Hello and welcome to Big GAY Energy.
I'm Caitlin, and I'm Fiora. 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, Fiora? Today we are continuing our
scene by scene breakdown of Heart Stoppers Season 3.
And today we'll be recapping episode 4 journey.
And boy, is it a journey aptly named.
Well done, everyone. It is a long journey emotionally
and everything else so much. It's a roller coaster if it is.
And today we once again have Elena joining us.
We cannot do anything related to heart stop without her.
We cannot. Happy to be here.
We're very glad that you're back.
We're so glad you're well. Thank you guys so much for
having me back all the time. It is.
Literally our pleasure I hope show Elena love in the comments
everyone if you're. No, no, don't give me a complex.
No, no. The biggest complex.
Only if Ringo does make an appearance this time, we'll see.
We will see Ringo the cat may or may not join us also.
Yeah, I hope so. Spoiler maybe.
Let's get into it. OK.
So we start with.
No way. Always a great time when we
start with Nelly. I mean, yes, Nick's there too.
I know. I love he's there.
He's there. I think.
Yeah. All right.
Oh, my gosh. I love the this the placement of
where we start in this episode. First of all, like we start
technically at the end of the journey in the story, OK, which
like the whole arc that happens for the episode, which is where
we go into Nick's house and find out that two months have passed
since whatever. And I love that this is how we
know like from the very beginning of the story,
everything's going to be OK Charlie's going to be OK.
So we're able to go on this ride of the story with this, this
sense of hope, like from the get go, Like we don't have any of
that anxiety, which is such a heart stopper fashion.
That's like there's no anxiety of like what's going to happen?
Is everything going to be OK? Are they going to stay together
or whatever? Like we know from the get go,
everything's going to be OK. So and we could take with them.
Agreed. Because you could, we could have
been like, oh, how long is he going to stay in there?
Something bad going to happen. But they're like, no, just just
live in it. Don't worry about the future.
Come on the journey if you will. Yeah, I love, I love the way
that Heart Stopper does this, where it's like in some ways,
like we know what's going to happen, but we love getting to
see the execution of how it unfolds.
And I love that so much with this show.
I love, I love stories that do that.
It's like how, OK, we know that they end up together, or we know
that this person like this happens to them, but how, how
does all of this, how all of the dots connect?
So I love how Heartstopper does this.
Well done Alice. She's AI mean.
Alice is a genius. We cannot state that enough.
Hydrate for Alice, you damn genius.
Yeah, well done to Alice and the whole the whole team for
executing this so literally, so beautifully.
OK, so as you mentioned, two months have passed and now Nick
is talking to Tara on the phone about Charlie coming home,
everything that's going on. And Tara is continuing to try to
get Nick to start journaling, but he insists that he isn't a
journal person, which I think is fair.
Not everybody is a journal person.
But maybe he could look into an alternative that would still
allow him to process his emotions like Tara is telling
him to do. So I've come up with some
options for him because of course I did.
So option 1, he could be talking to Nelly.
Just keep talking like you don't know what's going to come out.
You just start talking as I do this to my dog sometimes.
Nick does do that. We do get glimpses of Nick just
talking and talking it out with Nelly.
It's helpful. It is.
Because they just, they just want to be there for you.
Nelly. He's a great listener.
He could also write letters to his future self.
Because technically this is journaling.
But it's tricking. Him into thinking it's just a
letter, it's not journaling. Or if he could do some creative
writing, write some short stories, songs, just however
whatever his thought process is that day.
And lastly, he could also just already be channeling his
emotions through playing rugby. But we do see him try to start
journaling. Yeah, we do get the we do
transition into a journaling narrative.
Like the way this episode is told is incredibly creative.
It's like a creative writing project.
The way it's structured and the way it like it.
Oh, it's so good. I love it so much.
But before we get to that, that's a I'll talk about that
later. First of all, I want to mention
how much I love Tara and Nick's friendship.
I love that they just became really good confidants for each
other because they're both really stressed out by very
different things that are impacting their lives.
And I love that they are there for each other and are able to
talk to each other in healthy ways all the time.
Like, I do love the way they communicate and especially in
this scene, I love that Tara is here trying to convince him to
journal as a way to process emotions while she's sitting in
front of her Taylor Swift folklore poster.
Because that's literally what the album folklore is.
It's processing your emotions through storytelling.
Like you just said, Caitlyn. So I do love that little like,
hey, Tara, I I wanna see Tara go to a Taylor Swift concert like
she's filming or like towel's there as the videographer and
just seeing like that experience.
Could you imagine Darcy at at the era store like Darcy would
so many friendship bracelets at the end of that.
That's so true. Darcy would be would make so
many leading up. Tara would make sure that they
have enough beads, first of all, and start freaking up.
Yeah, making them and start freaking out when they start not
having enough A's and E's. You know, same thing that
happened to us. And then Darcy would just be,
like, throwing them at everybody like Mardi Gras.
Yeah. It's like, you can't be
friendship bracelet. You get a friendship bracelet
anyway. But something that Tara just
quickly glosses over in this conversation is the fact that
she says that if she didn't journal every day, she would
have a breakdown. And I just, it's such a simple
line and she says it humorously. So you don't, I feel like people
may not take it seriously, but this poor girl is suffering in
silence to the point where she can only process and talk about
what she's actually feeling to a journal that she doesn't have
anyone she can process that with.
And since Darcy has their own journey going on their own,
yeah, I think that makes sense. Tara is giving them space, but
it's at the detriment of herself.
Like, I understand why she doesn't want to confide in
Darcy, but at the same time she she needs someone and she just
doesn't want to put any more added stress on Darcy or really
anyone. I she's also another one who
doesn't like to be a burden. Well, if you look at Nick and
and Tara, the reason I like them as friends so much is because I
think they both have that I'm the strong one in the friend
group thing in common. And so like what I like about
Nick's journey in particular that we're about to go on when
he's giving his point of view of being Charlie's partner through
this really difficult time. Same kind of thing can be said
of Tara, but like they're Tara and Doris, you're not the focus
of the show. Is that what what happens, what
happens to the supportive partner when the other partner
is going through something difficult or life altering,
especially when that partner is the one that has to be the
strong one all the time? Like it goes to show that like
people who are cast as the quote, strong person also need
people to lean on and also need support too.
And it's just for somebody like Nick, who's always in that role,
like that person's like, I usually adopt that role.
Like for me, like, I know I'm not used to that because you're
used to being the strong person all the time.
So like, to have to lean on other people is challenging
because it's never a mindset you're in.
And so it can be really, really hard for Next.
So you see that it takes a toll on him.
And Tara is like cast as the overachiever and she's like
crumbling under the weight of what that means to execute it.
And I wonder what the journaling thing, where did she get that
from? Like does, is she always been a
journal or does she go to therapy for like, we don't
really get an explanation of where this comes from from Tara.
But like, you're right, it's a way of like handling it on your
own in a way, like when you need somebody and like don't have
anybody or like are not used to relying on another person, like
you figure out a way to cope on your own.
And so like, journaling is a good coping mechanism for
somebody like Tara, who's very like a strong person, an
independent person and is like the rock in a lot of friend
groups or relationships. So same goes for Nick.
So I think that's why she was like working so hard to
encourage him because they are very similar and they play
similar roles in their relationships like friendship
and otherwise. I know I'd like to think that
Tara's. Been to therapy at least in the
past like maybe something happening where she went by you
know, I I don't know if she's maybe in it right now.
She should be because I feel like she'd be able to process
things a little better if she was.
I don't think she I think this is like a past thing that too so
but there's definitely something there is the emotional
intelligence there right that she had to have gotten from
either that I mean or she's Isaac.
I would say books, but I mean, maybe she's resourceful.
I I think, I think there was some person in her life maybe
that was like a psychologist who helped her through something
small and then she just ran with it.
Yeah, I can say that the. Other thing I love about Nick
and Tara's friendship is the fact that like, while I both
play those roles, they both like bring out this part of each
other that's like they, they're able not to call it out about
each other, but they're like they, they get it with each
other and they're able to be like seeing it from the other
side. Like like when Darcy was still
living with Tara, Nick was able to be like, able to hear her out
and be like, yeah, it's a lot. You're you're really trying.
It's great that you really care. But yeah, absolutely.
He gets it. And then Tara on the other end,
seeing Nick's journey with Charlie, she's like, you're
trying your best, like you really are.
It's it is hard. So I love that they and they see
that even like later on in the season too, like they bring,
they both bring that side out of each other, like just being able
to understand each other. It's such a solid friendship,
such a solid foundation for their friendship.
Like there's a level of empathy there that, yeah, there's a
level of empathy there that they don't necessarily have with the
rest of the group just because the rest of their group hasn't
necessarily had that experience. So I think that's what makes
their friendships so, so unique and so special, so.
Yeah, I think the key is that like in order for them to get to
a friendship, they had to be completely honest with each
other. Like to get past the the comp
head of it all, that was their kind of like relationship, like
other people were forcing them into a relationship basically.
So like to get to a friendship, they both had to be very honest
about how they felt. And I like that that just like
continued with them. Like now that that's like way
past where they are, you know, it's so beautiful.
I love that. I love it.
The friendships portrayed in this show are just as important,
if not more important than the romantic relationships.
And I do like that Alice really does make that point with her
stories that like these relationships are very important
and without them, like, and people suffer.
Like take Ben, for example. You can go to the dark side, you
know, without having even a friendship group.
That's solid. Oh yeah, definitely.
Like there's very great depictions of healthy
friendships. Like this is relationships in
all aspects too, because you get to see the parent child
relationship between Olivia Coleman and Nick and then see
Charlie and his mom work on their communication.
Hopefully in the future we could see more of that too, because
there's a lot going on, but just the different ways to handle
relationships. That one's also not as more
important than the other. A relationship is a
relationship. They all take work.
They all. It's it is a give and take.
And I think that's what all the characters are learning in this
season in particular, that it is a give and take.
You have to be there, but then you also need to let them be
there for you and then the other person.
Yeah, you get it. Yeah, totally.
So in the scene, Nick starts the journaling and we get like his
inner monologue of what his journaling thoughts are.
And at the very beginning, like the setup, again, to your point
earlier, Elena, where the writers are like, this is going
to be a journey, Just be prepared, but it's going to be
fine. They tell us here, this is like
the what, the prologue of Romeo and Juliet, where it's later,
like everything will not be fine.
Just so you know, like just right off the bat, they're like
everyone dies. Just so you know, just so you
know, Come on the journey, though, Nick says I never fully
under. He basically says to some
effect, like I never fully understood this sentiment until
now. The the saying that things get
worse before they get better. He's like, now I understand what
that really means and like. Ow.
That hurts, but like. That is such a.
Like life lesson to learn when you're coming into adulthood is
that like there's, you know, ebbs and flows to like good and
bad things happening and like at some point things peak, whether
for better, for worse, and they're good.
The trajectory is going to change.
So like for Nick to be like, you know, I went through this
really, really dark period, but there was a light at the end of
the tunnel. And like, I finally understand
that metaphor now that like it's going to get better eventually,
just like keep going. I love that he says this,
especially in the beginning where like before we, the
viewers really go into the darkness with Nick and with
Charlie on the journey. Like it was very good life
lesson for him. And then like the placement of
this line and there's the lesson that like basically the rise,
right? This is the lesson you're going
to learn in this episode And like it's going to be OK at the
end, just like come on the journey again, emphasizing that
come on the journey thing. That's so true, so good.
Like because it then from here it does.
You see the right now, you see the light at the end of the
channel and now we're about to go into the darkness.
Exactly. And yeah, that's that's
actually, I mean, there's so much like storytelling aspect in
the show. And I mean, they they put so
much thought into it. I don't know if they mean to do
most of the thing, like some of the things that they end up
doing, like what we see, but it's just it's beautifully done,
so good. And do you have anything else
for the scene, Elena? I was just going to add on to
like what you were saying, Like the best part about it is it's
still like so true to the comics because like this whole series
of like Nick's journaling, then Charlie's journaling, that's
exactly like what happens in the comics and the like keeping true
to that. And the execution done in this
in this story, like in the show is just so beautifully done.
Like while it still is heart stopper, it's still like it is
still the adaptation. It's just, it's just so.
Good. I know that like, hey, we can't
emphasize enough how good the comics are and the adaptation is
what? And to your point, while it is,
you know, when you adapt something, by nature of that
word, change will is inevitable because you're changing the
medium of the art. Like things have to change and
it can't ever truly be a one to one adaptation.
So I think they they did such a good job with like paying homage
to the fact that this is a comic.
So we get a lot of those comic book kind of montage transitions
they do a lot, which is very fitting.
And they did a good job of really like keeping key scenes,
the same key dialogue. The flow in this episode in
particular is exactly how Alice read it or wrote it originally.
And just like it just works. And all the changes they made
that were different, I think worked out because clearly,
like, you know, Alice was there helping.
And so it was very like true to the vision originally.
And if anything, it enhanced it in a lot of ways by like
expanding on Imogen's plot line, who's like not in the book.
And like Isaac, the Isaac change from Allred only enhanced things
because then we got it to look into like asexual arrow ace,
kind of like plot lines that weren't there originally.
So like there's a lot of expansion that I think worked
out and even like going deeper into like Elle, who like, you
know, like we saw her parents and like heard more of her
journey, especially in this season when we get to like later
episodes. Like it was also brilliant and I
think hit on a lot of like topics that are like more
relevant now maybe than when the comics were originally like
incepted or executed. Especially when we get we get to
L later. Like it's very like topical of
like what's going on in the world for like the trans
community. And so I feel like the show is
able to dive deeper into the ensemble part of Heart Stopper
rather than the books. Cause like there it is there in
both settings. Nick and Charlie are the mains
for the show. But we do get more well-rounded
characters in the show. And that's because they have
more time. Like if they were to do this in
the comics, they would be so long.
Alice would be still on like volume to probably Oh my God,
the drawing. So much drawing.
Dallas who? Doesn't want 20 volumes of heart
stopper though, I mean. Who's complaining?
Oh no, everyone would definitely want it, but then they would
still want the show. So like timing wise, she can go
back later and redo it all. And I'm just saying solitaire
Tory adaptation. Just I'm just saying there's
there's no we need that saying we do need that.
Tori needs at least her own movie.
Listen, the Tori movie. Could you imagine?
That'd be amazing. Jenny Walser, I wanna see more.
Of Tori and who? Jenny Walser, the actor who
plays literally. She needs her own movie
regardless of who she plays, but she definitely needs to play
Tori. Agreed.
Jenny's great. Like she's so not even like
with, I mean, with words, yes, but just she's the perfect Tori
physical. Just you you see emotion.
She's comedy. She's so funny.
Her timing is amazing. Oh my gosh, yeah, yeah, I do
love in this scene. I I know we've probably seen it
before, but the little pains, I don't know if that's what it's
called of. Nick on one side and then Tara
on the other and you see like a little page break and then from
there the transition to going to the bottom and it's like a
rectangle that takes up the whole screen rather than the two
side by side. It's just it was really cool to
see because it's exactly like a comic book page and it's kind of
like you're going to each scene and seeing it play out and it's
just, yeah, I love it. It's very clever.
Like everybody on this show like did a really good job.
Everyone's like very in tuned with like, again, where this
came from. And it's just it's cohesive
because I get the sense that like all the creators from cast
to crew are very much on the same page when creating this.
And it really feels that way. You know what I mean?
I think we brought it up before, but similar to how we didn't
bring the show up, but in Thailand there's a show called
Reverse for You, and Theora always said when we talk about
that show, how every second count, every second Heart
Stopper does that as well. There is something in there,
especially from the source material, just there's something
in there that ties it back to its source material and they
make every single second count, whether it's with the music,
with the lighting. Again, Theora is pointing out so
much lighting stuff that I know I didn't notice.
I mean, the lighting team is amazing, but I didn't notice
like the color contrast that they use to give us Easter eggs.
And yeah, it's just it's yeah, everybody was on the same page
with this show. It really, really counts.
Like every crew member. It just it's amazing.
Not a lot of shows do that. So no a lot.
There's a lot of things time where there is no time to
produce things because that's just the nature of our world now
and people are just trying to throw things together and stay
under budget. Just produce it as fast as
possible. And that's what you see with
procedurals too. A lot of times, like in America
where they're producing, they used to produce 24 episodes a
season and with hour long shows, they're they're working crazy
hours. Just get something on the screen
at that point. Hi Ringo's tail, Ringo's on the
screen. Ringo's got an opinion about
this? He almost pulled out my
headphones. I'm like Ringo, no Ringo.
There's a cat here. Hi.
So yeah, it's, they took a lot of care, a lot of detail, and
you could keep watching this and there's always something you
can. I'm sure we're missing so much.
I would love to be able to talk to everybody who worked on the
show. If you for some reason are
listening to this or watching this and you were on the show,
worked behind the scenes, were involved at any capacity, e-mail
us. Message us.
Anyway. We'd love to eat this.
It's happened before. It has.
We say that because it's happened before.
You never know who's watching this.
It surprises us, but it has happened and it we're honored
when that happens. OK.
I feel like the first part of every episode for Hearts up
right now is just us talking about how great the production
is. So we have finally reached the
title card. So of course our title card for
this episode is journey. Again, we are on a journey.
We're on the journey of life between this show and you know,
life. But for the animation, the the
title journey is written out very slowly in very aligned
format. So it's basically representing
writing down your thoughts in a journal like they're doing, but
it's also quite slow. The animation itself, it's very
much like you are writing it, and it could be showing that the
journeys take time. Like, it's not very quick.
You just gotta take it one line at a time, basically.
So I I love their animations because there's like, so much to
read into in everyone. Yep.
Just everything is so thoughtful, which makes this
show super fun to talk about. There's so many masterminds
behind the scene. Yeah, for real again.
We wanna talk like Ringo, who's the mastermind behind the back.
Ringo really wants to talk to them, bro.
He really has opinions about the journey.
Stop showing your tail and teasing us, Ringo.
'S we can't even see the rest of you.
It's just like a tail listening. Just magic.
A tail just keeps popping up on a latest screen.
I promise he's a real cat. He's just being a boy right now.
The. Whole body?
No, it's just it's Elena behind the camera with a.
Like a feather duster or something.
Here, sure, it's a puppet. It's like Elena not born so.
Hey, if I got. We see Ringo's tail, we know to
wrap it up. If I got his food over here, I
would. He would be up here in a second,
I'm sure so. OK, so before we get into the
rest of the episode, we have to interrupt this video to bring
you a few brief shout outs. As always, we are so
appreciative of every single person who listens, watches,
supports us in any way they can. We love you.
