It’s the pop culture global phenomenon of the year. Some say, this decade, even. But the question is: will India take to "Heated Rivalry" the way most of the rest of the world has, or will it blush coyly and whisper, “No sex please, we are Indian?”
Graphic sex may not be the only thing that is standing between the No.1 TV series of recent times across most of the world and Indian audiences. While the show is on leading streamer HBO/Sky in many major markets, it premiered in India this weekend on Lionsgate Play, a streamer with a niche subscriber base.
Perhaps starting small and unnoticed isn’t something new to Jacob Tierney’s show. Greenlit by a small Canadian OTT platform called Crave, "Heated Rivalry" had taken its chances on word-of-mouth, as well as the fan following the slow-burn hockey romance’s origin, from writer Rachel Reid’s bestseller series, which had gained in recent years (before HBO’s entry at the last minute took it global).
Being on the aforementioned Canadian platform was not the only roadblock the show had to face. Made on a small budget, with virtually first-time actors (do Instagram dance routines and friends’ amateur flicks count as acting gigs?), the show’s other big challenge was its subject matter: a love story forbidden twice over — one, it’s between two men; second, perhaps even more taboo, it happens in the world of professional sports.
The show’s creator, Jacob Tierney, almost did not make it. While he said he loved the books, he had said he wasn’t sure it would be fit for a mainstream TV series. “This was a story I didn’t know I needed in the most real way – smart, funny, sweeping, and deeply, unapologetically sexy,” he said, adding, “And still, I never actually thought I’d adapt it. Why? Maybe because, as much as I loved it and devoured it, I wasn’t sure anyone else would feel the same.”
Tierney changed his mind after the book landed on bestseller lists and he read a piece in the Washington Post which, he says, conveyed exactly what he felt about the book. “There is nothing I wanted more than to bring this show to life, to introduce this shamelessly funny, glorious, epic, romantic story to the world,” Tierney said.
What makes the "Heated Rivalry" craze sweeping across many parts of the globe even more surprising is its niche topic. While LGBT+ characters and subplots have become de rigueur on OTT, it is rare to find these elements become central to the story. "Heated Rivalry", on its part, does not shy away from the queerness of its subject at any point, going deeply and graphically into all nuances of sexuality, right from the physical to the social, no holds barred.
Perhaps that was what clicked - the honesty of the treatment. The show does the impossible, and gets away with it — throwing graphic, detailed gay sex just a few minutes into the opening, and stays at it relentlessly, in minute, camera-searing detail. But the difference? It is not vicarious or lascivious at all, but truly integral to the plot and largely one of the reasons the show has resonated with audiences.
Through the sex and the slow-burning romance stretching across years in the story, something else also emerged. A male tenderness which, as it turns out, the world cannot have enough of.
Sociologists say it is a direct reaction to the toxicity in both gender and politics of this post-woke Trump era and the present geo-strategic crash of the existing world order that is driving audiences across hemispheres to find solace in a TV love story.
As one person wrote on social media, “The show offers us a counter-template to Epstein Files and its most distorted expressions of male power. The timing is not a coincidence, it’s corrective — this expression of male-on-male tenderness is new, and culturally we were starving for it.”
“It is corrective…(Society) re-patterning , it’s why you keep watching Heated Rivalry, because the old pattern runs so deep in our society,” she added.
While it is debatable whether a web series, even a well-crafted one at that, has the power to change the world, "Heated Rivalry" does show the kind of vitality that propelled earlier shows like "Game of Thrones" into a global phenomenon. The internet is ga-ga over it, with female audiences particularly getting addicted to the male tenderness on display in the show. There are posts and memes galore, with the show even becoming an underground sensation in Russia (which has sweeping laws against LGBT+ propaganda; one of the protagonists of the show is Russian, with the story switching to Russian cities across the storyline).
"Heated Rivalry" theme nights are the hottest ticket at night clubs and party venues across the western hemisphere this winter, while the show’s stars, Hudson Williams and Corner Storrie, unknowns when the show started airing, are today mobbed wherever they go, and are everywhere — carrying the winter Olympics torch to appearing at Fashion Weeks, primetime talk shows and even presenting an award at the Golden Globes.
For Lionsgate Play, the streamer that has brought "Heated Rivalry" to India (the channel is available for subscription on Amazon Prime Video), getting a top billed new show could be a pivot to help it gain subscribers in a crowded Indian OTT scene dominated by the likes of JioHotstar and Netflix (Lionsgate Play officials demurred from talking to THE WEEK about the show), though its debatable whether its urban (read: Mumbai) and female-focussed promotional strategy works in the long run.
At the end of the day, "Heated Rivalry" is best savoured if you can keep the hype, the categorising and prejudices out the door, and watch it for what it is at its core — a well-made, beautifully crafted TV series. As Tierney himself puts it, “It’s a real, grounded, sexy and aspirational love story. Yes, you can be a hockey player. Yes, you can be the star of your own story. And yes, most importantly, you can fall in love, and you can have your happy ending too!”
