Tao and Isaac in the room.
And the mirror at that stage was physically closer to Charlie.
This is when his body dysmorphia was really peaking versus now
when he's at the drum set, the mirror's physically a lot
further away. So it's kind of like, it's to
Elena's point that like this recovery, this whole Charlie
overcoming or dealing with his body dysmorphia, it's not
linear, right? It's, you know, there's ebbs and
flows to this type of like anxiety that he has about this.
But I think by physically placing the mirror and therefore
his self reflection further away, it's kind of showing that
like he's getting better at overcoming this.
It's not as crippling as it was when it was like right up in his
face and like really causing him anxiety.
But like, it's still there because again, he goes to
therapy, doesn't like turn off. Like it's still part of his
journey. It's just not as crippling as it
was before. So I do like that little detail
of like Charlie on his road to recovery still while he's just
living his normal life. Like it's his mental health
stuff is still there in the background like that he's
dealing with. So I like that.
And I also like that they show Charlie looking over the mirror
but then they go to Nick and show him looking over at the UNI
options and it's just showing that they both have something
weighing on them at this point in the background of their
relationship. Yep.
Yeah. Also just shout out to the the
music in the scene, especially like the transitional music
between scenes is like, again, one of my absolute favorite
things about the production on the show is the music,
especially Addie's car chase and the art they make.
And so in this scene, the melody, it's it's the same
melody. It's part of the same melody
from the theme from Nick and Charlie's first kiss in Season
1, but it's in a lower key and it's got a little bit of
different background vamping mixed in.
So I, I like to call it Part 1 of the kiss theme.
Part 2 comes later in the episode.
But I just love that they use it as a transition.
But also kind of it, it's kind of just like in the example I
gave like in episode 2 when they were in Nick's bedroom or not
Episode 2, sorry, episode 3 when Nick had his birthday present
and that music played and it was the same music as previous
season. I just, I love this repetition
of the music, but with new elements added, different key
added. Just it's so, so beautiful.
So and it shows how far they've come in their relationship.
So from their first kiss to this precious.
Everything always, utter perfection, always include.
The music is always on point. Always always always.
Thank you for pointing out those little details.
It's just makes it more special. I forgot where my transition
was, so we'll just keep going. So we shoot on over next to Tao
and Elle, who are hanging out in Tao's room.
And Elle's like in her head about the interview stuff and
what's been bothering her. And Tao is doing art.
And he's like, look, I've gotten better at drawing fish.
Maybe I can be a really specific kind of artist that specializes
in goldfish. And I must say, Tao, you have
gotten better at your goldfish. So wait, way to go.
Tao, good for you. So important.
I love it. And not only is this cute, it's
really sweet because it makes Elle laugh.
Because Chao should, you know, be in town.
And Tao is naturally charming. And Elle is not 100% OK after
the disaster interview. And he asks her, is there, you
know, is there anything I can do to make you feel better?
And she nods. And then just like leans into
town and how just kind of holds her.
So like Elsa at the point where she wants to like talk about
this, but like having his support, like physically like is
really important and does help. And so I love the scene between
the two of them because really like, they have come such a long
way with their communication and I just love that about them.
I know another another shout out to the music team.
End of this scene it's got Towanelle's theme that is
vamping as we transition into the next scene and I just want
to say I love that as Car Chase does this with the thing.
The great thing about Heart Stopper is it is a combination
of that soundtrack and also a pre made list of other songs
from other artists combined into one big musical arrangement for
this show. And I love that what Addie's Car
Chase does with the songs that are already pre made or I don't
know how else to properly say it, but made by other artists
that are brought into the show. And they use that to their
advantage by transitioning, like using their music to transition
into these songs by matching the key, matching kind of the energy
matching like the backgrounds, like the vamping in the
background. It's, it's just so well done,
like how they're able to match and flow right into it.
And I think that this is like a really good example of it in
this scene, when we transition into the song that's playing in
the next scene, it matches the key, it kind of matches the
energy, but it still fits what is happening in the moment.
It's like there has to be a different a better way to
explain this that makes more sense for non music people.
But yeah, that's that's the. It definitely makes sense for
sure. And So what is the next scene?
So the next scene we cut over to Darcy and Tara aggressively
making out in Darcy's room. And Tara is like, look, I'm
going through some shit, but I'm going to do what I want,
including Darcy, which I love. You know Darcy's Darcy's line
that includes doing me. It's such a Darcy line, but like
Darcy line and where they are in this relationship.
But it's so it's honestly just funny.
It really is. Yep.
We go from that into the next. I presume it's the next day or
something like that at school. The The boys are in their form.
It's apparently Charlie's last day in form before he has to go
into study hall, which if I remember, we remember Nick
having to do that last season with sitting next to Ben.
So Charlie seems like his is going to be a lot less
miserable, thankfully for him. I hope so.
I'm sitting next to some asshole like that.
So yeah, we see it seems like for what it looks like.
Obviously this is like the same as the comics, but it seems like
it's a tradition to have like them all signed the year Elevens
shirts. I guess I I tried to look a
little bit closer and I couldn't really see very well if any of
the other year Elevens or any of the other boys in this class had
also signed shirts. It was just kind of hard to tell
because they were obviously focusing purely on Nick and
Charlie in the scene. So everybody else was very out
of focus and a lot of them were like throwing their Blazers on.
So it was kind of hard to tell. So I was like, maybe it is,
maybe it's a tradition, I don't know.
But we didn't see it with Nick getting his shirt signed last
season. So I'm like, Boo, time
constraints, I guess. But I will say, can we just take
a second to appreciate the fact that Charlie isn't wearing the
jumper or the blazer on top of his shirt.
He is just in the button up, which we have literally never
seen. Never.
Aside from like in a moment where he's like changing into
something else, like we never have seen him in just the button
up shirt. He is always wearing something
to cover himself up more. We've never seen him like this.
Our quietly confident boy. So proud of him.
Yeah, that was a. That struck me too.
I was like, oh, look at Charlie being more exposed physically.
Like that's, that's really huge. Again, his mental health journey
like he came a long way. Yeah, so it's really funny.
When I saw his scene the first time, I was like, something fell
off. Something felt like different.
And I was like, Joe looks different.
And it took me a second to like, realize I was like, Oh my God,
duh. Boy's not.
Wearing a stutter. Oh yeah, yeah.
So that was, that was really neat to have that little detail.
And then we have Mr. Ajayi when they're like all getting ready
to leave class, Mr. Ajayi asked Charlie to stay behind and he
gives him an application to potentially apply to be head boy
next year. And he tells him he's like, I
think you could do a lot of good for the kids at this school.
Now that's a powerful thing for one to tell someone like Charlie
who has spent so long thinking that they're they're just a
burden to everyone around them. They're no good.
They're useless. Hearing that from your teacher
saying you could do a you could do a lot of good, you could
really impact these kids. So that's like a big thing.
But I appreciate that Mister Joey just says it's something to
think about over the summer. Doesn't push it any further than
that. Doesn't like try to pressure
Charlie. He just puts it in his ear.
He just puts that bug in his ear.
He's just like, just a thought. I personally believe you would
do great, but it's up to you. And as Charlie's, like, about to
leave, Mr. Farooq says there are a lot of younger students who
would find it inspiring to see him as head boy.
We can trust that this probably means specifically queer slash
closeted students and even even teens who don't understand
themselves at all yet. I mean, they're teenagers.
How how can they have themselves figured out entirely?
I mean, I don't, as somebody who's almost in my 30s, I don't
know anything. So like, how can you expect a
teenager to know everything about themselves?
Like. And then of course, we see a
brief moment of a young Mr. Farooq sitting in the char in in
Charlie's old chair, like sitting in that same chair.