I especially just love getting to talk to you and hear your
stories. If you are keep trying, you know
not to stop. I know.
She's trying to do the heart thing.
It never works. I make it keep there you go.
It doesn't work till I give up faith that don't.
Work now that we got the. Hearts to work.
Let's get into our shout outs. So our chaos crew members on the
big gay ride or die tier and above are Angela, Ren, T,
Natalia, I and A Jill L, Regina, B, Monet, F, Dana and DG.
Thank you. Thank you and our featured big
gay supporter members for this episode are Tyron Tyron, Selena
C and Tong V Thank you again. Thank you guys.
Hope you're enjoying. And to everyone listening, feel
free to go check out our Patreon.
We have these episodes, our discussion episodes ad free, so
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Just come follow us on social media, subscribe to this
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it's just wonderful. We love keeping up with you as
well as you supporting us. Yeah, thank you guys.
So let's get back into Heart Stopper.
Let's continue the journey, the journey that you're right.
So after the title card, we basically just go right to the
beginning of this journey from Nick's perspective to start.
We flashback to the start, which is in September.
So Charlie gets a GPAK General practitioner appointment.
And the first thing we see is like, they're all sitting in the
living room. It's him, Nick and Tori sitting
on the couch while Jane, Charlie's mom, is on the phone
trying to schedule an appointment.
And one of the interesting details is the fact that Jane,
like, she's like, says out loud, like the time they're trying to
schedule. And she looks at Charlie to be
like, is that OK? Like she says very like
unspokenly, is that OK? Is that a time that works?
Which is like it seems like the first step for her in like
trying to be better about communicating and trying to make
sure that Charlie's OK with things.
She. Also has a huge journey even in
this episode. Yes, agreed.
Yeah, no, that's a really good point 'cause I'll point it out
later too. There's a there's a, there's a
good depiction of that when they're in the when they get to
the G PS office. But yeah, like Jane does a 180
and which is really good to see that their relationship starts
changing. But what I love that doesn't
change is the solidarity between Tori, Nick and Charlie because
like, they're the ones sitting closest to him on the couch,
which is really, really sweet in the opening scene because like,
mom is like trying to set up the appointment as moms do.
And but just like, that's like Charlie, yeah, has a lot of
friends, but like, his core support system really is Tori
and Nick. And so I love that it's them
sitting with him on the couch. I love that that and you what
the way you see them sitting. Tori is very much letting Nick
take the lead with Charlie because she knows that Charlie
not trust Nick more but is confiding more in Nick at this
point. Really calmer, just more
comfortable in general with Nick and he knows how to take care of
him so she doesn't have to worry.
So she very much takes the back seat and you see that because I
mean, obviously she wouldn't really be holding Charlie's
hand, but she's letting Nick and Charlie be as close as possible.
She's sitting a little further away, like giving a little
space, but she's also like very much making herself small here.
Like she looks so small. She's curled up.
She's more reserved, I guess. And you can see that she's
taking on her brother's struggles because and she's like
taking the responsibility of what he's going through.
So she's very like being empathetic towards him, taking
everything on herself. Like she needs to help him get
better for her to be OK too when she has so much other stuff
going on as well. Again, if you have not read
Solitaire, go read solitaire because this poor girl.
I we still don't know if anyone's seen it because we need
Tori's Story. If you don't have time to, you
don't have time to read Solitaire.
We did a book club of solitaire, the three of us.
So you can go check out that episode and we basically spoil
Solitaire for you. Yes, but I have decided that
Tori's spin off is called Tori's Story.
Yeah, I think so too. The Tori Story like Toy Story,
but like and then we get Tori Story 3 when there's a third
one. Sorry, I just, I don't know why
that never clicked that rhyme before and it was just, it was
too good. Oh my God, Yeah.
So you know what? What I really like about this
separation between Nick and Charlie's perspectives on this
is the fact that in this part, we don't actually see what
happens at the GP appointment. It just cuts straight to after
the fact when Charlie gets the referral for this eating
disorder service. And it really just helps keep
that separation. So we clearly know who is like
the main character. Obviously we can hear Nick's
narration, so it's kind of obvious, but like it keeps us in
the know of like this is what Nick experiences.
So I really appreciated that. What's crazy is that Charlie
when he gets the referral, the first appointment is not till
January, which this isn't, assuming this is still in
September, that's four months away.
That is crazy. Like I and that might just be
like how practically it is in this situation.
But like that is four months. Like, what is Charlie supposed
to do in that four months? Like.
Oh yeah, that's typical. Unless you like especially it's
here too. It's just we have a mental
health like healthcare in general.
It's just very under established.
It's terrible. Like you have to be.
You have to go to the emergency department to get any immediate
help. Yeah, that's crazy.
And you know, it's worse as if he had gone to the emergency
department, they'd probably have been like, you're fine, you
don't need the emergency, which is that's that's I mean, I say
that from a perspective of never, ever having gone.
So I have no idea. That's just like.
No, wait, if he would have gone and he would have told them
that, Well, no, I feel like if he would have go, I think he
would have, it would have been his choice.
It would have been gotten to the same point, like so he would
have been brought in and he probably would have told him
about the self harm behavior too and that would have triggered
people. He would not be left alone.
Like there would be people there to watch him.
I call them watchdogs. So he's not allowed to be left
alone because of the self harming.
Yeah. And then they would find them at
home. When we say we, we, we are
situated in, in America. So we're used to the American
healthcare system. And there is a law if somebody
is considered a harm to themselves, they're there's they
can like detain you essentially in the hospital for like up to
72 hours, I think, depending on the situation.
So like if Charlie came in with suicide ideation and they deemed
him high, like high risk enough because of that, they could
detain him in the hospital essentially until he's no no
longer, well, up to 72 hours basically.
Yeah. And help him basically they're
they would again, I don't really know in the Uki try to do.
I did too much research last night actually, but his the
process is different between the show and then also the comics.
So there's two different scenarios that I will go into
later a little bit. But what could be, especially in
America, they would there be kind of like a social worker or
somebody there who would recommend places, try to find a
bed for Charlie, and if there is multiple places open, he'd be
able to have a choice depending. Again, this is a different
healthcare system though, so I don't know if they'd have a
choice. It might just be what the.
Yeah, also, like there's a lot going on in America.
We don't really have a choice either 'cause it's like dictated
by your health insurance. So like, that's the other thing,
that there's a barrier to getting cared.
It's like insurance, you're lucky if you have a choice,
honestly, right, Right. Usually you don't.
It's like, well, this place will take you in four months.
That's so oof, yeah. So, well, it's underfunded, so
yeah, yeah, I think it just says a lot just even in that little
four months until your appointment like that says a lot
about like how under established the system is and everything.
We definitely need more support for it because it's really if
that was better supported, maybe some other areas wouldn't be as
bad because people would be getting the help they needed,
yeah. Yeah, So Charlie not being able
to meet with the service until four months from now, naturally
things do start to progress. Things do tend to get worse in
that time frame. Charlie isn't able to get any of
the help that he's needing that he, that he's been asking for.
And it's, it's kind of like it's a question of like, what is the
expectation that he is to do between now and the time with
his appointment? Like is he just supposed to
like, wait, like what is this expectation now with the system?
It's like, OK, well, we got you with the appointment.
I, this is coming from me. I, I don't know anything about
like all of this. So I'm this is also me genuinely
asking like what? What is he expected to do in
this time? To like, take care of himself,
honestly? Suffer in silence.
Yeah, Hang on. Yeah, for four months.
For four months. And just it's insane.
Go to school and act like everything is fine.
Yeah, Which we see is like impossible for Charlie to do at
this point because at the point where he's seeking out help,
it's gotten so bad that he is seeking out like had he sought
out help earlier, like then the time I would match up.
But like, realistically, that's not.
People can't do that. It's not until that right,
things get bad that you're like, OK, I need help.
But then that immediate help is not there.
Correct. So basically Charlie's just
stewing with this and he starts just getting like angrier and
angrier. And that's what we see in this
next scene where he's with Tao and Isaac and, and Nick at
lunch. And now more people in his inner
circle know what's going on with him or that something is going
on and they're worried about him.
And so it's making Charlie more upset because like, he can't get
better. He's just stuck like this.
And now everyone's looking at him basically, which he hates.
So I love Joe's acting choices as Charlie in the scene because
he starts like shrinking himself and like hunching over to show
how Charlie really is like in this interim period, retreating
deeper into his mind as kind of a defense mechanism because
that's what people do. They shut down when things are
uncomfortable. But like, instead of that
alleviating his discomfort, it makes him worse because his mind
is a deep, dark place right now. It's just giving him more
anxiety. And so we see the manifestation
of that again in the scene where Charlie just like scratching
aggressively at his arm again because like, he's going into
his mind. His mind is bad and there's no
outlet. So he's just like the urge for
like self harm or things, perhaps that's what that's
indicating is like escalating. And like Nick, who knows more of
these behaviors now, is just like watching him helplessly.
Because again, we are in Nick's head when we're seeing all this
and it's just like he can see Charlie deteriorating in front
of him and there's like literally nothing he could do.
And it's just a shitty situation for Nick.
And then also everybody now knows that there's something
going on. So basically everybody is
looking at Charlie now and that's and for Charlie, that's
so overwhelming because now everybody's looking at you
differently. Like you're now he feels like
he's broken even more because people are treating him like
that even though they're not trying to, they're just trying
to help him. But when you're like this, you
just want things to be the same. And it, it can't really be like
that until things change. And fortunately, we got to wait.
Yeah, sometimes there's also just like this, depending on the
person, there's like this level of just like it's almost
frustration or maybe even resentment.
Like if you say you're fine, but they they can tell you're not
fine. And so they try to push.
And that can naturally make a person feel upset because it's
like, are you not hearing me? Even if you're not telling the
truth, it's just kind of like, look, I told you already, I'm
fine. So and that's it's heartbreaking
because I feel like that does happen with Charlie as he's
getting progressively more angry.
He's just like I told you, I'm fine or just just stop.
I'm I'm fine. Please stop worrying about me.
Even though it's like, obviously there's something to worry about
because you know, he's got shit going on.
What's what, I wonder, is like, oh, go ahead and Halen.
I was going to say, it's kind of like they're cornering him in a
way, like he's backed up against a wall, back against a wall and
like he either has to tell them what's going on or basically
retreat. So the point that he feels
trapped, that he's just explodes.
And that's where this anger is coming from.
He just, he has nowhere to let it out.
Maybe he should start journaling too.
Yeah. We get there later.
Yeah, like from what we've seen, Charlie only ever seems to get
like angry with the friends slash like with Nick when they
are like worrying so much about him.
It's never like we never really see it with any other situation
where they're like worrying about themselves or he's
worrying about them or they're worrying about each other.
It's only whenever they're worrying about him that he gets
like upset and he's like back off, which is heartbreaking.
I think it just says a lot about Charlie and how he doesn't see
himself as as as valuable as them.
Just like, not true, Charlie, not true at all.
Yeah, I think it's just a bit of irony because the fact that his
friends love him, they're focusing on him.
But what we know about Charlie and what's always been true
about him is he hates being in the spotlight.
So they're shining a spotlight on him he doesn't want on him
and they're doing it even more than normal because they know
he's not OK despite him saying he's fine.
And so it just makes him spiral more and retreat deeper into
himself where there's no escape from this.
It's that that's the root of the problem is like his brain.
So like it just is making everything.
Worse. Because they're shining a
spotlight on him he doesn't want.
Yeah. And at some point, he says, like
they, they say that they're worried about him, like when
they're sitting at the picnic benches.
And he says, well, can you stop? I don't have to tell you
everything. And it like, it raises the
question of like, does he really not want to tell them?
Or is it like in typical Charlie fashion, he doesn't want them to
worry? Or is it he just doesn't want
them to see him, you know, in a different way or anything.
So it raises that question of like, also like what?
How much do they know? Because as far as we know in
this so far, we've only seen like the whole concern with
Isaac in Episode 2 where he's like, you've been ignoring
texts, you haven't been hanging out with us, what's going on?
And Charlie has just been saying I'm OK.
And with Tao, Tao hasn't talked to him at all because Nick has
insisted. I don't think, I don't think you
really should talk to him about it 'cause it'll make it worse.
Like he didn't like you said in Episode 3.
So assuming that nothing has like no conversations have
happened since then, they basically know nothing about
what's going on with Charlie. They just know something's up.
And the fact that Charlie is just going, I don't have to tell
you everything. They're just like, oh God, what
is happening? Like something something's
really wrong. And that's also hard for Isaac
and Tao because they don't know what's going on.
Like they don't even know what to say.
They, they have no guidance. And I mean, I don't have
experience from their point of view of like how to handle it
because I'm sure that that is so difficult.
I can only speak from Charlie's point of view.
But like, there's no guidelines for this, which is of course
great. That heart stopper exists
because it gives some indication of what could be going on.
I don't know where I was going with that.
All I know is it's rough for everybody right now.
You know, yeah. And then Charlie proceeds to,
like, start skipping school, and he's, like, ignoring Nick's
texts. And I noticed at some point that
when Nick goes into The Art Room, he's like, he's looking
for Charlie to see if he's there.
I'm assuming this is probably, like, at lunchtime or something.
He goes to look for Charlie. He's gone and then same thing
that happens when he goes to form and Charlie's not there
been both shots. There's like a ray of sunlight
that comes down into the room and it's like almost not quite
blinding, but it's very bright. It's it like illuminates the
space specifically where Nick is like trying to look for Charlie,
like in the corner of the room where he looks in The Art Room
and then in this like where Charlie's empty seat is in the
form room. There's like a light shining
there and it's like it's I, I, I tried to take that as like that.
As you know, the, the light is Charlie, but he's missing.
And so Nick is trying to find the light that is, I don't know.
He's trying to find that hope, ray of hope.
Yeah, and then he texts Charlie and Charlie ignores the texts
and then. Which is not like him.
Yeah, yeah, after, like, it feels like they're backtracking
again, like they did earlier on in the season.
They kind of backtracked where Charlie is, like he did at the
end of Season 1, where he's going through his own mental
stuff and is like avoiding Nick's texts.
He's doing it all over again. And it's like Charlie no.
Probably, yeah. And then we also, sorry, just
talking about like the backtracking thing, it's with
mental health, it's not even a straight line of progress
because like that is going to happen.
And I think that that's it's just there's so much to show and
they show so much. It's so great.
Continue. Yeah.
Then we then we transition to these, like the scene with
Charlie and Nick in The Art Room.
And there's, again, the cinematography is just
beautiful. But there's one shot in
particular I wanted to highlight that I thought was hauntingly
beautiful. And that's where Nick and
Charlie are sitting in the corner where kind of like the
counters intersect. There's like a line, there's
like a counter with a bunch of paint on it, a sink, his Art
Room. And they're in the corner.
And like up along the wall in the corner is this big tree.
And on the floor, a bunch of roots.
And they're sitting down in the corner.
And the camera angle is like up top looking as almost like a 45°
angle, like looking down onto them and where they're located
in this room, it's almost like they're in the darkest possible
corner of the room. And this room, if we all recall,
The Art Room is Charlie's safe space in the school or just one
of his safe spaces in general. So to be in the darkest place
possible, in your safest place possible, to me is like very
haunting for Charlie. Yeah, I know.
I love this shot because it's like it's also a stark contrast
to the the previous shots because in this shot you can see
there's rain outside, which obviously like hard suburbs
doesn't leave any subtleties unmissed in some of their like
details with the with the with the surroundings, with the
environment. So there is like rain outside,
which can always like symbolize like, I mean, in, in like very
stereotypical, like literature and it depicts like sadness.
It depicts like gloom. And in this case, the sun is
gone because the clouds are behind it.
So whatever light is in Charlie's mind is being clouded
by the darkness. And so, and at the same time,
what I love is that they, it's shows a lot that they are
sitting in that corner on the floor.
They're basically completely hidden behind the counters, like
the windows up above. They're basically hidden to the
rest of the world. And it's almost like, it's
almost like they're trying to get away from everything in this
shot by completely hiding themselves to where no one can
see them, even from the outside world.
So, so beautifully, beautifully shot.
Yeah. And remember, we're in Nick's
point of view at this point in the source.
So this is Nick's point of view. So I like that you brought up
like the sun earlier. Now the sun is gone.
So it's like Nick is losing hope, He's losing Charlie.
This goes back to like the line he said at the beginning.
We're like, oh, it's things get worse before they get better.
I know what that means now. So this is like the darkest
point, I would say. And this is being depicted kind
of like how this shot is set up. So the other thing I love about
this is like I, I mentioned the tree along the wall, the roots
on the ground, they're sitting on the roots, so, and roots are
something that's like hidden underground.
So it's almost like they're in this moment getting to the root
of the problem. Like, pun intended, like, 'cause
in, in the shot, Nick is consoling Charlie, right?
Who's in a really dark place in his in his what was once his
safe space. And so it's like the darkest
parts of Charlie's mental illness is kind of being
depicted in this in the scene. So I wonder if they're having a
conversation about like his self harm, like urges or something
like that's being escalated perhaps because of how dark
everything seems by the way this is being established.
So I wonder if that's what they're talking about because we
don't know what they're talking about.
And also, if you think about the tree, like trees symbolize life
growth by them, by it being out of the frame and by them, like
sitting on top of the roots, almost obscuring everything.
It's almost like hope is being smothered.
The life is being snuffed out of Charlie by this mental illness.
The sun is disappearing. All that kind of metaphor is
happening with this shot. But the alt read again, going
back to Nick, it gets dark before it gets better.
Is that like there's like there's roots poking out from
underneath them? So it's like life is persisting
despite the darkness because roots are life and they grow in
the dark. So there's also that, but it
takes work and effort to keep living.
So it's kind of like this while it is dark.
It's like there's hope mixed into it, but it's hard to see in
the darkness, but it's kind of still there.
That makes sense. So I like this shot a lot.
There's a lot of metaphor happening in it.
Yeah, there. I mean, there's a lot to talk
about in this, like the whole scene, really, because the first
shot you get is a high angle, and it makes the two of them
seem small. And Charlie?
That's basically how. Charlie's feeling right Now, you
did point out that this is Nick's point of view, so I
didn't like fully read it as Nick's point of view, but maybe
you can help me here. So basically, the room is
overwhelming this scene here. And like, that's exactly what
Charlie's brain is doing. And you know, even for Nick,
because everything is very overwhelming, that he probably
also feels small because like, he can't do anything to help
him. He's finally accepted that,
which is huge for him. But now he's just left there
trying to be the shoulder for him to lean on.
And it just feels like too small of a thing for him to do.
