'Heated Rivalry' is a Reminder of What We Lose When Studios Hide Behind Fear

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***SPOILER ALERT: This article contains specific details about the season one finale of Heated Rivalry.***

While discussing Heated Rivalry with a friend, he told me, “I can never finish a full episode of Heated Rivalry because I get so horny that I just start watching porn instead.”

I take that as a stellar five-star review.

Heated Rivalry has become a cultural phenomenon mainly for queer audiences and women — and it just so happens those are the communities that drive culture.

When the series debuted, I was skeptical, like any LGBTQ series that hits the mainstream. With the current anti-DEI state of film and TV, I entered with extra skepticism because Hollywood loves to pat itself on the back as they execute half-baked and performative “content” that they think won’t make the white straight cisgender men in this world uncomfortable.

My skepticism immediately melted away when I realized that this was not a Hollywood production, but a series from a friendly neighbors to the north (that would be Canada for those who failed Geography). My apprehensions were also put at bay when series creator Jacob Tierney showed everything but penetration and money shots when it came to the sex scenes. The show is one hole shot away from being a Sean Cody video.

Yes, there is a lot of sex in the series. A LOT OF SEX. And that is fine. I can totally relate to my friend who can’t watch an entire episode without making a porn pit stop. It’s bonerrific, but the romance, yearning, and unrequited love make the scenes even hotter as fuck than they already are.

Photo credit: Sabrina Lantos

Based on the popular novel series by Rachel Reid, Heated Rivalry already has a built-in audience. When it was released into the wild, it caught on like wildfire, and all I saw in my social media feed were stills of Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie’s asses. The asses were so taut and ready to explode with juice like a ripe pomegranate. I saw the asses so much that my arm was twisted (like I needed it) to watch. As soon as I saw Hollander and Rozanov boink for the first time, I, like queer people and women around the country, was hooked on this gay hockey player escapade.

My primary concern was that this was going to be a Fifty Shades of Grey situation. I was expecting Heated Rivalry to deliver basic bitch sex scenes and a performative queer narrative that adhered to ridiculous tropes. I thought it was going to be through the gaze of a woman who was writing about what she thought queer love was about.

Thanks to the almighty LGBTQ deities and Mr. Tierney, the show has achieved a balance of pure, unbridled yearning romance and hot, raw booty sex.

Throughout the entire season, Tierney has sculpted a stellar series that could have easily been a shallow gay sex fest a la the aforementioned Fifty Shades of Grey. It could have also been a trope-ridden story about “coming out”, a narrative that has become dated and two thousand and late. Although there are droplets of tropes and familiar in-the-closet stories, Tierney is thoughtful with his execution, and all was brought to a head in the finale when the inevitable happened: Hollander and Rozanov get caught.

In the penultimate episode, we see another closeted hockey journey of Scott (François Arnaud) and his smoothie shop suitor with a heart of gold boyfriend, Kip (Robbie G.K.). After Scott’s team wins the MLH, he invites Kip down to the ice so he can kiss him — in front of EVERYONE, making the Karens and JD Vances of the world clutch their pearls and gasp as their sphincters get tighter. As Hollander and Rozanov watch on TV in different parts of the world, Rozanov immediately calls Hollander and tells him that he is coming to his cottage this summer — in more ways than one.

The season finale starts with Scott accepting an award and further professing his love for Kip in his acceptance speech on television. Meanwhile, Hollander and Rozanov head out to the cottage for some summer lovin’.

I watched the two give The Summer I Turned Pretty energy as they did exactly what two people in love would do in an isolated cottage near a lake: enjoy each other’s company and have lots and lots of sex.

Besides Rozanov giving head to Hollander while he is on the phone with his homey Hayden (Callan Potter), there is an emotional center to all this sensuality: the fact that these two people will do anything for each other out of love. They agree to tell each other the truth and share their emotions no matter what during their stay in the cottage.

Specifically, Hollander is trying to find a way to keep Rozanov in the country so they can be together — in secret or otherwise.

“Is that what you want? To be together?” Rozanov asks Hollander.

Hollander responds, “So much…so much it scares me.”

As tears well up in Rozanov’s eyes, he says the words: “I love you.”

“Holy shit…” Hollander reacts. “I mean, I love you too.”