We see a little flashback of him, this little little.
Yousef, it's all by himself. He's all by himself and he gets
the leaves and I'm not crying. You're crying.
This is so cute. You're right there, or I am
indeed crying. I know.
It's such a I love that they included it because they had to
cast this character just for this, like, brief few seconds.
Yes. But it's so powerful to show.
And I love, I love Farooq's storyline because it's it's
subtle, too, but it just shows how much that he does relate to
Charlie. Yeah.
And it's very sweet to see. Yeah.
I really appreciate what the execution of what how Alice did
Mr. Farooq's story. Like we don't obviously know
every single nitty gritty detail.
We don't know everything. If anything, we know very vague.
Like OK, he didn't figure out he was gay till he was older.
Didn't realize it in high school.
We kind of can gauge from this scene alone.
Like OK, yeah, he probably was felt very lost as a young kid,
but but she tells us just enough.
And then obviously through Nima's acting as Mr. Farooq,
like we're able to just know from what little information
we're given that this is a very big journey that this this
person has gone on. And it's it just yeah, like what
you said, the OR I am crying. It's just so perfect, Like it's
so perfect. Yeah, it's just, it's so well
executed. It's so beautiful.
I know. And then he gets the leaf.
What was that about Does How dare you attack me with that
Alice and the animators? And through and through.
How dare you all. Yeah, and Mr. Jai Nathan to him,
I guess comes up and asks if they should end to lunch, which
is really sweet. It's a very sweet transition
because like, you see Yousef all like looking at himself and
little this little Yousef all alone, feeling very lost.
And then we cut right back to him present day pondering this
and is like brought out of this thought by his kind supportive
boyfriend who likes to have lunch with him every day and now
where he is now in his life. You know, it'd be really cute if
they hired a little Nathan to come sit down and just like,
hold his hand and look. In that way, it's showing that
he's hearing he's healing Farouk's inner child.
Oh my God, Caitlin, why do you have to make it?
Worse. Make it cry worse.
I know. I guess that'd be really cute.
Too cute. I'm going to send all my therapy
bills to you now, Caitlin, obviously.
I can't afford my. Own.
Oh my God. Oh man.
So this is a really sweet little scene.
And then we cut to back, back to the sadness of Elle.
Elle and her slump that she's in now with this whole situation.
But now she's got Felix and Naomi who are her her two also
trans friends. They are all staring at L's
self-portrait and from what I can tell it doesn't look like
she's done too much in like changing the portrait since we
last saw it in the previous scene.
Isn't like much has changed, but Naomi thought said she's like, I
think you might be finished, babe.
And Felix says something about posting it to Instagram.
And the blank kind of blank looking expression that Elle has
in this moment. You could just kind of tell like
what she's probably got going on in her mind.
Most likely. She's definitely not wanting to
post it to Insta because that fame that she has is what got
her into this mess in the 1st place or something along those
lines of like this parasocial concept that she got roped into
with this interview. And then she says everything
that like, we what we talked about in the last episode, I was
there to talk about my art. Yes, you were, Elle.
That is literally what they invited you to do.
And I'm so sorry that this happened to you.
Yeah. So Felix even asks if she has
talked to anybody about this, which from what we can tell, no,
she really has not because she has made every effort to avoid
it. She doesn't want to talk about
it because it's just too painful for her.
It's just so heartbreaking. And when they suggest have you
talked to Tao, you know, makes makes sense.
Like Tao is her partner. Tao is like the most probably if
like alongside her parents, they're probably the most
support or supportive person in her life, but openly says like
she doesn't think that Tao would get it.
Always say makes sense, Tao is not transgender.
Chao has not been through that specific experience.
So Chao would not understand in that sense.
And however, he would definitely fight like hell for her.
But that is an aspect where she feels very alone is she is
transgender. And that is something that he
cannot fully empathize with because he has not had that
experience. Just like no, no one can really
empathize fully having not gone through that experience.
And it's nothing against him. It's just like, that is how it
is. And I think it's really sweet
that Naomi and Felix both are just like, well, we're here, we
might understand because we have been through it.
And so I think that's really sweet.
And then they both take your hands and we have this like that
little shot. We're like, Elle isn't very
responsive when they take your hands, but she's still like,
let's them take her hands. So she's still letting them be
there for support. So I do appreciate that.
Yeah, Yeah, I had a similar take away message from this, the
scene that you did. I think it's important, It's an
important message like because it really boils down to like the
conversation they're having. Emphasize emphasizes that
empathy is important, but it is impossible to fully understand
what other people go through just in general.
And Elle's life experience is is going to be different from Tao's
for a multitude of reasons. And her trans experience is one
of those components. And I feel like that for her, it
feels like it's making it hard for her to open up about
something that's so specific like to the trans experience
that he cannot relate to at all or really like, yeah, I guess
related to is the best part because I think he can
empathize, but not like, like you said, fully empathize
because like he has no baseline experience with what she's going
through. And like, but I think with Tao
as that, you know, as the CIS head partner when he was at the
interview, like really was so shocking to him to like watch Al
go through this. Like he didn't have second hand
experience. It's second hand because like to
him, he's like, the fact that you're trans is just part of
Elle. Like, and I love Elle.
I love everything about Elle. Like it doesn't it it, it's not
a separate thing about her. It's just her to him.
So like to watch somebody else, some stranger pick apart like
little things about Elle, like was so jarring to tell.
But like, unfortunately, I think Elle has had experience, some
experiences with this during her transition.
I think this is just triggering all of that in her again.
And for her, like it was like, I think part of her thought I was
finally passed all of this and I'm just being seen as Elle.
Because the premise of the whole interview was let's talk about
your art. And then they they asked one
question and then moved on. They're like, OK, let's talk.
Let's focus on your identity now.
And she's like, but we're here. I'm here to talk about art like
any normal artist, not normal artist or artist, like any
artist. Like, why are you picking apart
this one piece of me to put under a microscope when like I'm
here to talk about art? You know what I mean?
So thing for Elle, I wonder if in art class she's like, will I
ever be taken seriously as an artist?
Because people are just going to like be like, oh, you're trans,
Let's talk about that instead. And she's like, I'm here talking
about art, like what the hell? And like part of me an artist is
like marketing your art. And she's like, how am I going
to be successful? If like, they're just going to
pick apart my identity because it's a new shiny toy for them to
get click rage bait ratings, you know what I mean?
You know, I think also to your point of how it's so jarring for
Tao in the interview is I think it definitely like to your point
is something that he isn't used to other people seeing.
And I think like, especially along the lines of like when you
look at bullies like Harry, who is, it's very easy to simplify,
like minimize them to just their bullies because he, because
Harry was always very outspoken about how much he was like
transphobic, homophobic was very vocal about like it being a
negative thing. Whereas this is kind of the
other side of homophobia slash transphobia where people are
ignorant. People aren't, aren't just
outwardly being assholes and being mean.
They're actually very ignorant in like thinking that they're
doing the right thing or that they're trying to be a good like
the better person, but they're actually making things worse.
They're actually still being very hurtful and then still
refusing to acknowledge that what they're doing is hurtful.
And so I think that that is the part that Tao is seeing in this
moment. He's just like, oh, and doesn't
hadn't realized like this is this is the other part that
trans people and queer people and everybody like marginalized
people go through. So.
Yeah. Yeah, a lot more complicated
than he realizes. And I think Elle even says like
in this, in this last scene, it's not like the interviewer
was a bigot. She probably thinks she's an
ally. Yeah.
So yeah, like it's, it's just the whole ignorance thing.
That's true, but from sadness we go back to lustfulness.