And The thing is that like, Nick is being sucked into the
darkness with Charlie by supporting him.
So like, that is why I really love this point of view from
Nick because it's so easy to just focus on Charlie.
But the focus really is Nick right now and how this journey
is causing him to spiral. It's bringing him into the
darkness too by trying to be the strong one and the supportive
partner. Like he feels small because
really he can't do anything. This is Charlie's journey and
he's just has to be there with him.
And and so by doing that, Nick is going into the darkness with
Charlie to be the supportive partner.
So like, it's like Persephone going into the underworld kind
of thing. Like to be the partner.
He also has to go into the underworld with Charlie to like
go on this journey. You know, Charlie would
appreciate that metaphor. He likes the Greek classes.
I'm sorry, I wish I knew what you were saying, but I'm going
to go with it. If you if you know exactly what
Theora is saying, please message in the comments.
Join the discord to have a conversation with Theora because
I'd love for her to actually. Be able to talk to.
Someone who understands it's Greek mythology, it's fine.
Yeah, Start learning that. OK, so.
But the next cut that you get after this is where the camera
is closer to the floor and it has to be very low.
It might be just on a slider thing, I don't know.
It's very, very, very close to the floor in like the depth, and
it's slightly angled upwards. And normally if a shot is at a
lower angle, it gives the characters in the scene more
power. But in this scene, in this shot,
the camera's further away, so it's not necessarily looking up,
It's not as a dramatic angle up. So it doesn't really feel like
it's depicting power. And it just kind of feels like
they're as low as they can get. So like both of them at this at
this point, they're pretty much in the same spot.
Like Nick isn't feeling the same as Charlie, but Nick is at the
lowest too because again, he has no idea how to help Charlie.
This, this is it. This is the the bottom.
But then the shot slowly zooms in as Charlie is telling Nick
about everything and it's it gets to the point where the
angle is more giving the characters the power.
And I'm thinking that this is because Charlie is opening up to
Nick. So maybe Nick feels a little bit
more power because he was able to get Charlie to open up and he
knows that he is the strong one for him.
But he Charlie has also been withdrawn even more now, even
with Nick. So just having being able to
pull that out of Charlie gave him that little bit more power,
if that makes sense. Yeah, as my dog plays in the
background. Yeah, there's some, the thing I
love about this shot especially is because it starts so far
back. This shot on the on the ground
this I think it's called a worm's eye view.
I might be totally right on that, but it's like it's
supposed to be closer to the ground.
It's it's so far away from them compared to like what you would
think when it's focusing on 2 characters in one shot.
It kind of gives this illusion that like we as the audience are
peering into this, this very private moment, which obviously
like this is a very private conversation that Charlie
probably would not tell whatever he's tell told Nick probably has
never told anybody else. For all we know, he might not
ever tell anybody else at least as much detail as he told Nick
in this conversation. So it's you can give the idea
that is a very private conversation that we are
fortunate enough to look into, even though we haven't heard
every part of the conversation. I think that also plays into it
is we are just kind of hearing the tail end of the
conversation. We don't even hear the details
of what Charlie says. So I think that just kind of
helps emulate the privacy of it. And, and in during this
conversation, Charlie like even says sorry for everything, like
for the way that he's been treating Nick, the way he's been
treating their friends and just like everything.
And he when he says start sorry, he starts to cry.
And Nick normally, like in any other scenario, he'd be like no
S word. The S word's banned.
You know, we don't say sorry in this relationship or whatever,
but he he reads the room, he he he gets the vibe, but he's he
just says it's OK. That's all he says, because this
is not the time for snark. This is the time Charlie is
genuinely sorry. Charlie is genuinely struggling
and all Nick knows that he can do is be there to support his
partner. So and then as he's hugging him,
he just says, I love you. That's all he says, and I think
that also like also kids acting in that moment, just like the
how much like genuine love he put into that I love you as he's
like holding his man man. Also, how did they attack us
with Black Friday the song in this sequence?
Oh. My.
God like the. Perfection of the music, always.
Hurts. Yeah, in in a couple different
interviews, Kit, who plays Nick, he said that this is probably
like his favorite episode to that that was done in the
season. And this is kind of where I I
really could see why, just like the execution of all this.
This is where I was like, OK, yeah, I can see why this is his
favorite episode. That's fair.
And then after this little scene, we do get the short
montage of moments of joy that Charlie does experience with the
community that he has with Nick, Tori, all of their friends.
And we start with them playing Mario Kart, which we all know
Charlie is exceptionally good at Mario Kart compared to everybody
else in the group. So naturally he's going to have
fun winning, kicking everybody else's ass at it.
Plus, it's something familiar. It's something that he knows
very well. It's something he loves.
It's something you almost consider nostalgic, depending on
how long he's been playing it. And he's playing it with two of
his favorite people, Nick and Tori.
So, you know, the fact that we have them all three together
playing Mario Kart now, too, it's like, it's so cute.
Yeah. And then it goes like the next
scene, which is just, it's a subtle, like they're in the farm
room and Nick is drawing on Charlie's hand like he was in
Season 1 when he drew the :). So again, it's like something
familiar to the two of them, which is really sweet.
And then after that, we cut to the friend group having, I
think, a picnic or something in the park, and Darcy gets a
little makeover. Oh, my God, this scene was so
precious. Yeah, again, I don't know if
this was actually a picnic or they just gathered to support
Darcy in this moment. Unclear.
But either way, all the friends are gathered and Darcy, who's
been on this journey of gender expression and figuring out
gender identity and that kind of thing, decides to get a haircut
and like a haircut that they want.
And so like, they're all kind of gathered and like encouraging
Darcy because it's like a big deal.
Like, you know, hair is a big part of like your appearance and
things like that. But they're there to support
Darcy. And like Elle cuts the first
lock and they all just like celebrate.
And it's just, it's so precious. Like everybody's reaction in the
way they're so supportive of Darcy is really sweet and
beautiful. I'd like to think that each one
of them gets a turn at cutting a piece of their hair off.
I feel like Darcy would love. That yeah, they're just, I feel.
Like Darcy forced everyone to do it.
Also that cause someone was probably like oh I don't I don't
wanna mess it up. And Josh is like.
Do it. You'll be.
Fine, just do it. I dare you mess it up, make my
parents mad. Gran's, I could care.
Gran's gonna be, like, lovely. Gran's.
Gran's gonna be happy regardless if it makes them happy, so.
Right. I feel like Graham would be like
you missed the spot in the back here.
Let me get it right. Yeah, yeah, I can see that.
How absolutely. Yeah, it's.
She's really cute if Darcy saves a piece for grand a cut.
That would be cute. That would be sweet.
I would love that. Yeah.
In the scene we do see like
everybody's like celebrating. Everybody has having a good
time. Everybody is like laughing,
having a good time. And then we see like this very
brief moment, cause again, this is like during the dark period
of Charlie's journey, We do see that moment where Charlie does
start to go into his head. You can see courtesy of Joe's
great acting, his face kind of start to fall, his eyes kind of
start to glaze over a little bit as he like looks away.
But Nick is immediately able to kind of break him out of it by
like he's like already got his arm around him And he kind of
just like gives him a nudge and like starts to rub his arm.
And it's very subtle and could usually just be played off as
like, hey, I love you. I'm going to give you this
little bit of affection to, like, everybody around them.
They're just being cute. They're being in love.
But like, obviously to Nick, that is just him trying to nudge
Charlie, get him out of his head a little bit.
And Charlie immediately is just like, oh, hi.
Yeah, I'm here. Hi.
So it's so subtle, so it doesn't give Charlie away, which I love,
but it's still really sweet. Yeah, I do like that.
This montage goes to show that like, even when there are dark
days, there are good moments that can happen during dark
days. Like there's a famous saying
somewhere, I forget where, but people said basically like of
Nazi occupied Germany, They're like, people still lived
fulfilling lives during that time.
There were still people living like you lived through it.
And there are people still doing their thing despite the
darkness, basically. And that's kind of like we're
getting glimpses of that with Charlie.
Like even though he's in this really bad mental place, he does
have good moments scattered throughout.
It's not just constant gloom for him, but in this scene in
particular, you see that like he does wax and wane and like
through Nick's point of view, he's like, he's still just doing
his best to be supportive and like try to make Charlie smile
when he can. Like that's Nick's superpower
basically in these moments. OK, after the picnic ends, we
skip time and enter the month of October.
We're still in Nick's point of view at this at this point.
And with the month that's now passed, Charlie's control on his
like clinging to everything's fine is really, really slipping.
And he mentions to Nick that the compulsions are getting worse
and he sorry, this is Nick journaling.
He says Charlie's compulsions are getting worse and Charlie
doesn't know how to stop them and neither do I.
So like again, Nick is in the darkness with Charlie at this
point and like getting more not hopeless, but like kind of but
like feels more helpless as this kind of goes on because there's
really nothing he can do. And Charlie needs help, but
they're just waiting for him to get the help.
So this just this like this horrible limbo period that
they're in. And at one point, like Nick's on
the phone with Charlie while Charlie's kind of like talking
to him after one of these really bad episodes.
And like from the conversation on the phone, it sounded a lot
like the OCD episode that happened in Solitaire that got
really bad that Tori witnessed alone with Charlie and then he
called Nick after. And it I think that might have
been the the timelines kind of like converging a bit.
Yeah, I think that happens in the next step, or not the next
episode, but like right before episode 6, I think is when that
actually happens. Oh, interesting.
Yeah. I think that's when he has the
relapse. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
OK, I can't remember. Thank you.
Yeah, yeah, I think, I think that's also in the comics too,
that, that he has like that relapse moment.
But that's right. Yep, recovery is not a straight
line as you said. Right, so unfortunately wish it
was. If only, right?
Yeah, it so it breaks my heart hearing Charlie, he says.
I just feel so stupid. And then just like that 100%,
like you have a moment just like it does.
Like regardless of what the situation is or like what your
condition is, like you have a moment where it's just like
things like you explode or something just happens.
And afterwards, like in the moment you just can't help it.
But afterwards, you just feel awful.
You're just like, why did I do that?
Or why couldn't I control myself?
Why, why this, why that? You just, you feel stupid, you
feel ashamed, you feel embarrassed.
And it's heartbreaking because like it's hindsight, but it's
also just like, why can't I stop?
I just want to stop but I can't. Most of it's the control thing,
like he cannot control anything right now and it's to the point
where just everything is just getting out of hand and he needs
to be able to control something, which is where the the eating
disorder gets worse because that's the one thing he can
control. He can control not eating, but
then at the same time the food is controlling him.
Like, I believe he says that later in the episode.
Yeah, the therapist points that out later because remember,
Olivia Coleman 2 point O said usually eating disorders are
linked to something else. So like, it's becoming more
obvious now that like the eating disorder is a symptom of what's
actually going on with Charlie, which is this out of control OCD
that he has that like Nick uses the word compulsions like.
Yeah, yeah. The other thing in this
conversation too, like she just says, like they just call them
compulsions. They don't specify what they
are. And that's something I
appreciate so much about the show and like especially just
about Alice in general. And their writing, this scene
specifically, is like so well done because it it really trusts
us as the audience to fill in a lot of those gaps ourselves by
if we choose. And we know about Charlie's
compulsions, we know like what he's dealing with, but we don't
ever actually see any of them acted on screen, partially
because it it helps demonstrate again, that privacy, that
respect for Charlie's privacy. And it demonstrates the whole,
again, the show don't tell aspect of the show.
Like we can know the story without needing to know
everything. And it's kind of kind of similar
to like people's personal journeys in real life.
Like we can kind of know like somebody like say you're like,
you know, your best friend's been through stuff, but you
maybe weren't there for all of it, or you didn't know them
before they had all these experiences.
And so you know things, but you don't know everything.
It's kind of in that same vein of like, we don't need to know
everything to know that they've been through something.
So. Which again, narratively fits
because this is still Nick's point of view.
So Nick can't know the compulsions.
We are not in his head. We are not in Charlie's head
right now. We are in, we're seeing this all
play out through Nick's point of view.
So Nick doesn't know the extent of the compulsions, A, because
he's not in Charlie's head, and B, because Charlie's not fully
sharing everything, whether he wants to or is just too hard to
or for whatever reason. Like so we only know what Nick
knows, which is that like Charlie's getting worse.
He tells me his compulsions are getting worse, but like Nick
doesn't know what the extent of what that that is.
He can't know he's not Charlie, which is so real as a
storytelling device. Like like you said, they really
stick in the point of view of Nick, which I really, really
love. It's like almost like a third
person point of view where it's like you're strictly seeing what
this character sees and you're not seeing outside of what they
can see and experience. My dog just I have to take.
Care of this. Did she let herself in again?
Yes, get out. Yeah.
And one of the other things I love about Alice's writing so
dearly is the way they don't always focus so heavily on,
like, the dark aspects of everything.
And they even said this at one point, like way earlier, like
when they were doing the comics for this volume, they were like,
I'm not going to be focusing on Charlie's actual disorder as
much. I'm not going to be.
They said that. They're not going to be graphic
about it because that's not the point of the story.
The point of the story is the healing process, the journey
that Charlie goes on, the recovery goes through, and
that's what they wanted to focus on.
And I love that that is still kept so true in this show.
Even like when we switch over to Charlie's perspective, like we
don't even go that far into the darkness like as much as one one
would expect in like a typical show.
I feel like where we really cover that topic, it's very much
more heavyset on his journey of recovery.
And I love that because I feel like you don't see that enough
in media, like the actual focus on recovery, so.
Yeah, it's kind of like the things get really bad, but then
you don't see how it resolves. Like a lot of like fights, like
it gets really bad and then they like make up in an instant, but
you don't really see how they resolve it.
So, yeah, I get what you're saying.
It's nice to see the work for the recovery and not just
focusing on what made it bad. Yeah, we're American media is
trauma porn. We're into the trauma.
But then not the like, how does this result, like, act like,
actually resolve, which takes a lot of time.
So that's like, we'll tell you how to get to a bad place, But
once you're there, you're on your own.
You're on your own because America is the bad place.
OK, so wait, one other thing I love in the same vein of what
you're saying is that Alice writes YA.
That's actually yai think that's the other thing that people
forget. So like the target audience
really for like heart stopper is like actual young adults.
Like they're in high school. So it's like teenagers, which is
who the YA genre is for. But nowadays we have like, high
school kids with college adult plot lines.
And so like, it's more graphic what those characters are going
through because like, the audience is really adults, not
children. And so like, this is very much
written for its target audience and like, handles difficult
concepts, like we get into sex Ed later, the mental health
stuff. And it's written and depicted
for that target audience. It's for children, really
teenagers, not actual adults, like, you know what I mean?
That's an issue. I have American media in
particular where they have high schoolers with adult plot lines.
And it's like, what are you doing?
Like this is not the target audience, is not who I'm seeing
on screen. And it's there's this mismatch.
It's like they tried to create the genre of like new adult,
which makes sense. Like people who are actually
like now adults and going on the journey, like 20 years old, like
19, that kind of stuff. But these are kids and like this
the material is handed for it is is depicted for children, which
I really appreciate. To me, that's actually good YA
content. Not like this weird.
I don't even know Riverdale that we have now, like Riverdale,
which is like these are adult plot lines for children.
It's like because there is adult actors too, like and that that's
a whole different thing. That's a whole other story.
But then it also, it also teaches this age group that they
need to act older. They need to be doing all of
these adult things when they need to just be focusing on
themselves, what they want in life, what they want for the
future, not having these party experience.
There's just like there's a lot. The problem is the target
audience for that media isn't the people being depicted on
screen. It's for actual adults who are
in that era where like they're past all of us and they're just
like living life or whatever with money and like fucking
around or whatever. Nothing wrong with that.
I'm just saying that's like in your 20s behavior, but then
you're depicting teenagers doing it.
And it's like that's then if a teenager goes to watch this,
it's confusing because you're like, what is this?
Should I be doing this? Because like, they're not the
audience? That's my point anyway.
So enough about that. I can rant about that all day.
So I appreciate that about Alice.
Alice actually writes YA, that's YA and handles these types of
difficult situations and topics. That's age appropriate.
So there is a way to talk about sex Ed America in a way that's
appropriate for the age demographic.
Like there's a way to do it. See Heart Stopper.
Anyway, so back to Nick and Charlie.
So Nick talks to Charlie about a rehab center because like again,
that they're waiting and waiting for like the referral and we're
in October and things are getting so bad.
It's like we're not going to make it to January.
So Charlie's looking for other options basically for
specialized care that can help him.
And at this stage, like Charlie is still looking into it and
he's like, I don't know if it's going to help.
And like, I think he just feels super hopeless at this point
because like, things are just, they're just getting worse the
longer he just kind of sits in limbo.
Yeah, I like when Nick asks do you think it'll help?
And Charlie just says not really, but it kind of seems
half hearted. Like does he really not believe
it? Or maybe it's just that he
doesn't want to get his hopes up because he's probably heard like
the stigma about going into these type of facilities and he
doesn't want to be like expecting anything.
Or he just he doesn't know what to expect because he only knows
the stories if he if he even knows anything.
Maybe he doesn't even know anything about what this would
do. So he's like not even sure if it
would help because he doesn't. I'm part of it's probably
because he doesn't even know what he really needs.
Like truthfully, he doesn't know what kind of care is actually
going to help him because he's just now starting to figure out
what is going on. And obviously, like at this
point he doesn't even know that he has OCD.
That comes as a surprise to him later.
So I have to wonder if that's just.
Starting to ask for help. Yeah, exactly.
So it's just kind of like, is that not really because of that
or is it just because does he genuinely think he's not going
to get help or is it just kind of like AI have no idea?
Yeah, if you think about it, it's this is Charlie about to
take a step into the unknown, which is part of the the road to
recovery. And it's getting, it's the, the
bottom line is that it's evident that it's this is getting harder
for both of them to deal with, like both of them.
Because remember, we're still in Nick's point of view and he's
this is the supportive partner going on this journey.
And right now it's affecting him a lot to watch on like
helplessly as his partner is going through this incredibly
difficult thing. And to Nick's credit, he is
supporting Charlie the best he can.
Like in the scene in particular, Nick is just, you know, he
doesn't push Charlie. He's he's getting better at
learning when to push, when not to push, how to actually be that
supportive partner in this situation and be what Charlie
needs. Like when Charlie's talking
about the rehab center, Nick doesn't push him and go, no, you
really need to go because he sees him deteriorating.
Instead, he just, he just sits there and actively listens to
Charlie while Charlie is voicing his concerns.
And like, that's what Charlie needs in that moment.
He's being whatever Charlie needs.
