Heartstopper Season 3 Handles Heavy Topics Without Sacrificing Its Uplifting Nature
Critic’s Rating: 4.7 / 5.0
4.7
It’s been a long wait. But the good news is that Heartstopper Season 3 is finally here!
The bad news is that if you binged all eight episodes in one or two days like I did, now you’re left with no new episodes AGAIN.
This season had its ups and downs (mostly ups), but the worst part is how quickly it goes by.
Heartstopper Season 3 Was The Most Coming-of-Age Season Yet
Many Characters Dealt With Tough Issues While Speeding Toward Adulthood
Heartstopper has always been a coming-of-age series, but that has never been clearer than this season.
The season opened three weeks before the next school term, and within eight episodes, Nick, Elle, Tara, and Darcy were considering whether they wanted to go to universities far away from home.
Meanwhile, Charlie and Nick faced their most serious challenge when Charlie’s eating disorder and self-harming behaviors spiraled more and more out of control, and Nick was left helpless to protect him from himself.
This moving mental health story was done better than almost any I’ve ever seen, even if it did move at lightning speed.
I would have liked to have experienced more of Charlie’s treatment at the clinic, but the way his experience was depicted was so brilliant that I can excuse that.
Nick and Charlie had wildly different perspectives about Charlie’s time away, with Charlie’s depression and low self-esteem convincing him in the beginning that Nick was better off without him, while Nick was left to worry about Charlie and wish he knew what was happening with him.
Charlie: So I have anorexia and OCD.
Nick: Oh.
Charlie: Yeah, so there’s really no unawkward way to say that.
I diagnosed Charlie’s OCD before he did, which is a testament to how realistically the show depicted his mental health challenges.
Teen dramas often focus on mental health storylines, but never quite like this. Often, they fall into tired TV tropes that are less inspiring than the writers mean them to be, but not this time.
I especially appreciated how Heartstopper Season 3 gave equal time to how the label of “mental illness” affected Charlie and how loving someone with a mental health condition affected Nick.
It was especially difficult for Nick to accept that he couldn’t help Charlie.
His Aunt Diana was the perfect stand-in for his mother since Olivia Colman wasn’t available to film this season, but Aunt Diana’s advice was hard for him to take.
He didn’t know how to let go of Charlie and ended up stuck in the middle when others in their peer group wanted to know why Charlie wasn’t at school.
Meanwhile, Charlie had to deal with insensitive questions and comments when he returned from the clinic, which is a part of dealing with mental illness that is not often addressed on television.
Nick and Charlie could have easily split up for the sake of drama because of Charlie’s mental health issues, but instead they pushed forward together as best as they could.
This is the type of uplifting mental health issue that viewers who have mental health challenges of their own need to hear.
That was one of the strongest things about Heartstopper Season 3.
The heavy issues — and Charlie’s eating disorder was not the only serious subject the teens grappled with — didn’t drag the show down into dark or depressing territory.
Instead, they were part of the show’s fabric. It was still uplifting and positive while also addressing the real stressors that LGBTQ+ teens often face.
Heartstopper has been criticized in the past for being too much of a fluffy fantasy, especially by older LGBTQ+ folk who weren’t able to be out to the world as teens without getting beaten up or worse.
This has never been a fair criticism because Heartstopper has always included some of the ways life is tough for LGBTQ+ kids.
Charlie was outed without his permission and bullied for being gay before he met Nick, and Darcy’s mother kicked them out of the house for being a lesbian.
Even though the rest of Nick’s family was accepting of his bisexuality, his brother had to be an asshole about it.
Heartstopper Season 3 dove more deeply into the painful parts of queer youth life than ever before, but maintained its core positivity.
Charlie: I feel like I’ve still got a long way to go.
Geoff: You’ve had trauma, Charlie. It’s to be expected.
Charlie: Yeah but I don’t want to feel like I’m defined by the fact that I was bullied at 14 and had one toxic ex-boyfriend.
Geoff: Trauma doesn’t define you. But it also doesn’t vanish in five minutes, so give yourself some grace.
That’s the type of LGBTQ+ representation that we rarely have on television.
Heartstopper doesn’t ignore difficult issues, but its message is that it’s possible to be happy and be queer, whether or not you’re dealing with discrimination or bullying.
That’s a powerful message, and Geoff delivered it often to Charlie.
My favorite part was when he told Charlie that Charlie had more self-confidence than he realized, pointing out that he initiated things with Nick despite not even knowing if Nick was open to a same-sex relationship.
Heartstopper Season 3 Was About More Than Mental Illness
Letting Go Was A Major Theme
Charlie and Nick had a beautiful arc this season.
They were extremely co-dependent during Episode 1, with Charlie not being able to deal with Nick being away for three weeks and Nick feeling responsible for Charlie’s mental health while visiting Aunt Diana.
It wasn’t an obsessive love story, but it was unhealthy.
Interestingly, Charlie outgrew that pattern before Nick did.
Nick was prepared to throw away his opportunity to go to his dream school because it was four hours away from where Charlie lived, and he didn’t think Charlie could handle that.
That’s why one of Heartstopper Season 3’s final scenes was so moving.
Charlie not only survived playing at the concert without Nick but also practiced leaning on others instead of making Nick his whole world.
Nick learned that, to his surprise, Charlie could function well without him, which would free him from going to Leeds if he were accepted at the university there.