Yes, with Nick and Charlie in the locker room and basically I,
they're both checking each other out right now because they're
getting changed and they don't even care about hiding anything
at this point. To me, the scene was more like
Charlie was just changing in front of Nick and was like, OK
with it. And then Nick was more checking
out Charlie in my mind. And like he did catch Charlie
looking at one point and like you get the huge smile over
Nick's face. Which photographic evidence that
Nick does like it when Charlie's peeping.
He likes it. Yeah, I do think it's
interesting. I might be totally reading into
this way too far, but it was an interesting choice in this scene
compared to the last scene where we see Charlie and just the
button up shirt. And in this scene, he doesn't
just put the polo on because that's kind of what I was
expecting is Oh well, since he's that confident now, maybe he'll
just put the polo on. But he actually puts the sweater
back on on top after he takes a moment to look at himself in the
mirror and has like that moment of.
What do I do? And then puts the sweater on.
So it's like either either I'm reading much way too far into
this entirely. You know, being the boy that he
is always cold. It's probably, I don't know, it
could be just a very chilly day because there are some other
boys on the pitch who do put on sweaters as well.
So he's not the only one. Again, I'm probably reading way
to it far into this. He could just be wanting an
extra layer because it's a chilly day.
But I was like, is he? Is he having a MO enough taking
a step back? Who knows?
I mean, it does. Change the minute of the day
too. Yeah, true.
Yeah, confidence can be fickle. But when they're heading outside
to the rugby field, Nick gets an overwhelming urge to kiss
Charlie. So that's what he does while
walking to the rugby field. And this, This is why Charlie is
playing rugby, for this reason alone.
And Nick then asked Charlie to stay over one night and then he.
Yes. Do you think your parents would
be OK with that? I know my mom would allow it
because yes, Nick, your mom, your mom is Olivia Coleman.
Duh. And we were robbed of the condom
scene in the car. I'm just I still want it.
I know. Yeah, that's one of those.
That's one of those things that he couldn't he couldn't do with
Haley Atwell because it wouldn't have.
Been had to be hers. Yeah, it has to be the mom in
that sense. So I I get why they didn't take
it, but it's like, leave me a call and please come back so we
can have it next season. Do it.
Over FaceTime, I know anything. I will take anything.
Just it has to be next season if it's if, if, if anything has to
be next season for some reason. But when Charlie gets home, and
probably as they're walking home from the bus, Tori bursts his
bubble and says there's no way Mom would allow it.
I mean, yes, yeah, she's not wrong.
And then Michael also speaks facts.
Oh my God. He says that there's no point in
their mom banning sleepovers because if Nick and Charlie want
to have sex, they're going to have sex.
And I would just like to first say I love you, Michael.
I love you and all of your lines.
You're the best. But second, yes, yes.
Because if you're determined to do something, you're gonna
figure it out. And that's literally what they
do in the show. I mean, you just.
Like, OK, And that's the same reality of like the parents were
like, I don't want my kids learning about sex in school.
And it's like your kid is going to do it either way.
Either they do it unsafely or they do it safely.
Like they're going to figure it out either way.
Like it's the same time. They're going to start reading
fan fiction and get wrong information.
That's what I mean. And then it's like, OK.
No, I can't. I said that I learned from it
too it. Could be the right information,
it depends on the fanfic. Don't think you're going to get
accurate sex advice. Oh my gosh, that that that tag.
The fact that there are some published books out there that
that have like that level of not correct information in the
stories, Yikes. Yes, Yikes indeed.
There's a whole another topic. That is the outside the scope of
this podcast. True, but good point.
But Charlie's like, well, if you guys don't have any good advice,
I'm gonna go upstairs. This is.
And Toy's like, my advice is to sneak out, which I love you,
Tori. I love you as well.
And Michael says my advice is that a sleepover is unnecessary
for the activity in question. And just the way that this line
is just said though, I, I just Michael's the best.
Michael is but if you. Yes, Michael.
But in this scene, you see Tori kind of leaning against the wall
and she kind of looks a little more relaxed in her home.
And it's just nice to see her be able to connect with someone
like she finally Michael and Tori.
Just even just friends, they're the best.
I love friendship. I need to see more.
We've been saying this, give it to me.
Speaking of thinking of giving things, I'm giving my big gay
energy award right now to Michael's line when Charlie's
leaving, which is good luck. Hope you get to have your sex
sleepover king Michael Holden every time that line the
enthusiasm with which it was delivered shouting it in the
middle of the spring. Hell also.
Everything about this they did not.
Check that if any parents were home, they did not got on a ride
home. If the cars weren't there, Nope,
they were just shouting this in the hallway.
I love it. Thank you, Michael.
I was going to say the mom, but I kind of want the dad to walk
in and he he'd be like and just walk out because that's what she
does. He doesn't do anything, he's
avoidance, but yes. No, he would have been like,
there's no hanky panky in this house.
And Mike will be like, you don't need to do it in this house.
Checkmate anyway. This is just Charlie's,
Charlie's facial expression as he's leaving.
He's like, yeah, thanks. OK.
She's like, you guys are weird, but they're right.
So he's just like, can you, can you please stop talking about my
brother having sex? Yeah, that's hilarious.
Charlie's like Tori, your friends weird by your.
Yeah, exactly. I was like.
You're he's really wonderful. You're not.
Boyfriend is weird. But he's right.
Alright.
Speaking of boyfriends. So we shoot on over to TA, who's
in his room by himself at hard work editing up a bunch of
footage of Elle that he has. When he decides to like, take
all this footage and create what he's titling.
L short film is what he names the the file.
And as mentioned previously, like TA would literally fight
the entire world for L. And truly his best weapon is his
cinematography skills and the power of romance.
So he's combining those two things to make a little project
for L, which is super sweet. And I love this scene of just
him by himself working on this because he's like smiling and
you can see how genuinely happy he is putting this together
because it's like his two major passions are converging.
It's like L and then movies, making movies, which he gets a
lot, you know, he seems and his element in and I also find it
incredibly sweet when we get the shot of him at his desk at the
computer, like working on this. Is that in the background?
It's the little sunflower that Elle got him and it's just like
it's right by his desk. So he's like it's just so cute.
It's like the equivalent of like having a photo of like you and
your significant other. Like he's just he's got the
little Elle reminder right there for like inspiration.
It's so cute. He has it on display like how is
the cutest. We love, we love a man who shows
off what is the gifts from his girlfriend.
Yes, sweet, we do. It's sweet.
I also love that Tao has upgraded from beanies to scarves
cuz he's a filmmaker now. Yes, Oh my God, it did give me
like pair of sophistication. I have an artiste.
France putting things together. Yeah, I got that vibe from him.
I love, I do love that. Yeah, but also just the the
continuous heart stopper theme of having any excuse to add
anything rainbow into this without being like over the top.
And in this, in this scene, it is the adorable keyboard the Tao
uses. It's got ramming keys on it,
which I'm like, where can I buy this?
It's really cute. It's so cute.
I do love that he has that. I'm like, you're not a gamer
Tao. So it's really interesting that
he has like this like gaming keyboard, but it's very cute.
Maybe he is a gamer, he just only ever plays Stardew Valley.
You know what? You know I would in the middle
of the night, can't sleep. That could be a whole different
conversation of which which which characters play starting
valley and who would they marry? That's a whole different video
that. 'D be a fun one though OK so
unfortunately we're going to leave Tao alone while he's being
super cute and working and we're going to shoot a number to Tara
taking Nick up on the offer to drive her to dance class and
during the car ride this is when they have their intimate
conversation and they talk about sex so Nick mentions that so
Tara's basically like listen she's like here's all the things
me and Darcy have done we wait for a house to be empty like all
these things she's like this is our strategy for like being
alone to have sex because you don't need a sleepover to have
sex like Michael said and then she meant as well sorry.