When Charlie says that he doesn't know if it'll help he he
does start to use humor. So like there's a little bit of
hope there because he's using humor and he says at least he
gets to skip school for a while, which granted it is a perk.
You still have to do school, though, which he does find out
later, but he won't have to. He'll actually be able to not go
to school instead of, you know, skipping it.
But in this his case, that is where his friends are.
That is his life is at school. So him saying that that at least
he won't have to go there is very sad because that means he
really is. He's like, he's not.
He's withdrawing from his life by not wanting to be at school.
Yeah, Yep. Well, Charlie needs a change
because as we saw on the other scene that his friends are
starting to stress him out. So it's really not they're not
supporting him the way he needs. He really needs to get out of
this environment away from all the things that are stressing
him out to detox essentially mentally from it.
And so ultimately Charlie does decide, yes, I'm going to try
the rehab institution. Fuck the referrals is too way
too long. So basically he packs up and
gets ready. His family gets ready to drive
him to the rehab center and him and Nick part ways.
And in the parting Charlie tells Nick don't cry because I'm going
to start crying. And Nick's replies I'm not sure
I can help it. And I must say I stand a man
that is honest about his feelings and not afraid to show
them because what a vulnerable position position for both of
them to be in. And I love how honest Nick is
about his feelings. I love that about his character
so so much. Oh no.
And that second hug, it was just so much tighter.
Like Nick just fully wraps himself around Charlie on that
second hug. You just feel like he is like
about to cry and it's like because he knows he might, he
doesn't know when he's going to see his boyfriend again.
No, but Nick, you know, he's doing, you know, he's spent how
many months trying to be the strong one?
And he's like, I, it's basically him admitting like, I don't know
if I can be strong in this moment when I actually have to
say goodbye to you, even though it's like the best thing for you
kind of thing. Like, you know, Nick is still
sad about it, even though it's good.
You know, it's it's going to be a good thing, hopefully, because
again, they're stepping into the unknown.
They don't know this. And so after that, Nick goes
about his normal life without Charlie in it, and we get a
glimpse of what that kind of looks like.
And we learn that he's not able to communicate with Charlie, at
least in the beginning. So it's just him kind of
isolated and alone. And what has been seen over the
past like three seasons. Nick is codependent on Charlie.
So like this is hard for him to like now he has to go solo.
He's in the unknown. And so he just tries to kind of
like distract himself with stuff.
Like he takes driving lessons and he's distracted while he's
doing that. And then he talks to Nelly a
lot. And he's like, yeah, I'm trying
to distract myself, but I suck at this because I'm codependent.
So Nick starts spiraling. And then he starts looking into,
like, what is it like being in rehab?
And so he gets like, a mix of just like, oh, it helped.
And like, this was the worst experience of my life.
And so he's just like trapped in limbo again, once again, but a
different limbo because Charlie's in one of these
places. And so as the partner who can't
talk to him, he's like freaking out.
He's like, what if Charlie's having a horrible time?
Like, I can imagine his anxiety is just like, peeking because
he's in the unknown too, and doesn't know what's going on.
And now he's reading all this stuff and he's like, Oh my God,
what's happening with Charlie? I still don't know which sucks.
The. Horror stories are a lot.
Like. I we tell people not to read
them, but I mean, it's also good to know other people's
experiences, but those stories are making people not want to
get help. Again, this is all because these
programs are underfunded too. Because if the people working
there had more help and more funding, I feel like it would be
a lot better place for everyone involved.
And again, I hope it's OK that like I real, I talk about my own
experiences. It's only because like, I've
been through similar situations to this.
But like, I get that everybody's experience is different.
It it's a very terrifying thing to be going to this place
because it again, it is an unknown.
This is something that you don't typically have experience with
unless you are relapsing. But not all experiences are
going to be the same. Not all places are the same
either. So that's what's important to
keep in mind if I mean like for them, but also if anyone
listening to this is going through something similar.
Again, I'm just, I just talk about this stuff in case anybody
is facing this. I feel like the scariest part is
not knowing how long you will actually be there, which is why
I'm glad that they did tell us how long Charlie was there in
the beginning. Because that is, it's a huge
unknown when you go into a place like this and you're not able to
get out even if you want to, even if you put yourself
voluntarily there, you cannot check yourself out and just be
like, hey, I'm leaving right now and leave like a hotel.
And again, at least in America, it's like this.
I tried to look up a little bit of the UK, but again, not being
in that system, I can't fully tell.
And in America, you can technically put in a 72, which
means you're requesting to leave in 72 hours.
You cannot leave earlier than 72 hours, which is insane, but the
Doctor Who's treating you has the ability to reject that.
And if they reject it and say that you can't leave, you're
going to be there a lot longer. And that is also a terrifying
thought for people in there. So I actually re read the
journal I wrote while I was in the hospital and basically if I
had to relive the entire experience while doing these
notes. And it's just.
It's insane. Everybody's journey is different
and it's you can't just, if you know someone with a bad story,
doesn't mean that you're also going to have a bad experience.
It all depends. Because I met a trans woman in
the hospital and her experience was completely different than
mine because she had different requirements and they weren't
being met. So yeah, just if anyone out
there is dealing with any of this stuff and wants to talk
about it, just contact me. I can help you through some
stuff or point you in the right direction.
Sorry, that was a little tangent.
No, bizarre. Yeah, I know.
And Nick on the other side of it in this especially like, I think
the biggest thing is he doesn't really have anyone to talk to
about it in the sense of like he does, obviously he wants to
completely respect Charlie's privacy with all this because it
really it is Charlie's journey to take.
But Nick is obviously going on his own journey dealing with all
this as the supportive partner. And so he he wants somebody to
be able to talk to. And of course, that's where
Nelly comes in, which we saw at the beginning, obviously.
But in this this next little scene, Nick said something like,
do you think he's OK? I think he's OK.
I bet he made some friends as well.
I think it's really sweet. You know, what's the the part
that's kind of sad is like, you know, he probably would be
saying a lot of that to his mom instead.
But as we all know, she's unavailable at this moment.
Olivia Coleman would be walking by the door hearing this
conversation and go and be like, all right, kid, let's talk.
And then like also include Nelly in the conversation.
Oh yeah, Nelly will be like fully in the lap.
They're sitting on the couch eating pizza or something.
And yeah, if only. Yeah, we need her back next
season. I seriously, the thing that I
kind of wished but I kind of understand why we didn't get it
was getting to hear from Aunt Diane after this.
But I kind of get why, cuz, you know, like, I don't know, like
she doesn't really play as much of A role in his recovery as you
would think. Just from the beginning, the
fact that she was the first person that Nick told about it.
So it is, I was kind of sad. I was like, oh, she probably
wanted to check in and be like, how's he doing?
How's everything? Are you guys OK?
But obviously she would never do that because she highly respects
privacy as well as as somebody who this is her job.
But yeah, I, I, I think I just wanted an excuse to have more
Hayley Atwell because I love her.
That's fair. You could have like called her
on the phone, you know? Yeah, maybe he did at some
point. We just didn't get to see it,
you know? It's fine.
That's fair. I.
Think with with her line of work, she knows that people have
to want to come to her and talk, which is why she doesn't reach
out because she's like, I can ask, but if they're not ready to
talk, then it's not going to work.
So definitely much the you come to me and I will be here for
you, but I will not push if you don't want me to.
True, true. The other thing I OK, I'm going
to go back on my tangent about the music in this show, which I
feel like I have to do every single episode.
We do, though, there's this very subtle shift in this specific
scene when he's when he's having this little talk with Nelly
where it's been playing the song Black Friday throughout pretty
much this entire sequence of Charlie going to the hospital
and Nick saying goodbye, even all the way through, like, or
yeah, I guess that's pretty much it.
Yeah. When they actually go to the
clinic and it when the song fades out and I think it fades
out like kind of as they're driving away and it fades into a
part of the musical score for the show, which is the Byatis
car Chase, who does all the musical score for the show.
It's the same key, it's the same volume.
It just very subtly fades into it.
And I love that about the show that like it can do that.
It's just I didn't really notice it until the end of the scene
though, because it starts like this little instrumental beat at
the end. I just really liked that little
subtle change. Just was very well done.
This is a little random, but you know what I love that we all
pick our own things that we focus on.
We don't even pick them. It just happens.
But we all have our own things that we always talk about and I
just, I love it. That's why there's three of us
and why we have these conversations.
Just thought I'd share that. Yeah, thank you for pointing
that out. Speaking of Nick and fighting in
that that journey for him, we then shoot over the next team,
which is Nick hanging out with the rugby lads.
So he's hanging out with them outside of school, which is
good, and they're all at Nick's place playing Mario Kart.
And like Instagram, Mario Kart is the only video game in the
Heartstopper universe. I just noticed that I have to
point out that this isn't Mario Kart, this is actually Super
Smash Brothers Ultimate. OK, so Mario themed games are
the only games. Ridiculous amount of research
because I don't actually play these games, but yes, Mario
universe. The Mario universe the only one
that exists. You guys literally could have
just asked me. I play both of these games.
Well, you know, it was a lot easier to spend 20 minutes
looking up screenshots and game plays on YouTube.
Thank you, Caitlin. Until I finally asked HTP what
Mario game has four players and counts scores and percentages at
the bottom of the screen and it told me exact.
I'm like, thank you. That's only one of the settings
in the game though, so well, percentages is one of them, no?
So that's so funny cuz yeah, up until now we've only seen them
play Mario Kart. So I mean, same console, so
close enough. And also a lot of the characters
are on Mario Kart that are also on Super Smash, especially on
Mario Kart 8. So like, close enough, you know?
OK, so like, like, we get Tumblr this season, we also get Super
Smash Bros, so there we go. All right, Regardless, Nick is
having fun and then one of the lads asks why Charlie hasn't
been in school. And poor Nick is now it has been
trapped in the middle of the situation with Charlie and
really can't tell other people about this deeply personal
business that Charlie has. We saw him with do this with
town. Now he's with his own friends
having the same kind of situation.
So he just like vaguely answers like he's sick.
It's bad and luckily Trum educates men on emotional
intelligence. More schools should do this.
And the lads don't press Nick. Instead they simply comfort Nick
and say they're they're here for him and then immediately change
the topic back to the game and give him space to kind of
breathe. The rugby lads have grown so
much themselves. Everybody's been on a journey
since the very first episode, which is, you know, life and
also the outline, you know, the epitome of a good TV show.
But I, I love that they responded like that because in
media, again, in America, I'm used to American media, we see
teens teasing each other and pushing too far to where things
blow up. And then there's fights because
America loves fighting. But this is showing them like,
no, give, give them space. You be there if they need to
talk, but it's OK if they can't say anything.
And I just love that, again, teens have this example of a way
to react to the situation. Representation.
Yeah. Because they gave him space like
Nick was basically, they did a good job of doing what Nick
failed to do, which is distracting him.
OK, So in the scene, like, Nick is successfully distracted from
all the worry and sorrow that he's been going through.
And, you know, being the caregiver slash supportive
partner in this situation, like, it's extremely taxing.
And like we've seen Nick's point of view, it is taking a toll on
him. And often it's really difficult
for the person in that role to set any kind of time aside for
themselves, for their own mental health or physical well-being.
And I think for someone like Nick, he strikes me of the type
of person that like takes that role very seriously.
And he's the type of person that like even wanting to take a
break from Charlie's stuff can make him feel really guilty for
wanting to take the break. Because there's this comparison
constantly going where like the supportive partners like, well,
my problems are nothing compared to my partner's problems.
So like, who am I to want to take a break?
He can't take a break. I can't take a break.
And so like, Nick neglects himself like in this cycle he's
trapped in. And like, we can see part of him
kind of deteriorating along with Charlie.
Like even in the scene, like he smiles a little bit, but like,
still, it's clear he's like, in this montage, he's distracted
from his own life. He's like he's not living his
own life right now because he's trapped in the darkness with
Charlie. And it's really taking a toll on
him. And so I like the scene.
And I think the scene is really important because he can't fully
confide in people. Like nobody knows what Nick's
going through. He cannot talk about what he's
going through because to do so breaches Charlie's trust to be
honest about it. So yeah, he can talk to Nelly,
who's a dog and can't communicate.
But like Nick cannot tell his friends.
Like Charlie's in the situation where like Charlie can divulge
whatever he feels like divulging about because it's his
situation. But Nick is just in the middle
and he's trapped in the middle and can't fully take care of
himself because you fully can't be honest about the situation
because he's protecting Charlie. And so I like in the scene that
his supportive friends, being emotionally intelligent,
recognizing the situation, give Nick the excuse to take a break.
OK. And in the scene, like Nick's
like, OK, you guys are having fun.
I'll have fun with you. Because he's that caregiver
person, like where he's like, I got to people, please the people
I'm with. And so because they're giving
him the excuse to like finally breathe.
Nick does have these small moments when he's like kind of
relaxed and like clearly not worrying as much as he normally
does because he lets himself get distracted by the game because
his friends kind of require that of him.
So I think that is really important for a character like
Nick who's not used to being the one that needs help and doesn't
necessarily know how to ask for help.
And he kind of can't in the situation.
So he just like let's this moment happen and his friends
facilitate that distraction for him because he couldn't do it
for himself. So I do love that it's also he
doesn't have to worry about being asked about Charlie now.
Like the he knows that the friends are like, OK, we don't
have to talk about it. So he doesn't have to like worry
that that might come up and that like he's not able to say
anything. So I guess it's just like the
stress that, oh, what do I do? If somebody asked me about him,
I can't say anything. And then just like waiting for
it to happen now, it's kind of like, OK, we can just be like,
they know not to ask. It's just as normal as they can
be now. Yeah, that's true.
I was I was more so pointing the fact out that they were even in
his house to begin with because like we see later, it's hard for
him to do normal stuff without Charlie.
The fact that they were even there again, gave him an excuse
to like take a break. And then the Charlie stuff just
came up right. But like he was doing, he was
letting himself be distracted and the friends were like
helping him as the distraction. So like again, Alice's point
always is like your friendships are very important guys.
Here's why. Like, that's the other point.
But yeah. And now he can breathe around
them going forward to be like, they're not going to press me on
this thing I can't talk about. But Charlie did give him
permission to tell the rest of the friend group.
So like, to our question earlier, what did Tao and Isaac
really know about Charlie's mental health stuff?
Now, everybody in the Paris squad knows what's going on with
Charlie because he let Nick communicate that to them.
And so in this scene, the gang has gathered to put together a
care package for Charlie. They love picnicking and parks
good for them. And they're picnicking, slash
crafting or whatever. And everybody has their own
thing that they're like contributing to the care
package. And I love like the message of
what the items are. So Sahar wants to give himself
care items like a face mask or something.
So like that's a form of care packaging for somebody like
Charlie that focuses on relaxation through a stressful
time. Then Darcy wants to give him
games and Isaac wants to give him books.
So that's like escapism from, you know, his current situation,
like because which is a way of taking a break.
It's a, you know, from the situation.
So Charlie can keep going on this journey and Tao brings up
movies and does he have a Blu-ray player, a way to watch a
movie? And at first you're just like,
OK, Tao's going to give him weird movie recommendations
because it's Tao. But like in the background, Tao
has the secret plan to like make a movie for Charlie, which is
more so about like a way to give Charlie like, remember what's
out there when you get out of this place?
Because like right now he can't communicate with other people
because that's part of the process of like detoxing
mentally and it's part of the healing journey for somebody
going through a mental health kind of crisis to remove outside
stressors and just get to the root of the problem in isolation
before we start introducing stressors again.
OK. And so Tau basically is offering
Charlie like, hey Charlie, remember what's waiting for you.
Remember all the happiness in your life outside.
Like gives him hope, something to look forward to out, you
know, when he gets further far enough along his recovery to
like get out of the and graduate from the rehab institute
basically. And it's just a reminder you are
loved, Charlie. You are not alone, even though
you might feel that way going through this journey that only
you can walk. Yeah.
What I like about this is we don't get to see like Nick
actually telling the group. We just get to hear Nick talk
about it in his journaling. And I mean, the reality is we
don't need to see it. That's really the truth of it is
like, we don't need to see it. It kind of it goes back to like
that semblance of privacy for Charlie and for Nick, but also
it's just a perfect example of show, don't tell.
We basically hear in Nick's over voice over that Charlie said
it's fine to tell them. And then we go straight into,
OK, well, now they know. So this is what they're doing in
the aftermath of finding out. So we don't actually know the
extent of how much they know. We just know they know why he's
in the facility, and their immediate response is, well,
let's send him a care package because we love him and he's
struggling and we want him to know we love him.
So I love that so much. Also, somebody can correct me if
I'm wrong on this, but I think that that place that they're
filming this, I think that tree in the background is the same
tree from Season 1 where Nick and Charlie are on the park.
Yeah. I think it is too.
That'd be really sweet if they if they brought all of their
friends to their like, date spot.
It's like their their hangout spot now.
That would be so cute. Yeah.
So during this scene, while everybody's kind of like
focusing on the care package, Tara and Nick have a little
sidebar and Tara mentions that Sahar is throwing a massive
Halloween party and she encourages Nick to take the
night off because she really needs 1.
So like, again, a subtle hit, a show not tell of just like Tara
is still on her struggle. We're just not seeing all of it.
And she's super stressed and she's like, I need a break from
my life. You probably do too, Nick,
because we're like twinsies basically.
And Nick expresses that he's like, yeah, cuz again, this is
the caregiver who needs a break. And he's, like, taking a break.
He's like, but it feels weird doing stuff without Charlie,
like, normal stuff, you know? Yeah.
I think Tara, Tara really gets it.
I mean, yeah, obviously, like in a very different situation that
she was in with Darcy where like for the end of last season when
prom when Darcy was not there, it's a very different setting,
But there was that same feeling of like, where's my partner?
She gets that feeling of separation.
She gets being away from them, especially when you really want
them there. And in this case it's not.
Being able to make things better.
Yeah, that too. Really.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So then we cut to the Halloween
party and we get to see Nick approaching as Captain America
and he's the saddest looking Captain America.
Give him a hug. He is very sad Captain America,
but as sad as he looks on the outside.
I found a picture of the actual Captain America in the movie
even sadder. OK Chris Evans.
I can't remember all the Chris's, I don't know their last
names. Chris Evans.
And this Captain America is after a battle.
There's scars and cuts all over his face.
And he's like, why? Why Earth?
Why? Anyway, that's Nick on the
inside. Because all of this has left him
with scars now because, oh, yeah, I mean, he just got his,
his heart's not with him right now.
His heart is at a facility trying to repair itself.
So there's there's a lot going on even more on the inside than
what he's showing. I mean, Speaking of Captain
America, do we even dare mention the fact that his aunt is Agent
Carter? Which Oh.