Charlie’s Story Was An Interesting Parallel With Tao’s
Tao Also Struggled To Let Go Of Elle
Tao used to be annoying because he was so clingy with Charlie that he couldn’t resist criticizing Nick at every turn.
Fortunately, that was long gone by Heartstopper Season 3, but Tao merely switched his over-attention to Elle, who had to reassure him that her going to Lambert wouldn’t lead to the end of their relationship.
I’m not sure Tao learned anything since he’s been clingy since the first episode of Heartstopper, but at least he didn’t outwardly freak out when Elle said she wanted to go to school in Berlin or Paris.
He was also surprisingly supportive when Elle was struggling with depression after that horrific interview, which is the kind of allyship transgender kids need to know is possible.
These kinds of important stories are so much better than the love triangles that ruin friendships in most teen dramas!
Elle Dealt With Transphobia For The First Time
This Was An Important Story Arc That Was Different From The Past
Elle got a bigger story on Heartstopper Season 3 than she has in the past, and I was here for it.
Her radio interview didn’t go in the direction I thought it would, and that was what the problem was: she didn’t think it would go there either.
As a transgender author, I’ve done many interviews on podcasts where the interviewer lets me know ahead of time they’d like to ask about trans issues and gets my consent. I never mind doing it, but I appreciate that they ask.
Elle wasn’t given that courtesy, and I was crushed right along with her when the interview devolved into demanding that a 17-year-old trans girl correct misconceptions about transgender people when she wasn’t expecting to discuss these issues.
Katy: Last week we had a feminist speaker on who talked about the importance of same-sex spaces. I think it’s important to hear from all voices. I’d love to get your thoughts on the debate.
Elle: Trans people aren’t a debate. We’re human beings.
For Elle, it felt like transphobic tropes were being thrown in her face over and over, and she was expected to defend her right to exist.
She had been nervous but excited about being chosen to be interviewed because of her art.
Then it turned out to be a nasty bait-and-switch where she was only valued because she’s transgender and can provide a “controversial” point of view for the audience to disagree with.
I wish Elle had been able to stand up for herself and other transgender people on the air — those lies and misconceptions about transgender women and girls trying to invade female-only spaces needed to be debunked.
But it’s a lot to ask of anybody, especially a shy teenager who wasn’t expecting to talk about such things, and I totally understood why Elle left the interview rather than deal with it.
Unfortunately, fending off these kinds of obnoxious “questions” is part and parcel of being transgender, and even well-meaning people do it.
But Heartstopper Season 3 didn’t stop there. Elle was depressed and afraid her cisgender boyfriend couldn’t understand, but she worked through it, allowed him to support her, and got back to doing her art.
That victory couldn’t be sweeter.
Some Stories Needed More Time Than They Got
Tara And Darcy Deserved More Screen Time On Heartstopper Season 3
There were a lot of strong stories on Heartstopper Season 3, but some of them were too rushed.
I was especially disappointed that Tara and Darcy didn’t get more time.
The plot twist of Darcy coming out as non-binary deserved more than a quick mention, and Tara reassured Darcy that it didn’t change anything between them.
Kizzy Edgell (Darcy) recently came out as transmasculine, which means they are non-binary but also comfortable with he/him pronouns. I was looking forward to Darcy possibly having a similar journey, but it was barely mentioned.
Tara’s storyline was even more rushed. After Tara became a prefect, we got some hints that she was overwhelmed and unhappy, but it wasn’t a full story.
Other than walking away from some younger kids who tried to bother her at a party and having a panic attack when everyone was talking about their future plans, we had no on-screen scenes featuring Tara’s struggles.
We didn’t go on the journey with her, so her decision not to go to Oxford was far less impactful.
Similarly, it was hard to care whether Tori and Michael figured out what they wanted to be to each other when we only had bits and pieces of their relationship.
Michael was an underdeveloped member of the Heartstopper Season 3 cast who was always around but had no real story.
However, it was nice that Charlie had grown up enough to be the one to give him and Tori advice instead of the other way around.
Isaac’s asexuality was also an interesting story. I’m demisexual, and there’s not a lot of representation of people like me on TV.
That story, at least, started out well. I was irritated with everyone taking Isaac for granted, and Tao’s assumption that Isaac was upset that he didn’t have a partner, too, was beyond annoying.
But it fizzled out after the beautiful scene at the aquarium where Isaac talked about his asexuality in terms of how the fish might feel.
The most disappointing aspect of Heartstopper Season 3 was the lack of school scenes, other than the kids getting their GCSE results and a couple of throwaway scenes with Misters Ajayi and Farouk.
In a teen drama, the focus should be on the teens, not the teachers, but it seemed pointless for these two to get together and then barely have any scenes.
Additionally, Farouk seemed to have a far softer personality, perhaps as a result of his new relationship with Ajayi, but since it wasn’t explained, it was jarring.
The lack of school scenes might also have demonstrated that the teens were growing up. School was no longer as important as it was when they were younger.
Some of these stories were underdeveloped because Heartstopper Season 3 only had eight episodes to work with, each about half an hour long.
That’s why these eight episodes flew by, leaving me wanting more even though the final scenes were a fine place to end if Netflix doesn’t renew Heartstopper for Season 4.
Over to you, Heartstopper fanatics!
With so much going on, I’m bound to have said less about your favorite story than you wanted, so hit the comments with your thoughts, and let’s start a discussion.
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