I said including school. I was just getting there.
And she's like, well, Nick also school exists.
And Nick is like the audacity of you to even do that.
Like the way he looked like, Oh my God, I can't believe you too.
But like, can't you though? Didn't they say they locked
themselves in like the music room, like the music closet one
time? So how else would you pass the
time? And like Tara's like low key
proud of herself, which I fucking love.
But Nick mentions he's like, I don't think this is going to
work for me and Charlie because we have a history of being
walked in on. Constantly.
So that was probably a bad idea school with our karma.
I don't think so. And then Tara gets more serious
about the conversation. He's like, well, you and Charlie
seem to have waited quite a while before you, like, even got
to the stage of, like, thinking about it or trying to plan for
it. And that's not a bad thing.
She says people should do things at their own pace, which really
is the advice of how do you know when you're ready?
It's like, everyone's ready at their own time.
Some people never want to do it. Look at Isaac.
Sometimes you're never ready or you just don't want to.
Or like, everyone's hearing is different.
So I like this advice she gives them.
Yeah, I like, I like that, she says.
There's a lot of pressure at our age to have sex.
And I think, and I think honestly like to her point, like
that's kind of the age when that pressure kind of starts.
And then it kind of just like doesn't end until you hit like a
certain, until you hit a certain age.
And like being being older where it's like, I think more
commonly, like when you're a teenager, there's the pressure
to have sex by your peers. Whereas when you're an adult,
the pressure to have sex is bought more by society,
especially like the in the more traditional, more misogynistic
mindset of like women who need to have children, but they
should be married first. Like the whole that whole
nonsense. But I feel like it's not talked
about enough in adult shows too. It's like there is that
pressure. And again, people should take it
at their own pace because I feel like once you're an adult,
people kind of just like forget that you are somebody with
emotions. And for some people, sex is
still scary when they're an adult.
And that's OK. So I don't know if I, I don't
know if any, but I can speak for anybody else on that.
But like, I've definitely been around that where it's like like
growing up as a person who's like more on the asexual
spectrum, but not like fully asexual, but like being around
people and just hearing all about it and like the
expectation of, well, you're, you're already 25.
So like this should be like how, how you function.
This should be your life now. It should be your relationships
now. It's like for you baby, that's
great. That's perfect.
Like teach their own, but that's not mine.
That's not my life. So so.
I've I've been I recently got told you're how old are you?
You're 27. How have you not been in a
relationship? I'm like thanks for the question
that I don't know how to answer. Yeah, I remember this is a
friend of mine. So this is, this is kind of a
different subject for like a friend of mine.
She physically like has an inability, like she has a health
thing. She cannot have kids physically
on her own. She can like through IVF and
stuff, but like it's a whole different thing.
And she went to the doctor and they asked her like, she's like,
she's my age. She's 2029.
And they asked her like what birth control she's on.
And she's like, I'm not on birth control.
And they're just like, first of all, they just assumed that she
was having sex because she's 29. And then they're just like,
well, you need to be on birth control.
She's like, I don't need birth control.
And they're just like, why are you Are you not having sex?
And she's like, well, no. But it was kind of wild that
their first assumption is like, what are you on?
It's like, I'm not, well, you should be because surely you're
having sex, right? It's like she's married.
So it's like it made sense. But like it was the immediate
assumption is what's kind of, I think people don't talk about it
enough. Like with adults, it's like
that's always the assumption is everybody wants it, everybody's
having it, everybody needs it now.
I don't know. Yeah, for something that's seen
as like forbidden in like this weird puritanical society we're
in, there's so much emphasis on it.
It's almost like when you make something illegal or like off
limits, people hyperfixate on it more than if you just treat it
as it's a biological thing that creatures do.
Get over it, right? Anyway, we are where we are.
OK? So they're talking about, yeah,
having sex, doing things at your own pace.
And Nick immediately pivots into Charlie because he's like, well,
you know, Charlie's been through a lot.
That's why we haven't, you know, done what we, you know, he
immediately is like Charlie. It's CCC.
But once again, Tara reminds Nick that, like, your feelings
matter to Nick because you have also been through a lot.
And I get where Nick is coming from because he saw secondhand
how bad things got for Charlie and how hard Charlie struggled
to get through his mental health crisis and all the things he was
dealing with. And Nick feels like his stress
in his life is nothing compared to what Charlie went through.
And Tara basically tells Nick, like, if you get fixated on the
struggle Olympics, then all you're going to do is be unhappy
because that was literally Tara's journey with Darcy.
And she's like, I've been through this with Darcy.
Like, don't fixate on that. Like, remember, you matter.
And I, I mentioned earlier, like Nick and Tara really did have a
lot of parallels through their journeys this this season, just
kind of in general, but really this season.
And therefore, like she is to Nick what Naomi and Felix are to
Elle in the prior scene when they were in The Art Room,
right? Like Elle was going through that
thing where she's like, Tao's not going to understand, even
though he's the one I want to talk to or I'm, I'm used to
confiding in. And her two like gender non
conforming trans friends are like, Hey, we understand.
We've been through similar things.
Like that's what Tara is to Nick in this scene.
She's like, I've been through this in my relationship.
Let me tell you, learn from my mistake.
Like if you put off, you know, dealing with your own emotions
and feelings and the struggles that you're going through, it's
only going to get worse. And like, look how it manifested
with Tara. All he did was 'cause her panic
attacks because she wasn't giving herself the space to like
deal with what she needed. Like she was trying to like
please everybody else. Darcy, the teachers who are
like, be a prefix, go to Oxford. Like you're trying to please all
these other people. But like, and then puts off how
she really like really reflecting on, well, do I want
this? How do I feel?
Do I want to be doing all these things like?
And so she's like trying to warn Nick.
She's like, hey, learn from my mistake.
Basically. Don't neglect yourself as her
parting advice, which is really important.
But the end of this conversation very sweetly pivots out of
shared experience territory when Nick asks Tara for sex advice.
And Tara very gently reminds Nick, I am a lesbian.
I don't think I can help you with dude sex.
And it's funny, but honestly, it's so very sweet that Nick
felt so comfortable to ask her for advice because like, it's
hard to talk about that, let alone like ask for like any kind
of sex advice. Like the fact that he said that
says a lot about their relationship that he even asked.
But it's it's very cute and funny.
OK, so then he drops her off at dance class and we have time
jump to Dara. Dara.
I combine their dance, Tara dancing and then Darcy shows up
and it's like, hey, girlfriend, I'm here to support you.
So Darcy took three buses to just come watch Tara dance
because, quote, you always look so happy when you're dancing.
And that's love, bitch. I'm just saying, and Darcy
acknowledges basically all the support that Tara has been
giving them after, you know, the mom incident and thanks Tara for
all of that. And thanks Tara for giving them
the courage to explore their gender expression, which was a
really personal vulnerable journey for Darcy to go through.
And like, having that support to like just do it meant the world
so. Also Darcy like just coming and
supporting their partner like they've always been so
supportive of Tara in in her dance.
We saw it in season 2 that little brief once.
It's like the flashback at Tara's recital.
So cute. Darcy has been there since day
one of their relationship and Tara's like dancing days like
they've they've always like said, you're amazing.
I'm so proud of you. Even if like I think they'd even
say in like season 2, they're like, even if you fall and ruin
the whole show, I'm still going to clap for you or whatever she
said or they say it was really sweet.
Like they've they've been Tara's number one supporter in dance
since day one. And I love that this is kind of
just like, like nodding back to that and coming full circle with
it. Because here they are at her
actual dance class. That's so true.