Yeah, love that. That's, I know, so freaking
funny. Like it's just why she's not
alone. I got to the Captain America for
it's just, I don't remember who that is.
So in the first Captain America movie, she's the love interest
for for Captain America, for Steve Rogers.
Yeah. Captain America, OK.
And the actor Hayley Atwell, who plays on Diane play, that's who
she plays in the movie. So yeah, I so funny, the subtle.
Did they do that on purpose? You know what I know.
Did they cast her on purpose for that reason?
I'm sure it was more than that, but I feel like.
Marco has so many ties into Heart Stopper it's ridiculous.
I'm waiting for a crossover now. I know Disney needs to get.
On that. They need to do that scene where
they're watching Agatha all along and just goes, hey, he's
kind of hot. If this if this was streaming on
Disney plus they I feel like they would definitely do it.
They would have to. That's cross marketing gold
right there. I didn't really recap this
scene. OK, So basically Nick kind of
goes through the he goes to the party and he's just like, it's a
montage of basically like Nick kind of having a good time and
then like getting really overwhelmed by being at this
party because it's one of those things where he's like, yeah, I
do need to blow off some steam. But then he gets there and it's
like, it is weird without Charlie.
And like Nick doesn't really know what to do with himself.
And like, it's a big, loud place and it gets really overwhelming.
And I like to do this thing with the music where like as time
goes on during this whole party sequence, like the music starts
crescendoing and getting louder and louder because like Nick's
getting overwhelmed and we keep getting these cuts of like Nick
participating and then sitting down on the couch with like the
skeleton. And just like the party is
moving around him and he just looks so alone and kind of sad.
So he kind of like waxes and wanes with his like happiness of
this party because like this is a lot to be there without
Charlie, especially when all his friends are coupled up.
Like Elle even comes like all the couples are there.
And like Nick's going solo when he shouldn't or when he he
doesn't want to be. Not that he shouldn't.
He doesn't want to be. He wants to be with Charlie.
And in the prior scene when we had the picnic and Tara's like,
hey, did you know about this party that was happening?
Halloween party? And Nick's like, yeah, Imogen
keeps sending me couples costumes idea.
It was like, OK, weird. And then we get to the party and
Imogen sees him as Captain America and she's like, what the
hell, You're supposed to be the Ken to my Barbie.
And Nick's like, well, I just happen to have Marvel costumes,
which makes sense that Nick would just have like Captain
America costume lying around probably.
But we start getting into, like, more heavy-handed hints of
what's going on with Imogen in the compet storyline, and it
becomes very apparent in this party sequence.
Yeah. Because, like, again, they're
supposed to be Barbie and Ken, which is AKA the perfect couple
in toy form. Yeah.
So there's that aspect. And then what she says to Nick
why she's disappointed. She says Nick, what about the
photos? Because she's doing it for the
photos. It's not that she wants to like,
be the Barbie to Nick's Ken. She's like, I want photos of us
together as the perfect couple. So like it's very becoming very
evident with Imogen and more of her lines that like she's doing
all this as a kind of a performance.
She's overcompensating. And so I posted something on our
like, I don't know, social media is about Imogen being an
underrated character. One person was like, I don't
like Imogen. Imogen annoys the hell out of
me. And it's like, yeah, Imogen's
supposed to be kind of annoying because she's overcompensating
constantly. She's not really being herself.
And that can be really annoying to be around somebody who's,
like, kind of inauthentic in a way.
And it's like, we get to the root of, like, why Imogen does
what she does. Like, really, in this sequence,
it becomes pretty, pretty apparent she's her life as a
performative personality, why she's trying to adapt.
Yeah, she's adapting. I mean, she doesn't even know
who she is. No.
Well, that's that's what. Yeah.
That's her journey. She needs to figure out who she
is in life and not who she thinks she's supposed to be.
Mm Hmm. Yep, Yep, Yep.
Yeah, yeah. And then after that, we've got
Tao comes in with this costume that cracks me up.
He's making this video for Charlie, as we've said, and he's
asks Nick, what will what do you want to say to your boyfriend?
And Nick has just like this this very long pause, first of all,
where he just stares into the camera this like the puppy dog
golden retriever eyes of Nick Nelson.
And he has this vision of CC's like holding the camera and he
lowers it and he smiles and he's standing in his room.
Charlie is like in shadow, but then he is illuminated in the
back by that music sign in his room, like completely lit up
behind him, and he's smiling at Nick, and Nick just pauses and
all he says is hi, Charlie, I love you.
It's so heartbreaking. He says that though.
He's just like cuz, like he's miserable at this party cuz
Charlie's not there and so they get asked this question.
He's like, all I want to do is tell Charlie I love him right
now and I can't. It's so sad.
Yeah, it's not like he can say it's.
Also the only thing he could say.
Yeah, like what is he going to say?
I miss you? Like that's going to if
anything, I I think he's worried that that would make Charlie
feel bad. Sure, sure.
Like oh God, Oh no. I think though in.
This party sequence, like Nick is very much retreating into his
own head. Like that's kind of like the
vibe I get from the cuts, the way this is edited between him
with his friends and then him by himself.
And and it's like time passes when he's by himself because
they have like the bodies like circling around him through the
party. So I think like he's in his head
and really misses Charlie. And so like this is literally
all he can say without breaking down on camera.
I think is the other thing is we do get him breaking down because
he's just kind of miserable here.
And then before we do, OK, go ahead, I said.
But before we do, Isaac takes control of the camera because
this is apparently a group project between Isaac and Tao.
We come to fight out later and he's documenting real life and
catches Imogen and Sahar making out.
And like, Nick walks into it because Nick's always third
Wheeling. Sapphic women, like, constantly.
Like that's just like Nick's thing.
He's always third Wheeling the queer ladies silly whether he
wants to or not. He's like God damn it again.
So basically, if you want to find a girlfriend, take Nick
somewhere. And just the expression on his
face is the funniest part to me though.
Just like he doesn't do like the cartoonish style, like, Oh my
God. He just like stares.
Like you can just tell like a plus acting by Kit in the scene,
he just goes, huh? Like, just yeah, that just was
the funniest thing. And of course, in that next
scene, when after Sahar storms off, we hear Imogen like she's
throwing up in the toilet because she's had, as we find
out later, a whole ass bottle. It's a kilo girl.
How are you not dead? First of all, my God.
Wasn't the first time, Elena? Apparently not.
God, that would. I would be dead.
Yeah.
It's like everyone kisses everyone when they're drunk.
I'm allowed to experiment. Yeah, sure, Imogen.
Sure. Everybody kisses.
Yeah. OK, that's.
Everyone practice kissing with their best friend, right?
When they're super. Only when they're super wasted
though, yeah. OK, but let's unpack this.
I was going to unpack this later when the line comes up about the
tequila because we get like the tail end of this in the video.
But let's talk about it now because I think this is really
important, OK? As you mentioned, a bottle of
tequila is like a death sentence.
That's poison for some people. That's a lot to drink.
So this girl came into this party without a man on her arm.
And what did she do? She drank an entire bottle of
alcohol, which to me is like a form of like, self harm in a way
to drink that much. So I get the sense that like,
she was felt uncomfortable being at this party because she wasn't
tethered to a man. A quote for the pictures.
So like, she can't perform the way she wants to.
So she's on her own, OK. And she can't hide with a man,
which is the comp head competitor, you know, compact
impulse, right? So she's on her own.
So what's another compact thing? You know, be gay when you're
drunk for men, right? So like she tries to play it off
as that be like, no, no, it's fine.
Like whatever. Like is a performance.
Like, people do that when they're drunk for all kinds of
reasons, including the male gaze, right?
So she could hide easily hide under that as like, that's what
I was doing. I was drunk.
Yeah, I was drunk. I didn't know what I was doing.
So like either the drinking was a way to like she was so
nervous, she just drank so much because she wasn't tethered to
Nick or she was doing it as an excuse to like explore who she
really is and then have the excuse of being like, I was
drunk. It didn't mean anything.
I was just drunk. And like in the toilet scene
with Nick where she's like saying all and remember, she's a
bottle of tequila in at this point.
And just like her truth is coming out to Nick and she's
like, no, no, no. Like even in her truth, she's
still like denying everything and it's just hiding.
I think she's terrified of just like exploring whatever the hell
is there. To me, this whole drinking binge
for her is like a really dangerous sign that like she's
definitely not OK and she's scared.
And this is all like scared behavior.
And she gave herself 1 moment of giving into whatever she feels
and then immediately it's like PR damage control to be like,
it's fine. People do this when they're
drunk. It's just normal.
This is normal compact behavior. When you're drunk, it's fine.
It doesn't mean anything. So it's just really sad because
like, this is so many people's lives, like real life stuff
that's being portrayed through Imogene.
And it's really sad that just the level of just denial that
like goes into that when you're yeah, it's so it's
indoctrination, the compet stuff.
And just like it becomes self hatred.
So I think that's part of the like, it's really sad she drank
that much. I think she's just so miserable
with her current life and she probably doesn't even recognize
the full extent of it. It's just really sad to see.
I'm wondering if the performative nature of her life
personality is a way to overcompensate for the thoughts
and feelings that she has when she thinks or looks at Sahar.
So maybe by having Nick on her arm as her Ken, that would be a
way to keep her distracted enough that she doesn't even
think about Sahar like that. But now that she's alone, she's
like, what do I do? So she drinks alcohol, which is
that's also how alcoholism forms.
So image. And we got really work on this
or else this is not going to end up well for you.
But everybody's on a journey. Yep.
So that's the beginning. This is probably the most
explicit compat stuff we get into with Imogene that that's
really sad and unfortunately real.
This is real. This is real.
It's way of a lot of like women like in their 30s being like, I
didn't, I just realized I was queer the whole fucking time.
It's just because it's just so and it's so indoctrinated into
women in particular to be like, you need to find a man, blah,
blah. And like Imogene is living those
steps and just like miserable. And I feel like she doesn't know
why. And then like things like this
happen and immediately denial PR mode, I have to, you know,
change the narrative. Like it's just it's awful for
Imogen. But we'll get back to Imogen
later in her story. But this is really where it
peaks for now. So, Speaking of miserable.
Yeah, Speaking of miserable, Speaking of miserable.
Then Nick basically retreats into a corner cuz he's again so
overwhelmed and I think he's just miserable being here
without Charlie and Tao follows him.
They sit down too quickly, huh? Before right before this, there
is this transition ish shot where everything is just, you
can tell it's becoming too much for Nick.
And the way they shoot it is just like everyone's moving so
fast behind him. Everything is coming at him, and
it's just overwhelming him to the point where he's shutting
down himself. And that's when he finds a place
where he can just be not Nick doesn't have to be in front of
people playing the role of someone who's fine.
And then, yeah, so he does retreat, and Tao finds him.
And then there's no word spoken, really.
Tao just pulls like, Nick, like, is sitting with him.
And he looks away from Tao because he's like, at his
breaking point. He can't hide his emotions
anymore. And so Tao without saying
anything, just like pulls Nick into like A1 armed hug and just
holds Nick while Nick cries. And it's first of all, such a
Tao thing to do. And this is like Tao being like,
I love you. I got you, Nick, I will support
you. I can be your shoulder to lean
on because like, you need to lean on somebody Because at this
point, the friends know what's going on with Charlie.
And like, Tao is perceptive enough, I think, to see the the
toll this is taking on Nick. And I love how far these two in
particular have come with their friendship.
And it's just really beautiful. Oh, yeah.
Because Tao was like, not a Nick fan in the beginning.
No, but something that I really like is when Tao sits down next
to Nick, he doesn't immediately pull him into this hug.
He's just sits there and lets Nick figure out what he means.
And I think when Nick looks away, he can tell that Tao can
tell that Nick is trying to like hold things in, and that's when
he pulls him closer. And when Nick finally feels like
he can let it all out, it's kind of like, I don't know if you
ever experienced this, but when someone hugs you and it's just
like the emotion just gets too overwhelming and it just all
pours out because like, you finally have someone that you
can lean on and not hold it in. And so I really love that Tao
gave Nick the moment to figure out what he needs.
Like, does he want him to? Does he even want Tao to be
there to comfort him? He he, there's just like this
moment where he had the option to do something.
And also in the scene, it's, there is very little light.
I mean, it's very well lit, but the light source is very small.
The main light that we see like physically see in the shot is
this dangling string light that's hanging down.
And it's kind of like Nick's light is dimming in this at this
point. And it's getting harder for him
to be positive and optimistic. Like the darkness is taking over
just like it did with Charlie. Again, it's not in the same way,
but you're seeing how it affects the partner as well.
And it's OK if that happens, like when that happens because
it's going to, it's you're going through it too because you are
their partner and it's OK to feel similar things.
It's OK to ask for help because you are going through it as
well. I wonder if there's a part of me
that has wondered like I just thought about this like
recently, like because of the choice of like having Tal be the
one that comes to comfort Nick given the previous scene when he
brings up Charlie. No one has mentioned Charlie at
this party until Tao does this. I I assume like given what we've
seen in the the actual show, part of me wonders if Tao is
like worried like did he trigger Nick by mentioning Charlie?
He brought up Charlie and when Nick had that look on his face
during the video where his eyes just went kind of almost like
glossy, he's like, oh, oh, OK. And I love, I love first of all,
Will's, Will's execution of this scene, like being a comfort to
Nick for Tal to be comfort. How subtle, the way that he puts
his arm around Nick. This is just something that I
love. He puts it around Nick enough to
where he's not like quite pulling Nick in.
He kind of leaves room for Nick to lean into him.
He doesn't like actually pull him.
Nick just kind of goes on his own and I love that.
He's like leaving him the room, like I'm here if you want it.
And as soon as Nick turns, he's like, OK, I got you.
And I love that. Yeah, he's given the option.
Basically, he's letting Nick consent to how he wants this to
be handled. I know I just the look on his
face, like when Nick like does like start to cry on him, like
he, he almost looks like helpless, like he just kind of
is like, what do I do now? How do I help?
And I wonder if it's also that, but but also like seeing Nick
breakdown like this. Like he still doesn't really
know the extent of how bad it is with Charlie and how bad it's
been affecting Nick until this moment.
Like, especially because he he knows, given their previous
encounters, like back in the last episode, he knows that this
has been going on for a while, but he just didn't know that
that Nick was especially having to deal with it.
So yeah. Take it away.
On to the next part. So next month, now we go into
November, we get the November title card and Charlie finally
decides to call Nick from where he is in the clinic because they
have a phone there. They have a landline there that
he can use. And the first thing I just
thought was really funny is Charlie.
Nick talks about assuming he talks about the Halloween party,
tells Charlie what happened. Nick goes, maybe I'll get you to
dress up as Spider Man next year, which that was cute.
And Charlie just goes, your marvel agenda is never going to
work on me. Which Alice, you do this on
purpose. I swear to God she does does it
on purpose. Like obviously it did work on
you Charlie, but OK, whatever. But also you guys haven't seen
Alice didn't make fan art of this after he did of Charlie and
Nick doing the upside down, Kansas spider man and Mary Jane.
It's really cute, it's really funny.
I love when she does this, does this also.
I don't know. Did we talk about the like fan
art from years ago of Charlie and Nick dressing up as
hopefully a Wiccan? Yeah, I think we did that in the
last. Episode ish can Alice is this Is
this a theory that Alice can just tell the future?
Like is this a thing right? Or maybe she draws the future
like she just she creates the future.
She doesn't even have to think about it.
It just happens. Plot twists.
They're going to have a fourth Spider Man added into the next
Spider Man movie, and it's going to be Joe.
That's Joe. They're casting Joe that
wouldn't know. I don't know.
Would that make sense though? That would be a plot twist.
I mean, it's also Spider Man. Right.
It doesn't make sense. But on the phone call with Nick,
Charlie bluntly tells him that he has anorexia and OCD.
There's no hesitation there, where there has always been
pauses and kind of just stumbling over words of trying
to communicate what is going on with Nick.
And I attribute this to the fact that he's now in this setting
where 24/7, it's about mental health.
All these terms are being used. Everything is so normalized for
him now to the point where it's easier to have a conversation
about these things, talk about it, because he literally has to
live this day in and day out. And in a way this is really good
because it's now it's becoming normalized for him and he's not
ashamed to be admitting it. So now that it's normalized in
his brain, it's there's less of an obstacle of him communicating
what is going on. And again, he is no longer
bursting into tears right away trying to tell Nick what is
going on. So there is some growth, even
though it seems like he's being too blunt or there's like no
emotion when he first says it. And it kind of seems like he's
closing off or shutting himself off.
But the fact that he's he's able to say it, I think is a big step
for him. I feel like Nick's, it sounds
like Nick might. It's very likely he's the first
person that Charlie has told like what his actual diagnosis
is outside of like the actual institution or the facility that
he's in. Aside from like possibly Tori,
like I, we don't really know because we don't see it.
We don't know. I don't even think on the other
side of things, when we see Charlie's perspective, we don't
get when he tells his parents or if, if he's even the one that
tells his parents, how do they find out about his OCD and his
anorexia and all that? We don't really see any of that.
So my assumption is Nick probably is the very first
person that he has told anything from what it sounds like.
You might have told Tori, because we know that they have
that one-on-one at the picnic table.
But at the same time, Tori might try to steer the conversation
away from it and try to create things to be normal because she
also needs Charlie to be OK. So if they can have that sense
of normalcy, she has a lot going on herself.
So just being able to be their old dynamic I think benefits
both of them in that situation. So yeah, it really is a 5050 on
whether or not she she knows at this point.
But I don't see Charlie calling up his parents and being like,
hey, this is what's going on today.
Yeah, I know. Definitely not.
The thing is, like, I, I think Tori does know at that stage.
It's not, it's the question is, did Charlie tell his parents or
Tori? Because Charlie's a minor.
So like the doctors have to tell his parents like his diagnosis
and stuff because he's not an autonomous person, he's a minor.
So like they have to know. So the parents probably told
Tori if Charlie didn't tell them.
But to Elena's point, if like if Nick is the first person he's
telling like out loud, that would be huge.
The thing is though, remember, we're still in Nick's point of
view. So like from Nick's point of
view, he has not talked to Charlie in months.
And like here's Charlie very bluntly telling him what is
going on with him as opposed to the last time we were with
Charlie. And Nick, like Charlie could
barely talk about it. Like here he is just bluntly
being like, this is what's wrong with me.
Like what a 180 for Nick in his first conversation with Charlie
since he parted ways with him. Like, that's already jarring.