It is in the cottage here where my heart was annihilated. It’s what everyone yearns for: unhinged love that you cannot control. When the two profess their love for each other, I felt that love… in my heart and in my pants.

In all seriousness, when the two say those three words (even though Rozanov already said it in Russian in a previous episode), it hits like a freight train. It’s what audiences have been waiting for, and the wait was worth it.

Just when you think all is well, Hollander’s father (Dylan Walsh of Nip/Tuck fame) makes a surprise visit to the cottage because he forgot his charger.

Seriously, Dad? Didn’t you have an extra charger lying around at home?

Nonetheless, this is when the finale really starts to get juicy.

Tierney unapologetically displays romance through a queer lens — a very gay lens. And although this is not how all gay people are when it comes to romance, it gives us a taste of where we are coming from. Yes, sex is a huge part of the relationship (and Tierney shoots amazing sex scenes. You can totally tell a gay dude shot the scenes), but love and empathy are just as important, if not more so.

The show makes audiences yearn for Hollander and Rozanov as much as they yearn for each other — and that yearning is not only hot, but it’s a universal story. It just happens to be the yearning between two masculine men.

Perhaps it’s the masculinity that makes the show palatable for mainstream audiences, because God forbid that the show have two effeminate gay people who don’t fit into the OnlyFans mold. Then again, a work of queer media or art can’t be representative of the entire LGBTQ community. We see very tertiary characters in Kip’s world that tell us the story exists in a universe where a vibrant queer community exists outside of this secret world of closeted queer hockey players.

After Hollander’s father catches him and Rozanav mid-kiss, I was curious to see what direction the narrative would go. It could go the typical route of shame, anger, and disappointment, or… anything else. Tierney decided to go with “anything else”.

When Hollander decides to confront the situation head-on by going to his parents’ house and coming clean, Rozanav goes with him, and we see a different side of the stoic-faced, oily variety Russian bohunk. He is acting like… a supportive boyfriend as his parents calmly interrogate the situation. All the while, Rozanav casually eats pasta and provides moments of humor and levity in the only way he knows how.

This is where Heated Rivalry could have gone south. Instead, it stays the course and is grounded in emotion. The parents’ reaction was exactly the one you would expect from a biracial kid’s progressive parents. It’s not perfect, but it isn’t devastating. It’s like loving, radical acceptance. However, it didn’t seem that way at first.

During the conversation, Hollander’s dad admits he thought Rozanav was a ladies’ man, to which his son responds, “He likes both.”

“It’s true I have been with many women, but I’ve only been in love with one person,” Rozanov tells Hollander’s parents. As he says this, the duo calmly play footsies underneath the table as a way to say, “I got you.”

In turn, and in a bold, quiet act of acceptance, Hollander admits his love for Rozanov. As soon as he says this, his mom (Christina Chang), with what seems to be polite defiance, leaves the table and goes outside. Hollander follows.

What happens next is the empathetic crux of the first season. This was a moment that could have made or broken the entire series. Tierney, Williams, and Chang worked fluidly and with an extreme amount of empathetic mindfulness to create a memorable moment of TV in 2025. It’s one part fantasy and one part realism. Fantasy in that this is the reaction many queer people hope they are met with when they come out, and realism in that this reflects the overwhelming feelings that happen at such a pivotal point of a huge change in the dynamic of a relationship between a parent and their child.

Hollander: (with tears) Mom, I need you to know that I did really try. I tried really hard, but…I just can’t help it. I’m sorry.

Yuna (Hollander’s mom): (also with tears in her eyes) Oh, no! You have nothing to apologize for…(she gently holds his face) Look at me… look at me…I’m sorry that I made you feel like you couldn’t tell me. (embraces Hollander) I’m so so proud of you…Please forgive me.

Hollander: I forgive you, Mom.

Let the tears flow.

There is no guide for parents or for their children on how to handle situations like these, but long as the parent doesn’t shame or turn their child away, we are in the clear.

This beautiful scene has a fluid, thoughtful movement to it, showing the possibility of what could happen in a moment like this, giving parents of queer kids a real-life template to approach a very vulnerable, important moment. In the past, coming-out moments in real life and on TV have been riddled with anxiety and fear. Tierney thoughtfully puts this narrative on a detour, allowing a safe space between a mother and son to breathe, finding the emotional core and truth to the situation that has often been exploited and contributed to the “kill your gays” trope.