It's really, really cute. And another important thing in
this conversation is that Darcy comes out to Tara as non binary.
And I assume we from the conversation, basically Tara has
Tara. Darcy has come to this
conclusion earlier but hasn't really vocalized this to Tara
yet. And Darcy says it's because they
didn't they didn't quote bomb drop this information earlier
because Tara seems so stressed out and like Darcy didn't want
to like 'cause you know, Darcy's like this is a big deal and it
changes a lot of things and blah, blah, blah.
And like, I didn't want to like throw that on you.
And Tara's response is utter perfection where Tara says it's
not a big deal unless you want it to be.
It's just you. It's just me and you.
So similar to like Tao, where Tao's like being trans is part
of who you are. Alan, I just love you.
I don't see those separate things.
Same thing with the Tara. She's like you're just you.
It's not a big deal unless you really want this to be a big
deal, unless it's some big life changing thing that really means
a lot to you. Like I will treat it that way.
But like it's just you being you.
Like I don't see the big deal. Like you're still Darcy.
Yeah, I imagine it probably doesn't feel like a big.
It probably doesn't feel like a bomb drop to Tara necessarily,
because Tara's like Tara has witnessed Darcy go through this
transition, Darcy exploring their identity.
Tara's Tara has seen it through the whole thing.
And I think for Darcy, it feels like a bomb drop because this is
probably the first time they've said it out loud.
So it's probably like a big, it's A, and it is obviously a,
it's a very big deal to them, but it also feels like it's the
first time that they're really obviously coming out about it.
And so for them it probably feels like a big bomb drop.
Whereas Tara just kind of like, not probably not surprised, but
like very, very proud that they are proud to say it so.
Yeah. And then quick shout out to, of
course, the crew and the lighting department, because
when they're sitting on the bench in the studio, the colors
on the window panes are the trans flag colors.
So yay for the scene. That's really cool.
I didn't notice that. I also did not catch that
either, which I think you even mentioned in episode 2 or three.
It was when Darcy comes in wearing trousers and it was the
non binary study. Yeah, the non binary flag in the
windows. It's like it's Darcy's thing.
It's Darcy's theme. Darcy brings the colors of the
rainbow, is what I'm what we're saying.
Oh, yeah, yeah. Also just want to on, on top of
that appreciation, I want to just point out the fact that I
don't see a single mirror in the studio, which I, I found so
refreshing to see because that's kind of like that's like a
common design in a dance studio is there's mirrors everywhere so
you can see yourself, so you can see the teacher, so the teacher
can see the students. That's I think the biggest thing
is like so the teacher can see the students while they're still
demonstrating, but. Also so the students can see
their lines. Yeah, exactly.
So, but I kind of appreciate that.
It kind of adds to the whole this this, this class is purely
for fun. It's for enjoyment.
And Tara is not under pressure to be perfect in this class
because she can't even look at her own reflection.
So it doesn't even matter how good she's been, how good she's
being. So I appreciate, I, I thought
found that very refreshing and it's very, very nice to see,
honestly. Yeah, it's a really, really good
point. Thank you for pointing that out,
which, yeah, everybody needs a break from their their stuff.
And like you put it so perfectly, it's a she's not.
There's no pressure to be perfect in this in her dance
studio, which that's what she needs.
Yeah, yeah. And then we move on to kind of a
nice, a nice scene. Charlie and his mom are making
dinner and they they're prepping something off of Charlie's meal
plan, we assume, just given the booklet that we're looking at.
And the, the only thing we really get to see is that
there's carrots, broccoli and potatoes that they make.
So we're not really I I don't want to know what they were
making because sounds delicious, whatever it was.
But this, this little transition scene where they're talking
through it, they're prepping the dinner.
It feels very heavily ad libbed slash improv improvised.
It's kind of just the energy I'm getting.
But even if it wasn't still very well done.
But I got to say, I love that Alice, and in this season,
Alice, Andy and the whole team, they have such a trust in their
actors to just kind of let them loose in these settings and just
say like, be your characters do thing.
I don't care how you do it, just do it.
They just let them freely be their characters in these little
moments. And it kind of adds like just
this fresh, like this fresh take on this kind of moment.
And I really love if they have like that kind of faith in their
actors. So like there's that trust there
that they know that they're going to get the job done and
they're going to do it well. So I really love that.
Yeah, I definitely felt like a very natural scene and it was
just nice to see them smiling together and like, working
together without, like, it blowing up.
I mean, we'll get there later. But like, them making the food,
it seems like they've come a long way.
Like with the food topic, you know what I mean?
To be able to like do this and make an entire meal and eat
without any issues. And I don't know if that's like
because they have purely gone on the journey and got to a good
place or because Charlie had ulterior motives in this scene
to like put mom in a good mood. I I think it's both, yeah.
I think it's, it's a combination of the both.
Because in the comics that is what it is too.
Like he's purposely getting his mom in a good mood.
But yeah, so I, I'm also curious just in these shots, I, I
counted and I might be under counting, but I counted at least
six. There's at least six cacti on
that window sill. Oh.
My God, yes. Who is obsessed with cacti?
I don't know. Harley has a cacti, a cactus.
I think one, at least one in his room too.
So somebody is super obsessed with cacti in this house.
I don't know if it's Charlie or if it's a family thing, but
yeah, there's so many on this window so.
My theory is there. The mom, yeah, my theory was it
was the mom, but I'm just like, I didn't think about that.
But yeah, Charlie has one in his room, so I'm like.
Maybe it's Dad's secret obsession because he's quiet.
I feel like growing plants would be something he'd be into.
Julio Cato. Dad gives that as gifts to for
every occasion. Actress and Tori's like, what am
I going to do with this? So she gave it to Charlie.
Oh my gosh, they're they're going to be a.
Whole a whole thing. No, all the ones in the kitchen
are Tori's because she's like, I don't.
Want that to. Put it in the kitchen.
That's so funny. You're better off here, buddy.
Yeah, just like where are there 6?
There's six of them. And then there's like all the
other plans and everything. So I'm like, well, somebody
likes decorating. Now I have to go back and look
at the other seasons and be like where all these plants are
already here because I just now noticed all these plants.
I'm pretty. Confident they were, but yeah
I'd have to rewatch too. Yeah, also just a little cute
thing. I you hear Charlie at some point
he's holding like a jar of something that says is this
Rosemary? And it makes Jane laugh, and
it's really cute. I take it that jar wasn't
labeled and that's why he had to ask.
Is this Rosemary? We all know that.
Next, the cook in their relationship.
So it's fine. Yes, Yes.
Yeah. The the family cleans up after
dinner, after the scene. And this is when Charlie thinks,
OK, she's in a good mood, so I'm going to ask about having the
sleepover with my boyfriend. And her answer simply at first
is, well, yes, at some point, which is a very honestly and by
by that was a very reasonable answer.
She wasn't saying no, but she wasn't saying like, yeah, you
can do it right now. Absolutely.
And I really feel for her in the seat because like she like she
knows like her reasoning for not right now.
Like at some point she says like you do have your exams coming
up, which exams can be very stressful naturally.
Like that's a very understandable thing.
And Charlie can get very stressed out with schoolwork
just like any other teenager. Whereas Charlie on the other
hand, takes this As for saying no because he's he's mentally
ill, which I get, I get it from both sides.
That's kind of where CC has felt like she's been walking on egg
shells with him this whole time, which is still something that
they're they're both healing from in their in their
relationship as mother and son. But that's also where this
family still has a lot of room to grow in their communication
for sure. But also, Tori comes over and
chimes in and she asks what Mom is so worried about, which I can
imagine Jane in her mind probably feels very cornered by
that and that she's losing control of the situation.