That's why Nick's like, oh, and and to Charlie Craig, he's like,
yeah, there's no way to segue into this, but like he just
bluntly told him like this, this thing, the thing that's going
on, like that's jarring for Nick because like, wow, that
Charlie's already different to Nick, whose point of view were
in. Yeah, that's that's a big change
because now he has to like relearn ways, not fully relearn,
but like he's like, Charlie is, yeah, changing.
So what he needs from Nick is also going to be changing.
So now Nick has to do some relearning when Charlie gets
back. Obviously he can't do it too
much now. And it's now it's even harder
over the phone because he can't even see Charlie to figure out
what he's feeling because Charlie's very expressive.
So a lot of what he doesn't say is shown on his face and body
language. So with that taken away, all he
knows is from the tone of his voice, of Charlie's voice, Nick
gets a lot out of this conversation because like,
again, Charlie's being very blunt about his mental illness.
He jokes in this conversation. So like without facial
expressions, like Nick can pick up a lot that like Charlie is
more himself. He's he's he is better than he
was the last time they parted ways when Charlie was very just
closed off snapping like Charlie is.
He's having more emotions even just verbally over the phone.
So, you know, there's a good indications here from Nick's
point of view. I have to wonder too, for
Charlie's sake, like because I know a lot of people experience
this when they get a diagnosis, even if there's like that
initial shock, then it's kind of like it is also a sense of
clarity because it's like, oh, OK.
Because like, like in my in my line of work, we have times
where we give like tests and if a test comes back negative,
sometimes it's a lot less helpful because then we don't
know how to treat it. Yeah.
Like what is the condition? Why is it, Why is there health
like this? And it's like, if it's a
negative test, well, now we don't know what's going on, at
least if it was a positive test. OK, well, we know what
medication they need to be on. I'll say I'm sure theory.
You probably have that all the time.
I understand your work. So it's like.
Yeah, everyday I do this. Yeah.
And you hear like people who have any type of like
neurodivergence, they hear like they get a diagnosis for it and
they're like, oh, OK. Cuz it's like it suddenly clicks
like this makes sense. It also is validating.
Like, OK, it's not that there's something necessarily wrong with
me. This is just like, this is what
I'm dealing with. And also like, OK, well, now I
know this is this is what other people have done to help it, to
help treat it, to help get used to it, to work through it.
And so that's got to be such a clarity for him, especially like
because he says in the conversation, yeah, I was kind
of surprised about the OCD part. But it seems like maybe that's
also given him a lot of clarity on like, why it's not just his
eating disorder. It is something on top of it
which we also see like that actual diagnosis later on in the
episode and how that all makes sense.
Yeah, having a name for it definitely gives you like a
sense of relief in the fact that it's not just you.
There is something going on. There is, this is something that
other people go through and you, you can learn more about it and
it opens up your eyes to, oh, these are all things that stem
from, it's not just me. Like for people with ADHD, like
they could be called lazy their whole lives.
Oh no, there's like all these things that you have trouble
with because it, you're not neurotypical.
So all these issues that you that you have been struggling
with, it's not because you haven't tried, it's because
there isn't there is an underlying issue going on.
I don't think issue was the right term to use here, but
forgive me. No, but it's also very similar
to finding a label for yourself like sexuality, gender.
Just having that label is also another way to know who you are.
Find that reassurance just a name for it because especially
with people who maybe are romantic and we see it with
Isaac too, He when he kind of finds that label, he becomes
steps more into himself. Like he he knows more about
himself and it's empowering to some people.
Yeah, but not everybody needs that.
And not everybody needs to diagnose this either unless, you
know, it's like a critical life threatening.
I hope you get the Anyway during this phone call Charlie also
says oh he OK. So Charlie's laughs a little
after telling him, telling Nick about his diagnosis, and he
says, sorry, I have to laugh about it or I'll just cry, which
is so relatable. It's a shitty thing to go
through, but if you use humor as a coping mechanism, you get some
really great dark jokes out of it.
Maybe people around you don't appreciate it, but they're very
funny to you. Just thought I'd add that.
So now that he's had this conversation with Nick, then we
go to basically the first, like, meeting with like, Nick seeing
Charlie and he's accompanied by Charlie's family.
And it's the cute little reunion.
But then after the reunion, they go outside and they sit on this
picnic bench where Charlie gets the gift box from the friends.
And I love the shot. It's really cute because it has
Nick sitting on the same side with Charlie giving him the gift
box. And Charlie opens it and there's
like a big heart already on the first thing in the box.
And his family's like hunched over and we get like the leaves
swirling. So like, things are getting
better and it's just a cute, cute shot because like
everybody, Charlie, all he loves is with him in the scene, even
the friends who aren't physically with him.
And so like, again, it's that piece of the outside that
Charlie has waiting for him, which is a bunch of love and
support from so many people, which is important.
Also subtle detail, the fact that there is not only the
animated leaves, but there's also the real leaves on the
ground that we really get to see in the aerial shot of the picnic
table, which is like so cute. And also like, it makes sense
because it's it's the middle of autumn.
So it's like, yeah, sure. OK.
But it's like, I don't know it like if it's supposed to be like
a symbolism of like the animated leaves or like Charlie's inner,
sorry, Charlie's, Charlie's inner love or whatever, his
inner, like what's going on in his head and the love he's
feeling. And then the leaves are actually
just like, this is the love that surrounds him.
That's kind of the vibe that I got from like that shot, that
symbolism. So yeah, I just love that.
Or it's just fall and the leaves are pretty.
And you know what? That's also perfectly acceptable
cause autumn leaves are gorgeous, so I agreed.
If it wasn't hard stopper it would be that.
But no, it's probably the symbolism thing.
Leaves are always, always have meaning in the show.
Yeah, Speaking of leaves, there are leaves all over the walls in
the eating disorder clinic, which means the hope and light
has followed Charlie. So it's a good omen with him
going to this place because if it was just plain no leaves, it
might not end up well. I wonder if people who don't
read the comics, like anybody who goes straight into the show
blind, who doesn't like any of the heart stop or lore from
before the show, if they like ever notice the leaves and like
all the background stuff I want. I wonder if like people like
that would even notice that those details.
I think it happens enough where you do because I started
watching the show I'm sure I probably missed it.
Pretty sure Theor taught me a lot in the first season but I
came into the show not knowing anything so.
But I think it definitely does happen enough where it there's
pivotal moments where the leaves start going around them and like
the butterflies with Chow and L, there's definitely things that
they make it consistent enough where you pick up on it.
OK, so something that surprises me and it's just because, again,
I have a similar situation ish. It's like that Charlie was
allowed to get stuff from his family and they're able to bring
stuff into him to give to him. Especially the string holding
the top Trump's game together, which I had to look up that
that's an actual game. And fun fact, when I was
watching this all I saw the words that my brain focused on
was gay Trump. And my brain was very great.
I was like, yes, that should be a game.
No, that was that was literally me the first time too.
So I'm like, I totally get it. I was like.
I didn't look into what the actual game is, but it's I have
no idea. I just know that there's cards
involved. So but yeah, like I'm surprised
that he's allowed to have string.
And because especially since Charlie had self harm behaviors
coming into the treatment, he shouldn't have been able to have
laces on his sneakers in his like the drawstrings like and
clothes and anything like that because it's a hazard to him and
also the people around him. But I did find out that I should
have known this, but I remember heard through research that
Charlie's treatment differed from the books to the show.
So in the show, he enters a private eating disorder clinic,
but in the book he goes to the emergency department and they
place him in ANHS hospital. So these are two very different
experiences that he has depending on which medium you
consume Heart Stopper. So in when he's at the clinic in
the show, it seems it has more of a homey, laid back feel and
it has less restrictions. It's meant to not make it seem
like you're taken out of the real world as much.
But he had his bed is like nicely made, he has two pillows,
a nice comforter. So it's trying to create a sense
of normalcy as much as they can there.
Whereas if he was in an actual hospital affiliated setting,
there would be a lot more restrictions.
It would be more sterile ish. Again, this is what I know from
my experience. So it's one experience reading
other people's experiences, they're quite similar.
So like the possibilities that would happen if he was in a
hospital affiliated center, yeah, treatment facility would
be like the furniture is bolted down.
You do see his furniture, the bed frame is, but there are
other things that are not connected to the room and
they're connected. So there's no possibility of
someone using it to harm themselves because especially in
a general facility, there's a lot of people with suicidal
ideation. So that is a risk to everybody.
And it could he also might only have one pillow and one sheet
for a blanket. And if they have a bathroom in
their room, there could be a mat instead of a door because if
someone's hurting themselves, they need to easily be able to
RIP it down. And then also something you
might not think about is can't have normal pens.
And there'd be like little rubber things that are very
annoying to write with, just so you know.
So just some possible things that he could have had to deal
with if this was a different setting.
That's weird. It kind of feels like prison,
not that I've been to prison, but it's, it's just, I mean,
it's designed so that you it's designed based off the level of
risk of the person. And so the other thing too is
that Charlie's family is wealthy enough to be able to afford a
private institution, which that's a piece that's a position
of privilege for Charlie to be in where he didn't have to
resort to like the, you know, ambulance taking him to the ER
because he self harmed or whatever.
And entry into the, you know, mental health setting that way.
And like going the Ed route usually indicates a higher risk
patient. And so a higher risk patient is
going to a higher risk setting. And so hence the difference is
there too. So I feel like because just
because Charlie had a history of of self harm wouldn't
necessarily put him in on suicide ideation like watch
necessarily in this particular institution versus like if he
was admitted to the ER because of self harm, then you're
automatically you're higher risk at that point.
And they're like, you cannot be at a, you know, non bolted down
furniture facility like you're you were actively in that
headspace. So maybe that's why.
Anyway, the private institution definitely changes a lot of
aspects and he's fortunate enough to be able to do that.
Yeah. And honestly, so like at the
very end of this whole transition, Nick basically says
like something along the lines of like, in the end, I think it
really did help him, which, you know, we're glad that we get to
see that tail end now, especially after having gone
through the whole journey through Nick's perspective,
getting to see that Nick kind of has come out the other side in
his own way. And so there is a doorbell that
rings. And Nick, I feel like just given
the smile that he gets, he immediately knows that it's
probably Charlie because as far as he knows, I'm not expecting
anybody. And as he runs downstairs and he
opens the door, we don't see Charlie.
But what we do get is a very quick rewind montage.
Where we basically rewind through the entirety of this
whole journey that Nick went on as Charlie was in the
facilities. And I, I love it because this
does two things really well. It does remind us how far that
both Nick and Charlie have come. But primarily, obviously Nick is
the focus. So it shows how far Nick has
come on his journey, but it also like gives us a super duper
quick recap in a way of what we just watched as we go into
Charlie's side of things. So there's a lot that it
basically spares us having to repeat this entire story, which
I think we talked about earlier on.
We don't have to necessarily give every single detail of what
just happened. Again, through Charlie's
perspective. We can kind of fill in the
blanks very easily now in certain situations because we
already know the baseline of what's just happened.
And I love that so much, how that was done with this, with
this rewind. So we know everything's going to
be OK Again, we are reminded everything's going to be OK, but
now we get to see really how Charlie got through it so.
Yeah, the storytelling in this episode is absolutely fantastic.
Top tier. And the way it converges to
where we left off with Nick at the end is just utterly
brilliant. So at this point, we switched to
Charlie's point of view entirely.
And we see what September through, what the fall was like
through Charlie's point of view. And Charlie at this point, when
we start, is journaling. And not because his friends
encourage him, but because his therapist said it might be
helpful. So he's kind of like reliving it
in hindsight a little bit too, because he's journaling versus
like Nick was journaling as well.
So anyway, so it's kind of parallel journaling is going on
here. So where we start with him as we
start with the the GP visit or if you're in the states, that's
like your primary care physician who's a General practitioner is
another term for him. So he's with his mom and he's
undergoing the mental health questionnaire that a physician
would do in this situation. And the mom is here because he's
a minor, he's not an adult. So mom has to be here for this
and he's going through the questions.
Everything's a no, no, no from Charlie until we get to the are
you thinking about food all the time question.
And this is where Charlie box and he doesn't have an automatic
no as his answer and he literally says nothing.
He just starts to shut down and mom sees him panicking and
immediately jumps in and says yes to the doctor and like is
facing the doctor. And then she looks back at
Charlie after a beat and she's like and takes his hand and then
goes, would you say that's accurate, Charlie?
Is that what I just said? So to your point earlier, Elena,
like it seems like after Charlie sat in the room with the letter
and told his parents what was going on, his mom seems a lot
more. She had a coming to Jesus
moment, shall we say, And it seems to be a lot more
compassionate towards Charlie, which is a very different
dynamic for them. Like yes, in this scene, she did
steamroll him initially for his own good by answering the
question to the doctor because Charlie never answers it really.
He like, nods at the end, but he he can't.
And it's like, so hard for him to answer.
But then she cracks her instinct, which is to jump in by
turning to Charlie, taking his hand to comfort him and saying,
is that accurate? So like, she's changing, which
is really good. Yeah.
It's a huge development that she actually turned back to him and
consulted him instead of just speaking because obviously with
him shutting down, you know the answer to this.
But she is giving him the power in a sense, to physically, like,
verbally say it or if she's wrong, to let her know that
instead of just being like, yes, fix him.
Yeah. Also just pro tip, because my
wife does this, you have to tell doctors what's wrong because
they're not mind readers. Like, she'll go to doctors and
be like, well, they should know what's wrong with me.
And like, they don't know if you don't tell them.
So this is one of those situations, like if Charlie
never answered, like, the doctor could just check off no.
And then he would never get the help he needs.
So like, you need to be honest in these scenarios, Like, you
have to. The doctor's not a mind reader.
Like it's good that mom did this, but the, the key here is
like she's being more compassionate.
And so I do wonder from Charlie's point of view how he
actually feels about this dynamic because in this moment
he's drowning under the question of like, Oh my God, the D eating
disorder. And so he's not really focused
on mom, but like I wonder if he's like happy about it that
like mom's not like attacking him every 5 seconds or like put
off that mom like quote pities him because that could be
another thing too that kind of plays into his mental health
spiraling and maybe why he was snapping at the friends.
So like, I wonder how he feels having this change of heart and
this mothering, this babying kind of coming from his mom.
If it's like helping or hurting, you know what I mean?
I think immediately it could be the pity one that he was
thinking about, but he would probably think about it later,
just ruminating about like the whole experience.
And he's probably super grateful that this didn't end up in a
fight. Because if it was the dynamic
that we saw a few episodes ago, she could have been upset with
him for not speaking and she could have like gotten on his
case for like being like just tell him, tell him what's going
on. But this time she she was
showing more compassion and understanding and they they they
both their relationship got to a rock bottom and they're slowly
coming back now. Yeah, unfortunately it takes a
disaster too. Yeah.
I assume it's a mixture of things for Charlie.
Just it would just be interesting to explore how he
feels about us. But anyway, so like they leave
the GP and as we know, like the next appointment for the
referral is like months out. And so Charlie's kind of alone
in his room isolating himself like in this way to get better
is just torturing him. And even when he's alone, we see
that his mind is plaguing him because that's where he's
trapped really. And we get this kind of like
animation slash comic book little thing of just like the
glass fracturing around Charlie basically, because I think
everything is so overwhelming. He feels like he's something
inside of him is breaking. It's a breaking point, if you
will, like literally being demonstrated here because I
think it's impossible for Charlie to perform at this point
as if everything is perfect and just pretend I'm normal and
like, go to school, like I'm fine because I think he feels
broken on the inside. And like, all of those normal
things made me feel impossible. And so I think because it's so
overwhelming, that's why he decides like, yes, I should go
to that rehab institute after like he has the conversation
with Nick that we saw because he needs help sooner than January.
Yeah, I love the the subtle switch going back to the music
in this show, like I do the moment that we switch from this
scene, which I appreciate that he he literally just like says
it's still really hard to talk about.
And that's pretty much as far into it as we get from Charlie's
side, because in that vein, it's like he still really doesn't
want to go back and talk about it.
And I appreciate that that's kind of all we're left with in
this side of his, in his side of the story.
But then as soon as it's flips over to the moment, it goes
straight from this scene to him in the car going to the clinic
to go get proper care. And immediately the music starts
playing as the opening notes of the song called Serotonin, by
the way. Excellent song.
The whole thing is about like recovery and everything.
And the song is like has such hopeful tones to it from the get
go. It's just, it was like the
perfect song of choice, honestly, because this is the
song that, like, plays through pretty much the entirety of this
sequence of Charlie getting the help that he needs.
So Numa. And then we head we get to the
eating disorder clinic and Charlie's family is helping him
get settled into his new home for the next few months and they
were actually able to come back with him and set him up rather
than just say goodbye at the door, which was very nice.
I know. And then one of the things he
says is I'm lucky my parents were even able to afford it,
which in itself says so much. I think.
I think you guys had mentioned this earlier, like a big reason
why many people don't even get, don't get the help they need is
because they literally just can't afford it.
Like because it does cost money. It is impossible for some people
to get that care because money is involved and they just don't
have it. And it's, it's heartbreaking.
Again, we don't have as much resources as we should in this
in this country, but also everything has a paywall in this
country, which is insane. Like just just to make sure
people are OK. Yeah, we should not be taking
Ubers instead of ambulances if we need an ambulance anyway.
So true. So Tori is helping him put up
photos on his wall. And I think she chose to do this
because it's the only way she knows how to bring happiness to
Charlie. She there's literally nothing
else she can do. But at least she can be a part,
a small part of making him be reminded that he isn't alone,
that there is happiness in his life.
And of course these photos are of Nick, but her way of being a
part of this is just by facilitating, by helping them
get put up. And then we see Charlie gets his
phone taken away. And it's because anything with a
camera cannot be, You cannot have anything with a camera.
And it's for the safety of everyone there, which is very
valid because who knows? There's some creepy people that
could be taking photos. And well, it's not.
It wouldn't be HIPAA over there, but.
I was gonna ask like is that is that the whole purpose of that?
Because I was curious because I didn't, they didn't specifically
say is that for that reason so that people can't like take
photos with their people or? Is it for?
Yeah, they said it's for the safety of everyone there.
But yeah, they don't want to do that.
But I mean, I assume that they didn't weren't allowed to have
phones because they also don't want them connected to the
Internet, that you're supposed to disconnect.
The phone's a distraction. I was reading a few places in
the UK. So again, I did way too much
research on this stuff as I typically do.
And they, they are allowed to have phones in some places and
it's just, you can't have it during groups.
So it really, again, it depends on the facility.
Every, every single facility is different of their requirements.
But yeah, it's it's typically just so they don't like
disassociate and just go in their phone.