In 2025, and more often than not, it is disappointing to still hear the abandonment, hate, and loss that happen when a queer or trans person lives their truth. Heated Rivalry combats that with love, and it’s injected into the veins of audiences so they can feel that acceptance in its entirety. For me, the tears will never not follow when I think about the interaction between Hollander and his mother.

Having to admit a lifestyle that you have been living in secret because of the societal shame attached to it is a brave act that is often met with hate. For me I feared rejection when I first talked openly about my sexual identity to my parents. Like Hollander, I felt an overwhelming sense of disappointment as if I had betrayed my parents or had let them down. Perhaps that is why every time I think of this scene, it aggressively tugs at my heartstrings with unmerciful love, causing an ugly cry that I cannot control, but am not ashamed of.

Tierney captured this moment perfectly in a time when Hollywood is receding from narratives that bolster the voices of traditionally excluded voices and stories in media.

First off, it’s wild that America has to go to Canada to get an LGBTQ story. It’s as if we have to export our queer entertainment since stateside studios have scaled back on stories that involve gayness. It’s even wilder that Heated Rivalry is airing on HBO Max under the Warner Bros. Discovery empire.

In the past five years or so, the same empire, now under the leadership David Zaslav, canceled the critically acclaimed and fan favorite LGBTQ series Our Flag Means Death as well as other popular series like genera+ion, The Sex Lives of College Girls, Doom Patrol, Titans, Legendary, Finding Magic Mike, 12 Dates of Christmas, Gossip Girl, Pretty Little Liars, We’re Here and other TV series that included a front-facing diverse cast. WBD also canceled the release of the feature film Batgirl, which starred Leslie Grace and trans actress Ivory Aquino. Whether or not this is a coincidence is left up to interpretation. Either way, it’s just not a good look. According to GLAAD’s “Where We Are on TV,” this trend is happening during a time when LGBTQ representation is being edged out in TV, film, and media no only at WBD but at other streamers, studios, and networks.

In the great WBD merger, layoffs impacted diversity — intentionally or not. Trailblazing DEI exec Karen Horne split ways with the media monster conglomerate. The conglomerate shuttered Stage 13, which bolstered intersectional and underrepresented voices and nearly shut down its writers and directors workshops that have historically been key pipelines for underrepresented creators — including women, people of color, and LGBTQ+ talent. On top of all of that, WBD is now using the word “Inclusion” instead of the D-word (diversity) in their effort to tell us, “We aren’t prioritizing underrepresented voices as much anymore. We did that enough already.”

It’s as if we are traveling back in time to the late ‘90s and early ‘00s, when studios thought that one diverse story was enough. Heated Rivalry is more than just a show about queer hockey players. It represents what studios fear. It reminds audiences that the media powers that be are trying to sculpt the narrative they deem fit for their comfort. The series proves that Hollywood doesn’t lack audiences for these types of narratives — it lacks the nerve to put more of these stories front and center. Instead, they rely on Canada to represent marginalized folks that drive culture instead of letting homegrown, stateside voices tell beautiful, universal stories that all audiences can connect to. And it also shows the diverse menagerie of identities, experiences, voices, and stories that inhabit this Earth. Hollywood just likes to hop on the bandwagon if it is successful to the mainstream. If Heated Rivalry stayed fringe like, let’s say genera+ion, Rap Shit or The Sex Lives of College Girls — which happen to have many queer people of color in the mix — it would be a totally different story.

Nonetheless, I sure as hell don’t see something like Avatar dictating the course of diverse narratives. Joseph Kahn was 100 percent right: movies like Avatar do not have any significant cultural impact because the queer community couldn’t care less about it.

Heated Rivalry shows what Hollywood is bypassing to appease bigoted power structures and alienate audiences that build culture from the ground up.

At first, it seemed like Tierney was telling a story of a school boy crush, but he went beyond the surface and gave us a three-dimensional romance that explored the complexities of identity, family, and being true to yourself. Tierney has served up an emotionally satisfying finale of a premiere season that was damn near perfect, and that put a polite middle finger up to the industry as only Canadians can.