She probably, she kind of feels like her kids are ganging up on
her a little bit, probably in that moment.
So yeah. Probably.
I mean, I again, I don't, I don't think she's in the wrong
in this conversation at all because again, Charlie's a minor
like, you know, and like he's asking to sleep over at his
boyfriend's house and like she points out, she's like, you have
exams coming up and stuff. And I'm just like, I'm worried
about this, like the time. I'm not saying no, never.
I'm just saying the timing. Can we please revisit this after
your big exams are over? Like because like she knows what
he's asking. He's like, what you're asking is
a big deal. And like, can you, can we meet?
Can you meet me halfway? And he just blows up on her.
And it's like, is she wrong? She's your mom?
Like, she's not being malicious and dismissive in this.
She's trying to talk to Charlie, and he just blows up on her.
So I, like, feel very bad for Jane in this situation.
And like, yeah, you can definitely read it as, like,
Tori's trying to support Charlie, but she's like, Jane
could easily feel like, OK, why are you ganging up on me?
I'm not being unreasonable in this conversation.
Yeah, I have to wonder if part of that's like she's It reminds
of her parents, too. Yeah, she feels triggered to me
in this scene, especially the end where like they go by the
door and like the dad's there and he's like, are you OK?
I feel like she's triggered in this conversation as well.
And like she's fighting her getting triggered with trying to
communicate with Charlie. And it's like, Mom is the evil
one in Charlie's eyes always. And it's like.
Yeah, I think, I think part of it could like on Charlie's side,
it could stem from like we had this happen last year where?
Literally. Last year when she told him you
can't hang out with your boyfriend because you need to
get your schoolwork done, you're behind which at the time also
she wasn't wrong he was behind in school work he needed to get
wrong. But obviously, like, it was she
was taking a lot of extremes with like, you cannot see your
boyfriend ever, which it did seem like it was a lot at the
time. But again, she wasn't wrong.
He was behind in school. So I think maybe that's part of
where he's thinking like, God, we're just having a repeat of
what happened last year. You're going to try to keep me
from my boyfriend. It's kind of where his mind is.
But it is it is kind of heartbreaking because you can
kind of see when he storms out. Like you can just see, like
there she is trying not to cry because she's getting very
emotional. And I, I got like weirdly choked
up from the moment that, that the dad that Julia comes over
and he says, are you OK? Because I just like, I don't
know, I got into like this, this lot of like, first of all, it's
kind of a shame that we I get why we don't see it, but it is
kind of a shame that we don't see the flashbacks that were in
the comics of Jane with her mom and how her mom was her mom was
very abusive when she was a kid. And that's part of what Jane is
trying to not be. But it also helps us understand
that this is the person that Jane grew into and it's part of
how that happened. But I get like why for the
second story, why we didn't see it because like, obviously this
isn't her story. It's a lot easier to tell it in
the comic form, all that stuff. But also just.
Got a baby for root for three seconds.
We could have gotten that. That is true.
That's fair. Maybe next season.
Maybe next season we get a Baby Jane.
That'd be great. But yeah, I do.
I do understand why we didn't cut away, yeah, or anything.
I think so it was, it was, it got me emotional seeing him come
up to her and ask if she's OK. And I think just because like,
I, so I've read like the story of how those two met and like
how they fell in love and everything like, and it's a
really, it's a really sweet story that Alice wrote about
them. But also knowing that probably
over time, over the course of their marriage, he has learned
more and more about her past and probably has witnessed a lot of
it first hand, like at the beginning of their marriage,
like with having to deal with the in laws and becoming,
becoming the in law and everything.
Like he probably, he's probably had some of that experience
first hand. So he he's probably the only
person that really understands his wife.
Especially in this household because, like, the kids have no
idea. Then they treat mom like they
have no idea. Like what she's been through us
for real. Yeah, because.
You probably didn't tell them anything about it.
I mean, they could, yeah, You can kind of see it when the
mom's over, but they have their own shit going on.
Yeah, they don't really see it from your mom kind of treats you
like shit. They kind of see it as like
grandma's treating me like shit. It's like the thing when you're
a teenager, like the world still revolves around you, so you
don't see your parents as people yet.
Like perhaps when they get out of the house and like in 10
years and they'll be like, OK, mom, what the hell?
Like they'll see mom as a human being and then maybe this
relationship will change. But like, right now they're
kids. They don't see mom and dad as
people. They're just like someone who
looks out for me or somebody who's in my way when I want
something. And it's like, cuz again,
Charlie's motivation is me, me, me, me, me, me.
He's not thinking about mom, he's thinking about me.
And so and which is a very, you know, adolescent mindset.
Like that's how your world operates.
It's I want this, you're in the way kind of thing.
So OK, so over to the next scene with Tao and Elle.
Tao has set up a whole movie, Protection Protection projection
to show Elle the film he made her.
And before they start watching it, he explains that he knows
that she's been feeling uninspired by her art lately,
which we've already said. It's very, very sad.
And he goes on to explain to her that it reminded him of when he
cheered Charlie up with the film that he made while Charlie was
in treatment. And this whole thing is just
really cute because you see the passion behind his art and like,
this is him getting lost in his art form.
And it shows how similar L and Tao really are.
It may be two medium, two different mediums, but they both
have a love of art. And we saw that in Season 2 at
the Art Museum that they went to alone.
But Tao says, it was the first time that I felt like I could
create something that put joy into the world.
And that's probably how L felt about her art too, until the
world had to mess it up for her. So there's just a lot going on
and I just, I do love that they can bond over this and how
passionate Tao is about making this film to hopefully have
Elsie herself in a different light.
Also, the fact that tell Tao set has a tell that Tao set all of
this up in Elle's bedroom. This is in Elle's room that this
is all happening. So it's like he had to basically
have her leave the room and have her be like in the rest of the
house while he's setting this up and then bring her back in,
which I thought was really sweet.
It's so cute. He's like.
Again, Tao would do anything for Elle.
It's so cute and I, what I love about this movie is that cause
again, what where we started Elle's journey in this episode.
So it's her looking at her own portrait and being and having a
bunch of self doubt because of the event that happened at the
recording studio for the podcast.
And then here's Tao basically showing Elle like, is this a
self-portrait in video format? And he's like, this is how I see
you. This is how we all see you
because the self-portrait is how Elle sees herself and this is
she's like, this is how other people see you that aren't this
like homophobic, weird person that was asking you really
weird, inappropriate questions. And I think to her, it's
reassuring that while Tao can't doesn't know what it's like to
walk in her shoes, he, you know, despite the differences he does
on there is understanding and love there despite their life
experiences not being 100% the same or like him not being able
to like truly step by step understand her true experience
being trans and having these weird interactions with people
because, you know, they're fixated on that part of her, not
her as a whole. So I do like the way this kind
of restores her faith in in herself by seeing this other
form of a self-portrait, basically.
That's a good point, and it's not just how he sees her, it's
showing that he does see her. For her.
And not an object like she was treated.
So he's just. Trying to repair all of that for
her. Yeah.
Because like, if you look at it, it's not her being.
It's not like her being. It's her just living her life.
Like, there's parts of her doing art.
There's parts of her just having fun with her friends, supporting
her friends. Like just existing at a party.
It's just like you take up space in the world everywhere, just
not in this little box of you're a trans person and a political
pawn. So I like that.
That and then like it's very easy to like not for for any
person to not realize just like to see this how they're special
to see how they're beautiful because they just they see
themselves and they, they don't see themselves the way that
everybody else sees them because it's been possible to because
the only perspective you have is from inside your own head and
from the mirror, which mirror mirror can't tell you anything
really compared to what other people see from the outside
perspective. And it's, it's hard to think
that you're special. It's hard to think that you're
unique or that you're beautiful because you see yourself in the
mirror every single day of your life.