But he is then he OK. So Charlie asks how he can talk
to his friends, though. And he's told that he can use
the landline. And this is relatable too.
So public service announcement, make sure you have a core group
of phone numbers memorized in this digital world.
We don't memorize phone numbers anymore.
But it's all it's you never know what can happen in life.
Have. At least a couple memorized that
you can call, just say. But it's encouraging that
Charlie is asking about how to talk to his friends because it
didn't. It means that he didn't fully
isolate himself. And he still wants to be in
contact with them, which he might not want to talk to them
at this very second, but he's thinking about it.
So he's being hopeful for some point.
The next morning Charlie is in the common room sitting with
Suzanne or Susan Susan and drawing and we see him use the
negative self talk and he says that his drawing is bad.
It should be noted that this drawing is damn good.
And. Instead of telling him to
reframe the statement, there are definitely providers who would
just use psychology talk therapist speak the whole time.
Susan connects with him and says, well, we can all be
artists. And they both start chuckling.
And I was trying to figure out like fully what happened.
I didn't know if it was because they both know his drawing
wasn't bad. But she also picks up another
paper, so I think she drew something too.
And it must have been like a BLOB of something that was even
worse. That was definitely worse than
Charlie's. So that's why they were
laughing. But it was just a very cute
bonding moment between those two and you really saw how connected
he was to the people who are helping him.
I just love the the implication here too, because again, it's
like it's being a psychologist about, you know, an age
appropriate and a subtle way. Because again, the root of
Charlie's problem is this perfectionism thing that comes
from the OCD. So here he is being like, hey,
just do a task and he's like it basically his brain is like,
well, there's no point if I can't be perfect at it.
And she's like, not everyone can be an artist, basically saying,
like, you can't be perfect at everything.
That doesn't mean it's to stop you from doing it.
So yeah, if she did the drunk, she's like, look, I did it.
And this is terrible. Like, to get him to, like, relax
and, like, just do things without the aim of, like, being
perfect and having those rules, that he has to fit the rules in
order to do anything. So like, it's very subtle, like
therapy, like what she's doing in the scenes.
I do like that. A.
Subtle way of giving him permission not to be perfect,
right, without lecturing and being like, see what you're
doing? Your, your perfectionism is
showing. Like it's the OCD talking
Charlie. Like it's a way of saying that
without saying it. Like basically a lot of medicine
is learning how to communicate to people without like it's not
blaming. This is your OCD.
Like it's not blaming something. It's it's not blaming you there
to just be like, this is the OCD talking right now.
Like I'm just pointing out a fact, but like, you know, she's
leading him basically by her language.
Susan like matches Charlie's energy so well, like she she
kind of matches like his sense of humor is like very snarky,
very like likes to jab at his friends, like is it likes to
tease them. And she kind of in the same vein
like when she says we can't all be artists.
It's like it could be also like making a jab at herself, but
it's also just kind of like that snarky, like just trying to be
funny and it makes him laugh. Obviously.
I I gotta say, like she she like very quickly became probably one
of my favorite characters just of this entire season.
She's only in like 1/2 of this episode and that's it.
She's only in this one episode. And yet, I mean, it just says a
lot about her character, I think.
I want her to have a spin off. I would watch her like where we
like meet multiple different characters.
It's kind of like a I guess procedure on a type of way, but.
It's just. Focusing on multiple stories
where she's trying to help them. Alice needs to write a book
about her. Alice needs to write many, many
books. OK, Alice may never stop.
I hope she doesn't. So Charlie then meets Jeff, who
is warm and welcoming to Charlie.
And I believe this is Charlie's first experience with therapy.
And if it is, he is very fortunate to be surrounded by
people who truly care about helping him.
Like this is a great experience for your first time going in.
It's a scary, this is a scary, scary thing to go through.
And it's very nice to see everybody being so open and
actually willing to communicate with him and figure out how to
help him, because you don't always get that.
Yeah. And on to after this when kind
of continuing this whole sequence of Charlie, this next
shot he goes and he basically gets caught up on school work
and on his voice over. He says it was good because I
wasn't going to be behind everyone else when I got out of
there, which is so freaking true.
Like especially because he doesn't know when he's going to
get out. So he has no idea when like how
much score he'd have to do first of all.
But also it's kind of one of those things like when when
you're like a little kid and you are sick from school for like a
day, it's not like the worst thing in the world.
If anything, it's kind of like, sweet, I don't have to go to
school today. But as you get older, especially
as an adult, I don't know. So like definitely someone as
like a high schooler, like you start to fall behind in homework
and that is stressful. But especially as an adult, like
if you're sick, you either can't get anything done and then
you're so behind on just life or you have to power through it
regardless of how sick you are. So it's rough, it rough out here
for Charlie. So I'm glad that he has that
access to, like, be able to do his school work.
And he's got like, these people who are like, we don't know,
like, how old these other people are if they're like, at the same
level as him. But he like, sits down and he's
like, oh, yeah, I'm doing chemistry.
And the other guy's like, oh, I hate chemistry, which is, I
think really sweet. Just like having this other
person here is like, yeah, I feel you.
Yeah. Also just gives him this really
good sense of like a routine and just like the thing.
The one thing I miss about being in school is just like that
natural feeling of progression, like constantly feeling like
you're improving because you're learning something.
And that's kind of just like part of your daily life is
learning. But also for Charlie, it's
something that is very familiar from home, if you will, like
from being back at home. It's like even if it isn't his
favorite thing, it is something that he had from his life
outside of the facilities. So yeah, also just the really
cute shot, the the subtle rainbow that's on like the back
wall. It's like this color palette of
just like a rainbow where they're doing their schoolwork.
Just a cute detail that's like still the theme of heart stopper
always finding ways. Whoever whoever designs those
sets and like the lighting, everything just does amazing
jobs like subtly putting those in there.
It's also pastel colored, so it's like a softer kind of
setting too, which is appropriate for like this
facility. Yeah, I like I like a lot of the
color choices in this facility because it looks very, very
welcoming. It doesn't look like harsh like
you see a lot of the the store, the stereotypes.
I guess I don't know like the way that places like that are
depicted in like media. It's not all what you expect in
this in the setting. And so it's like it's so great
to see like what's hope ideally more true to life is like the
more welcoming, more, you know, comfortable settings where
people actually feel safe here, they actually get the care they
need because they first of all feel safe.
So I love, I love the choices of just, even the wall colors
because it's amazing how much even just colors of walls can
make all the difference and somebody's feeling comfortable
somewhere. I will say that this is typical
of a pediatric facility, PEDs medicine, they decorate and make
it all welcoming and cute and stuff like that for adults.
They're like, we're not spending money on paid for you, which is
ridiculous because the adults pay the bills.
So yeah, this is typical of a pediatric facility.
It would be all colored and welcoming.
What like adult facilities are not.
They don't waste money on adults, which is ridiculous
because like, it does, the environment makes a difference.
So it's stupid that we like, invest in kids like this, but
not adults. But yeah, this is actually true.
Typical speeds. Yeah, I think the.
Adults get scared too. That's what I mean.
Like it's ridiculous. I was just saying.
It's a double standard in medicine.
If most people, like most adults, knew that the places
looked like that, then maybe they wouldn't be so scared.
That's what I mean. Yeah, there's still that level
of fear, but like, yeah, it wouldn't be so like especially
if you knew what you were, where you were going, like knowing
what kind of place you're going into.
Like there's always that fear of like not knowing what to expect.
Like that's a whole layer of fear on top of that, so.
That's why Susan needs her own show, so we can give more of
that representation. There you go.
Susan just needs to come back. Always.
Yeah. So after that, Charlie
basically, like, he has a moment where he contemplates calling
Nick, but then he decides he doesn't want to just yet because
he's still not feeling good and he doesn't want Nick to worry.
He's like, what am I supposed to say?
I hate it here. And I can't stop crying, which
is so it's very telling, like because there's still the upbeat
music in the background, this song called Serotonin, it's
still playing in the background. And so there's still like that
sense of hope on this journey. And we know everything's going
to be great. But it's just a reminder that at
this point in Charlie's journey, like while everything seems to
be looking up, Charlie still is feeling terrible.
Charlie is still really bad. He's still having such a hard
time. And it kind of like, it's a
great way of being able to say like, just because you find a
good facility, just because you find somewhere that really does
take really great care of you, it doesn't automatically make
you just better. It doesn't just go away.
It doesn't just make everything disappear because that's not how
mental illness works. That's not how this kind of
stuff works. So I thought that was very well
executed on that. And then we go into like his
session with Jeff and this is when Charlie gets like properly
by Jeff gets properly diagnosed that yes, he has his anorexia,
but Jeff is Jeff believes that Charlie's anorexia is kind of
stemmed from his OCD. And Jeff when he does this, he,
he has it with a very warm expression on his face, like
he's almost smiling, but it's not like a, you know, he's not
like pleased with it. He's just kind of like clearly
not judging Charlie. He's just being very matter of
fact, very observant and he's just, he's just stating fact of
what he is seeing from Charlie. And meanwhile, like you see the
look on Charlie's face. Charlie's not pleased by hearing
about this because as we find out from his phone call with
Nick, he hadn't even considered having OCD on top of his eating
disorder. So after that, Jeff, Jeff even
is asking him like the same questions that they'd asked in
the, or the same style that they asked in his GP appointment,
which was like, does that sound accurate?
Which is like, I think your eating disorder comes from this
because you seem to feel this way.
Does that seem accurate? And Charlie says yes to all of
it. And so Jeff goes, OK, let's
unpack that. I was like, I mean, it was just
like, oh boy, here we go, Charlie.
And the line that Charlie says after this, he goes, the actual
eating disorder treatment stuff wasn't very fun, which is like
simultaneously, it's funny because of Joe's delivery of the
line, just the timing, but also it's just kind of like, again,
this wasn't a fun experience for Charlie.
This was him like really having to heal.
This wasn't just like just because it was a very welcoming
facility doesn't mean doesn't mean that he enjoyed where he
was. He's just like feels like he
made a good choice with what he did because he knows it's going
to help him. So I love it.
That's kind of the continuing theme of this is that Charlie
isn't magically better, which a lot of people seem to just think
that that is the case. Yeah, I agree.
I thought this was so important because think about the road we
took just to get to the diagnosis.
Like it took months to Charlie to just get the diagnosis.
And so Jeff's line of, OK, let's unpack that.
It's like now the work begins, now that we know what it is, now
we can treat it, now the hard. So like the road of recovery is
a lot of hard work. So in the next couple of scenes,
we see what that road to recovery really looks like for
Charlie as he does the work because it's work.
It's not just there's your diagnosis, here's a pill, you're
magically cured. It's not like an infection where
you can just give an antibiotic and it's gone even.
That's more complicated. Trust me, that's my job.
But like he has to put the work in to like actually like process
this, get through it, learn how to deal with it, etcetera.
So we get the montage of that and it's depicted very quickly
of like, Charlie getting up each and every day because, like, he
has to get up every single day and like, face the treatment and
like, actually do the work. This is the rehab part.
And yeah, it's just it's him over and over again, just
getting up and facing it. Yeah, So like when he keeps
having to get up out of bed, especially, like, it's a
beautiful contrast to like, the start of this journey when
Charlie was like just laying in bed, couldn't even get out of
bed. And we see like, even his mom
saying, like, Charlie, you need to get out of bed.
And this, this takes like his willpower to actually have to
get up. And we see it day after day
after day. He starts to get better about
it, I think. I feel like I've noticed, like
he gets less reluctant. That's the word, less reluctant
when he does it. He gets more like, OK, OK, I can
do this. I can do this.
Every single moment, every single new day we see that.
And I really love that little detail, so.
Yeah, so he goes to show you just in the montage, like you
said, of him just getting up. Like, while this road is hard
and it's a lot of hard work, it does get easier over time.
And Charlie does put in the work, which is the key to like
getting better. You have to put in the work too,
in order to get the reward, so to speak.
And so we see that he over time, it's easier for him to open up
to his therapist. But more importantly, like and
like eating gets a little bit easier, but he's also able to
like interact with people and eat in front of people.
So he even approaches like the other kids his age and like has
lunch with them. Like it's his idea to go do it.
So that's huge improvement for Charlie.
And eventually, like, you know, his family starts visiting, time
passes, and we get a scene with him and Tori alone just hanging
out. And she encourages him to talk
to Nick because he still hasn't done that yet.
And he does eventually do it. But I like in the conversation
that Tori admits I like Nick the most because later in Nick's
month, in Nick's brain, he's like, I don't even know if Tori
likes me. But here's the confirmation for
us that, like, Tori does like Nick.
So I thought that was really cute.
And so Charlie calls Nick. So we get the other end of that
phone call, but from Charlie's point of view.
And Charlie in this conversation tries to use the mental illness
card to get away with saying sorry, which I love that he's
joking about it in a way to win arguments, which is such a like
couple thing to do. And it's just it's really funny.
He tries to do that and Nick's like, no, Charlie.
He still can't say sorry. I don't care.
I love. This this part too, because it's
like you can kind of tell like this, this little conversation,
like we're coming back to this conversation, but it's meant to
be in this moment, a transition to this next conversation that
Charlie has with Tao. And it's hard for me to put it
into words like fully. But like the writer in me just
loved the execution of that transition.
I thought it was just so well done because like trying to
write from two different characters perspectives is hard
in itself. It can be very hard, especially
trying to tell the same story twice without getting like
redundant, without being repetitive, but being able to
still give the audience a chance to be like to have trust, to
know that they they remember enough.
So when they tell it again, it's like, yeah, we could remember
this. And they love that.
That was like the perfect, like the timing of it when they
decided to start this moment in the conversation here where I
think it's right at when Charlie says I have to laugh or I'll
just cry. I think it's where he starts it
in this moment. And then it goes from there.
And it's like we we remember like what, just what that
conversation was before. So so we get enough of that
previous conversation to know, OK, this is where they were at.
And then we see the second part of this conversation, which then
leads into this next conversation where Charlie calls
Tao. And I just I just love how it
was done. It was so good, like just really
good writing on Alice's part. Yeah, the storytelling is so
good in this episode in particular, it's like the
pinnacle of storytelling. Yeah, it's a hard perspective to
write from from two different characters.
It's hard. It's it is to make it good,
like, to make it well done like this like.
And this is still true to the comics, aside from like we
didn't see as much in the comics like Charlie talking to the
others. It was mostly just like talking
to Nick and just like his personal time in the actual
facilities, not actually having this conversation with his
friends. So I'm glad that we do get that
side. But yeah, it's just it's a hard
thing to do. And Alice, God, Alice conquered
it. So man.
Yeah, but part of this conversation shows us that
Charlie is healing even more because he asked for Tal's phone
number. And that's a huge step by not
only is he calling Nick, he is willing to talk to more of the
friends. And during this conversation,
Tal tells him that he's been making him a present.
And like this whole exchange between the two of them is
reminiscent of their their usual dynamic.
And it's just so good to see. Like they're both not fully
there in that dynamic. Like you see on their face,
they're not fully OK, but they're trying to be their old
dynamic. And it's just really cute to see
because of course their dynamic is amazing, but they're starting
to get back to the way it was and finding their new normal.
But Charlie feels guilty for not telling his friends and he
apologizes for not telling him everything.
And Tao is upset with himself for not being in a place where
Charlie could. So right now they're blaming
themselves. And Charlie mentions that Tao
was having his summer of love. And I love that Tao me is like,
but I love you too. And I just, I love how easy Tao
says that he loves Charlie and that it's showing again that
friendships are just as important as, as romantic
relationships. And then Tao starts asking
Charlie about how he's doing and what he's experiencing right
now. And I also love that Tao is
comfortable enough to ask Charlie these questions because
in the beginning, like, they didn't really know what to say
to him because he wasn't in treatment.
They didn't know what they could ask or talk about.
And now he's just like, all right, well, I can, I can just
ask you how you're doing, like, what's going on there, what the
situation is. Because he may not know exactly
what to say, but he can at least try to understand what Charlie's
experience in life is like right now.
Yeah, he even like he asked, can I ask how you are?
Is that kind of a shit question? And Charlie says, yeah, that's
kind of a shit question right now.
I can't imagine Charlie a few months ago or even like
especially like back in season 1, Charlie being able to say
something like that. He probably would have just
said, yeah, I'm fine, everything's fine or something
like that. But the fact that he says, yeah,
that's that's that's kind of a bad question to ask like that.
Just right there is such a personal growth for Charlie
because I can never see him saying that before this.
So he's becoming more comfortable just being truthful
about how he feels, and I love that so much.
We're, we're, we're on the upward track.
We're on, it's been a journey and we're still going.
And Nick then visits for the first time.
And this is when we finally get to see Tao's epic surprise.
So the epic surprise is Tao and the gang apparently have made a
documentary style video for Charlie to show just how much
they all love him and how much they dearly miss him.
And it's probably the best thing that Tao has ever made,
honestly. Like he's put so much of his
love into it, so it's so special.
It's it's adorable and I love whoever came up with this.
Well done because it very much gave home movie vibes the way it
was like not edited in certain areas and stuff like that.
Like if you ever had a handheld camcorder like it reads as if
they had that. So funny.
I lost it when Tao shows up with the little like scene stopper
thing and the way he's he looks so serious and it's like a
documentary for his friend and just like the amount of
seriousness whopping off of him was so fucking funny.
The first time I saw it I was like, Oh my God, tell what are
we about to watch? It's so serious, it's hilarious.
He's so cute. The way he was so determined to
be like this is for Charlie. Like Oh my God Tao, I love him,
he's adorable. It's another indication that
when he is puts his mind to something, he's all in.
Just like he was all in on the Summer of Love, he's all in just
zero to 100. There's no middle ground.
However, this is slightly random, but if anyone's seen Boy
Meets World, I don't know if either of you have, but this
just reminds me of something that Sean and Corey would do.
Like it just, I don't know, it just gave me that vibe,
especially with the home movie type feel.
It's that era exactly like 90s era film, Yeah.
Makes sense? And during this video
documentary style video, Isaac starts with his message and he's
getting better with telling people how he feels.
So he used to keep it all in at the turning point really was at
the zoo when just everything became too much.
And that was his. Why aren't words coming to
breaking point? So he says that he's actually
kind of mad at Charlie right now because he did ask him if
something was wrong and he he's like, I guess you lied to me.
So he is able to express his frustration.
But then at the same time, he reassures him that they don't
judge him. They love him.
They can't wait for him to come back, that he loves him.
It doesn't change anything. He just wants what's best for
him and to keep that in mind. But he also didn't set his
feelings aside. So in a way, if someone watching
could easily be like, oh, well, that's so selfish of him because
he's saying that he's mad at him when Charlie's going through
this terrible thing. But it's showing that it affects
both people because Isaac was trying to help him.
Isaac literally went out of his way to his house, to Charlie's
house to make sure he was OK, and he promised that it was.
Yeah, I love that Isaac, even in this moment, kind of meets him
where he is, like, even though he's not there physically, he's
like, I know it's not your fault.
I hope you know that when you get home, you don't have to lie
to us. He kind of sees like, I know you
probably just lied because you felt like that was easier than
making us worry, but don't do that.
You don't need to do that. So I appreciate that about
Isaac. Isaac can really see it from
both sides. Also him saying he gets bad at
Charlie about Song of Achilles the the book that Charlie
recommended to him and he said he cried for four hours which
I'm just like. So that's going on my TBR list
immediately. Yes, I have that book.
I want to read it so bad. It's right there, the blue.
The art loves that book. It's not my favorite by Madeline
Miller. I like Cersei better.
That was her second book. But it's a retelling of the
Achilles myth and it it's queer and it's it's really good.
It's like a start to finish, kind of like it's good.
It will make you cry at the end. But they're both in the Greek
like classic. So it made sense that Charlie
would recommend this. Yeah, that that's, that is like
such a Charlie thing, right? Charlie's like favorite book is
the Odyssey. It's all right.
I think it's the Odyssey if I remember right.
Or the Iliad, I think one of those two.
Iliad Odyssey, I can't remember yet.
Yeah. Oh.
My God she's such a fake fan now the Odyssey sounds.
Familiar more than the Iliad I. Think it's the Odyssey.
The Odyssey and the Iliad are like intertwined stories.
The Iliad. I think more so about the Trojan
War, which is where the Achilles story takes place.
I'm such a fake fan. I'm just like what A Charlie's
favorite book. Oh my God, I forgotten.
Yeah, that makes so much sense for Charlie.
Anything Greek mythology, do you think?
Do you think Charlie's read the Percy Jackson series?
I like to think he has. That's a good question.
Or is it like would he get annoyed by the Percy Jackson
series? Yeah.
Is it too main you know? What I mean, because it's not
like it's like I read most of it and it's like, sometimes I'm
like, this is a child version of like the Greek myths.
And if you like the Greek myths and you're a purist like Charlie
is, he might get annoyed by. It.
But I feel like he'd be intrigued enough to start it,
you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, I definitely feel
like, well, Percy Jackson is definitely like a full on YA
style. Yeah, that too.
It's like pure YA. Good job.
Yeah, another good YA. Writer, yeah, like YAI mean,
obviously, because Percy Jackson in the first book is literally
12. So it's like it's specifically
designed to be this is for kids. This is for, like teenagers.
Yeah, exactly. It's perfect.
Yeah, I guess that is a real question.
Let us know, people. What do you think?
What you're listening? What would Charlie like?
The Percy Jackson series. Wouldn't Charlie like Percy
Jackson? Oh man.
So in this next part, just we're still at the Halloween party,
but Darcy pops in and Darcy announces very proudly they are
trying out they them pronouns and they go.
I feel like he'd get it. He gets it.
So I'm like 100% Charlie would get it.
I mean, first of all, it's Charlie.
Second of all, we already saw him with Isaac immediately, not
even fazed by Isaac being like, Oh yeah, I'm a say row like
whatevs. So Charlie is like the the last
person I would expect ever to not get it ever.
So he gets it. Yeah.
And then we go, we cut to the next part where they're all
like, I think it starts with LL like says she's suddenly like
blowing up on Instagram because of her paintings.
And Darcy or not, Tara, Tara has become a prefect.
And once again, this poor girl we see like these other people
are like gushing on her about how incredibly smart and how
talented she is, especially Darcy.
They're just like, my girlfriend
is the smartest person in the world.
And Tara immediately gets like so uncomfortable by this.
She's like, stop. And it's like, we know as the
audience. Dramatic irony, if you will.
That's a lot of pressure on her. So it's been as a compliment,
but it is a lot of stress. So that poor girl.
Yeah, and like in the conversation, Darcy.
Lists off all the things. Tara is doing and it's a laundry
list of things she is doing simultaneously.
So it's like even the list is like stressful just to hear.
So like poor Tara. And then we head over to Imogen
and Sahar and we get a voice over for this one.
And I like Barbie and Dracula kissing, something like that.
Yeah, it was really funny. And it we linger on that.
And then you hear Tao be like, cut the camera, Cut the camera.
And I love that Tao has a documentary code of ethics.
Like, first of all, you do need that.
So he's going to be a great film maker.
He is 1 already. Right.
He doesn't want to be. Seriously.
But he is also going to is a great filmmaker because he knows
to not cut the camera. He knows to keep filming a few
seconds after the your subject has finished speaking because
there's there might be gold there.
However, and this is when the teachers are involved and but
I'm sure that teachers hated it because he would not go away.
And that's also like, that's how handheld cameras work too.
That's what it reminded me of, of like you have to like get up
and then like press it off and things like that.
Like that's how you turn it on and off.
So it more so like gave me that style of just like in the 90s
where like things would linger in the edits because you had to
like manually edit on the camera and there was no post editing.
So give me that vibe. Yeah, or something like cameras,
depending on which one you use. Like, especially like the newer,
like the digital cameras back when digital cameras were first
becoming a thing, like it would take a couple seconds for them
to like actually. Yeah, to actually like turn on
and off. Yeah, and that's.
An old camera. It takes a second, but yeah.
And sometimes you might either, like, depending on what kind of
camera you use, you'll either get extra seconds or you'll lose
seconds if you cut it too early. So even if, like, you finish and
then you cut immediately, it might cut off a couple of the
last seconds. And it's like, no, because then
you can't edit what you lost. So people learn from that, like,
keep, keep that extra last seconds.
Yeah, Yeah, I love it because what were they talking about in
this moment? I don't remember the teachers.
Like I just remember the the shot that Tao gets at them is, I
think it's Mr. Ajai's like holding a fork of like noodles
or something in front of. Yeah, and then just like, leave
us alone. Yeah, he's like, you know, I
can't. You're like, it's the only time
we get to be gay. Literally.
Yeah. Why isn't Darcy there?
Darcy could be like, oh good, you're being gay.
Carry on. I know, right?
I OK, why? Wait?
Why do I want this now in season 4?
Wait, dammit. I want that in season 4 and I
want Darcy going up to the teachers like, oh, you're being
gay. Cool.
I need it. Oh my gosh.
Yeah. So this next little sequence we
see L first of all, she shows this painting that she made.
This painting is of Charlie and it is the most adorable thing.
And also like, Oh my God, Canon Charlie fan art.
What is this? What Ella's just basically like
validated every single bit of fan art ever.
It's just gorgeous. It's a beautiful painting.
And then she flips the camera and she goes I miss you,
Charlie. And I'm like, oh, because it's
so we haven't really seen Charlie and Elle interact.
I don't think we've seen them one-on-one at all this season.
But I remember at least like, not really.
They don't honestly interact one-on-one that much ever in
this show that we see. I think we've had a couple
moments, but not really. So we kind of forget because
obviously, like Tao and Elle's relationship is kind of one of
their main focus, and then Nick and Charlie's relationship is
like their main focus. And so we don't really see Nick
and Nick and Elle's or, I'm sorry, Charlie and Elle's
friendship, even though Charlie and Elle have been friends not
as long as Charlie's been friends with Tao, but like, they
have been friends for years. Yeah.
And obviously Charlie was friends with Elle before Elle
was friends with Tao and same thing Charlie would tell were
friends before he met Elle. So Charlie's the OG friend, so
he's the blue. So we kind of just it's just a
gentle reminder and I don't know why, but I started to feel a
little emotional at it. I'm just like, I don't, I don't
know how to say it except for just like I forgot that Charlie
and Elle were like actually really good friends just because
everything else going on, you're just like, Oh yeah, that's
right. Elle loves Charlie as much as
everybody else does. And I think it's really sweet
that she painted him. And it's it's adorable and it's
so good. So.
So when the video ends, Charlie has no words.
He literally just like looks at Nick.
There's a pause and it's like you kind of can see he's getting
a little emotional. And then he just pulls Nick in
for this really tight hug. And there's just like hearts,
that kind of little animated hearts that kind of just pop all
around them. And it's like you can tell that
it's both his love for Nick, but also just the love that's
radiating off of him and also off of Nick too, from watching
this video. So because it sounds like from
the way that Nick described it at the beginning, like maybe
Nick hasn't seen this video yet either.
So I thought it was really sweet.
It's the way that that was all animated so.
Yeah, So with all of that, Charlie finally gets to a point
where he can leave. He's graduated from rehab, and
he packs up his room and has his last session with Jeff.
And he says in his, you know, as he's journaling, we're still
doing the voice overs. He says being at the clinic
didn't magically cure me of mental illness, but it got me
out of the deep end. So, you know, that's the main
lesson. We talked about that a million
times. And really, Charlie's road to
recovery is going to continue after he leaves the clinic.
So now he's going to go on this journey without easy access to
those professionals that were constantly supporting him and
knew, like, how to help him during these crises.
And that can be really scary to like, walk on your own 2 feet,
kind of metaphorically speaking. And I think Charlie is feeling
some of that fear of like, leaving this environment.
So Jeff reassures Charlie that they can continue their sessions
for as long as Charlie feels like he needs Jeff's support.
And I thought this was amazing that Jeff could continue being
his therapist as an as an outpatient out of the facility,
which was actually kind of amazing.
Usually that's not the case. They get referred to a different
provider. So that that was pretty cool.
Yeah. That's not typical.
No. I didn't think this has to be a
very small program for him to have the even availability to
take care of both. Yeah, yeah, Yeah.
Like, yeah. Anyway.
But the saddest part is saying goodbye to Susan.
We will meet you, Susan. Hopefully you get that book.
We were speaking into existence. We love you.
It's been real. Then the springs come to collect
Charlie to drive home. And in the car, Charlie sits
next to Tory in the back seat. And it's really sweet.
No, they don't say anything to each other.
But Tori reaches out and holds Charlie's hand and we get to see
Tori smile. And I came to a really sad
realization that, like, we really haven't seen Tori smile
at all this season. And like, we, we, it's more
apparent that, like, Charlie also hasn't been smiling.
But like, really Tori, we haven't seen her happy at all
this season. So I feel like this was a big
deal of like a weight coming off of her shoulders as well.
Cuz like she also has been on this journey with Charlie.
She's just been like relegated to like the far back, whereas
we've seen Nick Moore in the foreground.
So like, I thought this was a big deal for Tori.
OK, but why was this the moment in this episode?
I OK, There's been 1 instance in every single episode that I have
cried. I did great.
I made it through the whole playthrough of Black Friday.
I made it through the entire sequence of Charlie and the
Clinic. I made it through Nick crying at
the Halloween party. Why is this the moment I cried?
Cause Tori being emotional just stirs emotions deep within you
know I. Mean it's actually just like the
sibling dynamic. I can never specifically about
Charlie and Tory's, like I think I've said this before, they're
like one of my favorite sibling dynamics ever in media just
because there's such genuine love between them.
And I feel like so much in media, we see two sides of the
coin with sibling dynamics. We see siblings that fight all
the time and we see siblings that never talk to each other.
And this is like two siblings. Obviously they argue sometimes,
but like they're siblings who genuinely love each other so
much and it's like, I don't know why we don't see that more in
media because it's like it does exist.
There are siblings who genuinely love each other in life,
especially as teenagers. I don't know.
But man, it's just something about their dynamic and how much
they just genuinely care so much for each other and they like
lean on each other. And I don't know, just I lost it
the moment, the moment he takes her hand, I just lost it.
Well, it's also kind of like a relieving moment for both of
them, because although he's not magically fixed, he didn't make
it through this part. And now Tori can like, let out a
sigh of relief because OK, we've made progress, I don't have to
worry as much again. This is Tori's always worrying
about Charlie and not herself, who she also needs help.
Like I've been, we've all been saying so now like a part of
her, like there's been weight lifted.
So it's just a very heavy moment that is starting to get some
relief. And throughout all this, we hear
Charlie's voice over and it's him journaling in his room when
he gets home and he writes. It's not going to be a
straightforward journey. It's probably just the
beginning. And after he writes this,
Charlie smiles and he looks hopeful, like it just shows how
far he has come in. I mean, in this one episode,
it's been a journey, but in his outlook to things too.
Then Charlie's mom knocks on the door and she's just going over
the plan for dinner, making sure everything's OK with him.
And again, she's learning to communicate with him and consult
with him rather than telling him this is what's going to happen.
You have no say in your life. Again, we need to give him some
control back. And this is her way of saying,
OK, I understand that I need to do some work too.
And I hope she got her got support herself.
I hope this made her realize, like, she gets therapy or
something. I know sometimes there is family
therapy when people are in treatment.
Maybe there were support groups that she could go to and
hopefully she found a community or something that helped herself
as well. And Charlie asked if he can go
say hi to Nick before dinner. And old mom would have been
like, no, it's too close, you can do that another time.
She actually smiles and says, yeah, I think that'll be OK.
It's, it's so much progress. But the two of them as well cuz
she had to learn to let go. That was her main issue is
letting go of Charlie, letting him be his own person and make
his own choices as well and trusting him.
So together they are on the journey to becoming their own,
their own mental health journeys and also their relationship.
And we're getting there. But now someone really needs to
go check on Tori. She's right across the hall.
Just say I know. And then when Charlie goes to
Nick's house, this is where we get the if you know, you know,
if you if you read the comics, it's the he came home in early
December, which there's there's memes about it on, on like
Tumblr and stuff of like this screenshot from the scene.
And then he came home in early December and just goes, ah, so
many fields. And then we get the gay leaves
one last time in his episode, which we've gotten a couple of
times, and it just swirls around them and it's so beautiful.
It is so beautiful. This episode was beautiful.
Just everything about it. I've said it already before, but
like, I love this. The way this was told, the
storytelling was just so clever and worked so well with the dual
point of views and the way it converged here with them
reuniting at the end of the journey, It's just so poetic and
just, it's beautiful. It's such a well constructed
story for this episode. It was so powerful.
I loved it a lot. It was definitely a clever way
to show both of their points of view and like their thoughts and
feelings throughout this whole thing because they could have
just shown us from the overview and not exactly how they were
feeling. But it was more impactful
because we were going through this journey individually.
So we had to go through two separate journeys and if they
would have intercut it, it would have been just one journey.
So it's like going through it multiple times and seeing it
from both sides. It's very, very interesting way
they chose to do it. Yeah, I like that we get the
whole story, but like, it's just like we get to see all of it
unfold, but it's not all at once.
And I really like that a lot. Yeah.
So what's really I? Like that they make us watch the
same thing over and over. Like they did have the story
separated because their experiences are not going to be
the same. Yes, they're not talking on the
phone every day. We did get to see separate
stories and even when we saw the same scene, we didn't see the
whole thing. We just saw enough and then
continued. Thank you.
Yeah, so well, so, so well done. And then the episode even ends
like it like cuts to like the start of the credits and it ends
on a screen and it says if you or someone you know is
struggling with an eating disorder, mental health or
thoughts of self harm. Information and resources are
available at this website is www.want to talk about it.com,
which I love that I appreciate so greatly that that is like the
ending screen. And I'm glad that a lot more
shows are doing this now where either it's before the episode
where it says this does have pictions of this.
If you or a loved one are having these thoughts, please go to
this. Like I think I've seen like
shows where it has like that, where it's here is the crisis
line number or the suicide hotline numbers and stuff like
that. Or like in this case, it has at
the end. And I really appreciate that
more shows are doing that now. Like, hey, it's kind of.
Nice if they put it at the beginning because it acts as a
trigger warning for people because especially watching new
things that I myself just keep rewatching things because I know
how it'll affect me. But you never know if something
catches you off guard in a show, how you're going to react, even
if it's not like a typical reaction that you have while
watching TV. Like you never know what's going
to impact a person. But yeah, definitely giving
resources to people in a way that they might not even thought
about asking for help. And now we have come to the end
of this episode, which means it is time for the big Gay Energy
Award. I'm giving it to Susan to start.
You know what, Susan? Susan's existence, I love her.
It's just Susan. And we never see her again.
So to you, Susan. We love you.
Susan. We do, Caitlin.
How about you, Caitlin? All right, I'm just.
I'm boarding. I was really thinking about this
and I think I'm going to give it to Isaac for being honest and
also reassuring Charlie at the same time.
Yeah, being able to be honest with how he's feeling.
I. Think I'm going to give it to
Sahar because OK, so in the Halloween at the Halloween
party, you see it in the documentary that Tao does Imogen
like laughs the camera and Sahar goes, is this some kind of joke
to you? And then she gets up and walks
away and I immediately was just like, yes, queen right?
This is not like the fact that she doesn't even put up with it.
She's just like cuz Sahar is putting like actual feelings
into this. So it's just like the fact that
Imogen is just laughing about it.
She's just like, OK, I guess we're done with this.
Bye. She doesn't put up with it at
all and I'm just like, yes, Queen, walk away.
Set them boundaries. So we also learned later that
Imogen is her by awakening. So like this is a huge deal.
Yeah, that both of that well, Imogen definitely doesn't
realize how big of a deal it is for both of them right now.
But it's so hard. It's just, it's basically like
the worst. Thing.
That could happen is like, first of all, it's like that straight
girl thing. Straight girls experimenting,
blah. Blah blah, it's just a lot.
Going on. So that was my runner up.
I was thinking about that because Sahar knows how to take
care of herself. Yeah, it's like she's, she
doesn't want to just be somebody's experiment, which I'm
just like, good for her. Like I, I personally, I wouldn't
want to be either. So I get it.
Like hell yeah, good for her for walking away from that.
Yes, walking away is always an option.
And now another option that you have because you've made it this
far into the episode is to use this secret phrase for this
episode in either a comment or a review.
This is going to be really funny if you leave it in a review.
So today's secret phrase is gay leaves.
Yes, yes. So have fun with that one.
Let's be creative. Is this like leaves, like the
tree leaves? Or is this like the gate leaves
the room? Well, I didn't think about that.
Technically it's spelled the same both.
So however I mix it, they're your galius an option.
They're your galius. You do whatever you want with
them. All right.
Well, thank you all for making it this far.
Thank you for coming on the journey while we talked about
journey and we'll be back next time to talk about episode 3 O
5, which is less depressing. But this was a very important,
beautiful episode and I'm glad we made it here.
So thank you all. And until next time, hydrate for
lesbian Jesus and get it up all over the place.
Bye. And with that, we've been Big
Gay Energy. Thank you for listening.
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