You live with yourself in the bad times and the good times
when you have the dark thoughts, when you have anything, you live
with that part of yourself every single second of every day.
And so that's, that's where like I put this on here when when Tao
says that's how I see you, I was like, OK, I guess I'm just going
to keep crying. It's fine.
It's so sweet because it's like, yeah, like it's.
Impossible for her to see herself as that, I mean given
just because that's the natural human thing, but also because of
what she's just experienced. And Tao has to remind her, like,
this is what you look like from my perspective, and This is why
I love you. Why I adore you is because I see
this and I see this. This is simply you existing and
it's beautiful. Best.
Partner ever award goes to Tau. Let's just leave it at that.
Maybe he's so sweet. She's like I, I always thought
you wouldn't get it. And he's like, but I'll try and
I'm like, I'll try. Exactly.
Yeah. Exactly.
And trying is all you can ask for.
I know. Yeah, because not everybody will
do that. Next we shoot on over to Nick,
who is in his room taking some me time to look into
universities because this is something he's been kind of
putting off like researching rather than just being like this
one next to Charlie. So it's pretty clear from like
the websites alone which one Nick feels more affinity towards
because the Leeds website is colorful and it's got a rugby
page. And if you look at which is
Nick's interest and if you look at the photo like it's a very
dynamic, natural looking photo, it's almost like somebody took a
picture of people at Leeds actually playing rugby.
Compared to the Kent website, the website, first of all, it's
black and white. All the, all the tabs he goes
through multiple tabs, they're all black and white.
And then the people in it look like Adobe be stock photos.
Like it's like actors who are posing and they're not really
at. There's nothing defining about
the College in the background. It's just like people in a room
smiling at each other. Like everything just seems
really dull and generic. And so it's like not speaking to
Nick on a personal level where like by web design alone, you
can see where Nick's headspace actually is.
It looks like it should be a tutoring center.
Right. It's like there's nothing like
defining about leads in the photo from the description.
It's very just like, come here to get an education.
Yeah. Like to your point, I like, I
like that they like put it like the photos themselves.
They don't have any color in them and it looks very it does
look very like stock photo lead to your point.
And I like that it's it does show like it's a university.
It's probably it's probably a solid college.
It's probably a great university, but in this scene we
see this is not going to be the place for Nick because we are
seeing it from Nick's perspective.
And I like that that is the the choice, the artistic choice they
made to say like, it's probably a great university because like
in the photos, people are smiling.
They look like they're very determined to have a good
education, whatever It seems like it could be a good
university, but it's not, It's not Nick's vibe.
And that's kind of that's how colleges are.
It's a college can be great, but it might not be for you.
So, yeah, exactly. This is not a kind of like to
your point, this is not a comment on either of these
schools. This is how Nick feels.
And like you said, this set, you know, whatever intern put this
together for the show is showing you this one is speaking to Nick
and this one isn't. That's all it's saying.
And so Nick is frustrated by this, and he talks to the
computer, grabs his phone and goes to his happy place, which
is Charlie's Instagram or photos of Aunt Charlie just in his
phone. Why?
Because Charlie is the reason he's considering Kent.
Like the school that's not speaking to him on a personal
level. The motivation there is it is
physically close to Charlie. And he's like, while he's
looking at the photos of Charlie, it's like he's trying
to convince himself that this motivation is all he needs.
But you can see that like he tries to smile, but he can't
hold the smile. So it's really clear, like from
this little scene with Nick not speaking that like leads us the
university that fits him, her like him alone the best.
It's the best fit for him. But choosing himself in this
scenario would mean not choosing Charlie.
I think this is how he's thinking about it.
And again, university, like there's a, there's a many
factors that go into choosing, you know, schools, secondary
schools, jobs and like your personal fit is part of the
equation. But like family could be
another. Like if you're a caregiver, like
you have location might just be a big factor.
Money might be a big factor. I'm just engineering in general,
not talking about next circumstance, but part of the
decision is figuring out which factors do you prioritize when
you're coming up with your narrowing down your list of
schools to think what fits best for you.
And yes, Charlie is a part of the equation, but making Charlie
the whole equation will potentially make, you know, make
Nick miserable in the long run because he might pick a school
that's not the best fit. So like in this scene, Nick's
trying to figure out, do I decenter Charlie from this and
like put my other wants and needs into the equation versus
making Charlie the equation. And I think part of that is that
Nick is scared of what will happen to Charlie because every
scene we've seen in this episode, whenever Nick is asked
a question, the first response is Charlie this, Charlie that,
Charlie this, Charlie that. So I think his brain first goes
to, well, how's Charlie going to react to this?
Will he relapse? And is it going to be my fault?
Then how do I get to him? What if he ends up back in a
rehab? Like I feel like his brain goes
down that road first because in his brain he's centering Charlie
and he doesn't know how to like decenter and if that's OK for
him to do because like he's still in the struggle Olympics
where he's like, Charlie has it worse than me.
Is it really so bad if I'm not 100% happy?
Like he's starting to spiral, which understandable, right?
And as Nick's full on panicking, Charlie shows up unannounced and
he vents to Nick about what happened with mom and is saying
I wish everyone stop walking on egg shells around me.
And ironically, this is what Nick is actually doing by not
being super honest about wanting to go to Leeds or like not
wanting to go to Kent, rather by entertaining the idea of another
school because he probably told Charlie, this is what I'm going
to do. And I was like, great, you're
not leaving me. Great.
And then now Nick's thinking about leaving and he's like, I'm
not. He's not telling Charlie because
he's worried about his reaction, that which is walking on egg
shells. Run Charlie.
But like, I don't think Nick is conscious of that's what he's
doing. He's just like I was spiraling.
So in this conversation, Nick admits that he thinks Charlie is
the strong and self assured one in their relationship and that
he thinks he's the fragile one. Because we've been saying this
and we all can see this. Like Nick and Charlie do have a
codependent relationship, but here Nick feels like he doesn't
know who he is without Charlie. And like, we've seen him go on
this journey since season 1 to now where like he became, and he
says it in this conversation, he became more aware of himself,
parts of himself that he, you know, he'd never thought of or
like, never acknowledged and probably was a safe space for
him to like, explore who he is. So I think what he's starting to
realize as well is that while he's afraid of like what will
happen to Charlie if he leaves, Nick is more afraid of like what
who am I without Charlie? I don't even know who that is.
And he remembers who he was before Charlie.
He's like, I was a superficial person.
Like I was barely. I was AI performed.
I like hung out with people and I said stuff, but it was never
deep. It was never me like my true
self talking to them. So I think he's like, how do I
go into a brand new environment and quote, be me without
Charlie. I'm only me with you know what I
mean? I think he's like having a
little bit of a cry, a personal crisis about this, like who am
I, which is normal at this stage of life.
So like, this is all normal stuff for him to be thinking
about because really like Nick and Charlie are best friends.
Like really, if you look examine their relationship, at least
from like Nick's point of view, he's like, Charlie is my best
friend basically. And you know, Charlie's been
that safe space for him to like express himself.
And I think Nick is terrified of losing that, especially going
into a brand new environment with brand new people.
Like that can be scary. I mean, Charlie's the first
person to actually see him because you see the rugby lads
in the beginning of the show. It the relationship's very
superficial this is and the whole friend group really.
This is the first time people see him.
Like before that, it's just he at least he had Love you
Coleman, but he had David and then the rugby lads and just.
A lot of. Toxicity, do you?
I forgot they are. Really.
So yeah, they did. It developed as he and and
Charlie's relationship developed.
Those kind of happened at the same time because yeah, but
Tara's been a good friend now. But yeah.
Yeah, and then like, but. Before all of it, yeah, Yeah.
They get into like the conversation where Nick openly
like says he feels kind of lost without Charlie.
And I think it's it's fair and it's perfectly OK for him to say
like Charlie coming into his life is one of the best things
ever happened to him. It's perfectly fair to say
because it really was, because it opened up this whole new
world of who he was to him. And obviously, like he probably
would have, he would have gotten there eventually without
Charlie, probably. But Charlie walking into his
life and making him fall in love, making him find this part
of himself by realizing he had feelings for Charlie that he
never felt for a boy before, definitely opened up this whole
new world to him. And definitely and and in the
long run brought him this group of friends that he had never
experienced before, as far as we understand.
And Charlie just being the forever supportive partner who
loves him and supports him and everything.
So I think that's definitely it's fair enough to say that
Nick doesn't want to lose that Nick or Charlie being one of the
best things in his life. Like, and, and the whole idea
that he's going to lose him when he goes off to school.
It's it's that fear of like, you know, like we, we know as
adults, like you can make it work.
Like you leaving and the Talanelle went through this.
It's like you leaving doesn't mean we're going to stop being
together. You being gone doesn't mean it's
forever. And I think that is the thing
that it's hard to understand as a teenager is it's it's not
forever. It doesn't have to be forever.
It is temporary and you have to make it work, but it's not
forever. Long distance doesn't have to
be. But the thing I do appreciate is
when Nick tries to kind of backtrack and he goes, Oh, it's
just it's stupid. Charlie says no, what did what
do you what do you mean? And this is the thing that I
have forever loved about their relationship is that they, they
always hear each other out. Like when one of them is feeling
certain things, they're upset, they're stressed or just having
any kind of strong feelings, the other person like gives them
that space to open up. And even when they try to say
like it's stupid or it doesn't make sense or it doesn't matter,
they're like, no, no, no, I'm listening.
What is it? It's not stupid.
Whatever you're feeling, I'm listening.
So I always, that's one of my favorite things about them.
And that's part of where that communication always comes from
with them is just like, no, it doesn't matter.
Even if it is stupid. Tell me.
I want to hear it so. Yeah, yeah, they're just,
they're naked Charlie. Yeah.
So I like the because again, like this goes back to like the
Tara and Nick stuff at the beginning.
Like Nick is the strong person. He's not used to, like accepting
help. So it takes Charlie pushing to
be like, no, seriously. Like tell me for him to like
accept the help that Charlie's offering by like being the one
to comfort him. Same thing with Tara.
Tara, it's kind of the same with Nick in the beginning.
So again, they're parallels with families do the whole time.
So yeah, I like to think it to this part because why is Charlie
here? Charlie came here to vent about
his problems and he's like, oh, wait, Nick is going through
something. Let's focus on it because Nick,
your feelings matter too. So I'm glad that Charlie
validated that for him because I feel like he's been bottling it
up. I think him going away to
college or university would actually be good for him to to
explore life in general more because like when he's with
Charlie, it's all in on the relationship.
So I think maybe for both of them, yeah, it'll be hard.
We see that with Tao and L, right?
Well Tao, right now Tao is a lovesick puppy when L is away,
but it would really let them explore themselves as people
more. Yeah, for sure.
All right, so Charlie comforts Nick, and then we transition
into Nick and Charlie's first time together.
Yeah, and right when they start kissing another another nod to
the music. Here we go with Part 2 of Nick
and Charlie's kiss theme. Right as they start kissing the
Part 2 of the theme song from season 1 that when they have
their first kiss comes back in, it is now in a higher key and
it's a faster tempo and it's helping demonstrate the how much
more intense. Cuz in in season 1 it's a very
slow. It's very like there's some
tone, like some vamping in the background, some like chords
that come in that there there's a background melody that's kind
of in a lower range. I don't know if I'd consider in
the bass Clef cuz it's not quite that low, but it's like a
background melody that plays along with the the main melody
and we get to that part. And then when it actually gets
to their first kiss, the tempo doesn't speed up but it does
kind of start to crescendo. The music gets a little bit
higher and notes, but in this scene it does, it goes, it goes
even higher and it goes faster. Kind of just demonstrating this
is a much more intense kiss. This isn't just some sweet
tender, this is intense. There's a lot of emotion going
on behind this. There's a lot of feelings going
on. There's a lot of passion going
on behind this scene. So I just love how this this
show is just so exceptional in how it's able to show
progression of time and relationships just by the music
by itself. So yes, yes, it's what they
deserve. Also.
It's what they deserve. OK.
So yeah, I like, I like that all that you're saying about the
music. And it kind of adds to the fact
that this is like a spontaneous, heightened, emotional,
passionate kind of moment that just kind of ignites and sparks
and goes. So like the music does kind of
support that or adds to it. And something that I like during
this scene with the two of them is that Charlie, it removes his
card again, but it keeps his shirt on.
So I like that he again, it's demonstrating that he's more
comfortable being more like physically exposed around Nick.
He's not 100% there. And that's totally fine.
It's, it's back to the the lesson of like, do things at
your own pace. And Charlie is doing things at
his own pace and what he is comfortable with.
So I appreciate that detail in this scene because that's
important for Charlie and where he's at with his body dysmorphia
and being vulnerable in that way around Nick.
I do like that during this whole thing, they both check in with
each other, like, are you OK with this?
That kind of stuff. They do keep communicating,
which is really good. And overall, like they're just
smiling and giggling and having fun just figuring things out
together, which is like how this should be.
So I like that they're first time together is like really
what it should be. It's just them doing what
they're comfortable with, doing it together.
Like in all in like the physical and emotional way because those
things can be intertwined for people.
Like they're those type of people where the physicality and
the emotionalness of sex goes together.
It's not the case for everybody, but it is for them.
And I like that they're expressing this, you know, the
way that feels right for them. And that's, that's what's
important. So, like, good job, Nick and
Charlie, you did it. This was really gay.
Good job. Yay.
Way to be gay. It was very gay, I was.
So gay, love it. And again, props to Heart
Stopper. They didn't immediately know
what to do like the American shows.
Exactly. Well done.
This is for the target. This is perfect for the target
audience. We love it.
So that wraps up three O 7. I gave out my big gay energy
award. How about you guys?
I was thinking about it and I was going to go with Michael and
no, that's what the aura just did.
So mine is for Darcy showing up to.
Dang it, you stole mine, No 1. Can go with baby Farooq that was
also good. Oh shit, I'm like what?
What do we do here? OK.
You can still say. I mean, I could say.
Sorry, I'll say I'll say big gay energy to Nick for trying to
flirt awkwardly over text. Oh.
My God, that was good. Yeah.
Charlie shouldn't use a cucumber for condoms.
And Charlie's immediate response?
Just gay. OK, yeah, that conversation.
That whole conversation, big energy.
In school with Tao looking over Charlie's shoulder.
Oh, that never. Went Oh no, I've been outed.
Honorary big gay energy to them communicating during everything
and like consenting. Throughout exactly.
I mean, if Mr. Wings don't do it then it might as well have hard
stopper itself do it. Exactly.
So if you made it this far in this episode, we want to know.
Use this today. It's going to be a word in a
comment or review on whatever platform you can.
Today's word is crescendo because I was trying to figure
out something and Elena kept saying the word crescendo.
So that's where it came from. Perfect.
Love to see it nod to the music that Elena's like, no, the
music, everyone. It's like you're right.
So looking forward to seeing that in some comments.
And so that concludes the ultimate episode.
We'll be back next time for the Season 3 finale.
And until next time, hydrate for lesbian Jesus.
And get up all over the place. Bye.
And with that, we've been big gay energy.
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