The Only Problem With Heartstopper Season 3 Is There Isn't Enough of It

[Warning: The following contains spoilers for the Season 3 of Heartstopper on Netflix. Read at your own risk!]

In Season 3 of Heartstopper, the endearing teen drama is beginning to show its age — in some of the best and worst ways. The series, based on Alice Oseman's graphic novel series, is known for its hopeful, empathetic portrayal of queer teen life: In Season 1, we watched outsider Charlie Spring (Joe Locke) and popular rugby player Nick Nelson (Kit Connor) fall for each other. In my review of Season 2, I wrote about how seamlessly the series seemed to grow with its characters, broaching more intense subject matter like Charlie's mental health issues and the responsibility Nick felt to keep his boyfriend safe, while also opening up the drama to include the larger friend group in more meaningful ways and to encompass a wider swath of the queer teen experience. 

Like any good drama, Season 3 would dive even deeper into the conflicts and issues all of these characters are facing, and it certainly tries, it's just for the first time you can feel the show straining to make all of these storylines work. At times, you can't ignore that Heartstopper has perhaps stretched itself a bit too thin. Not counting our two leads, there are seven other friends with separate subplots to cover — and I haven't even gotten to family members! — and with just eight episodes that run around the 30 to 35 minute mark, it would be impossible to dole out storylines with the complexity and depth they deserve. 

While all of this may seem like a critique, it's honestly not the worst problem to have, because mostly, it points to two huge positives. First, Heartstopper is brimming with so many lovable characters within its ensemble, we want more. Literally every single storyline, all gazillion of them, is interesting and not only deserves, but could handle time as an A-plot. That's kind of incredible, no? It's frustrating to watch a character like Tara (Corinna Brown, one of the most compelling actors in the group, which is no easy feat) get a storyline that is wildly relatable and affecting only to see it peter out with no satisfying conclusion. In Season 3, Tara, now head girl with the assumption she'll be off to a fancy university soon, begins to feel the pressure and stress under such massive expectations. In one of the best scenes of the season, Charlie helps her through a panic attack. But then it's not really mentioned again in any meaningful kind of way. Sure, she acknowledges the stress she's feeling in a later conversation with Nick, but there's no depth to that conversation. By the end of the season, she decides to buck expectations and maybe not even go to uni, but there's barely a discussion about it. It all feels so surface level when there is so much to mine from this scenario — it feels like a missed opportunity to explore the complexities here. Give this girl time to shine!!

The same can be said for Elle (Yasmin Finney) and Tao's (William Gao) storyline this season. As the couple decides to have sex for the first time, Elle admits that this intimacy is bringing up a lot of the dysmorphia she hasn't fully dealt with yet. She does tell Tao that being trans is a big part of who she is and they haven't really had this conversation before, nor one about sex… but then, they seemingly have that larger conversation off-screen. When Elle goes to a friend for advice, that advice is basically "you trust him, everything will be okay, I'll be here for you," which is lovely and warm and very Heartstopper, but in both these instances, there is so much more under the surface left unexplored. It happens again later in the season when Elle, whose art has gone viral, does an interview on a radio show that quickly turns transphobic. It clearly affects Elle and it affects Tao, but their conversations around it, again, leave so much to be desired. The storyline wraps up a little too easily for such an intense development. Surely it will be explored in any future seasons, but you simply are left wanting more. This is especially true because Finney's performance has honestly never been better. She has such a brightness and authenticity on screen, you wish she had even more to dig into. 

Now, the second reason this frustration about certain storylines lacking depth is more apparent this season is because we do have an example of how wonderful and gorgeous Heartstopper can be when it takes time to let a storyline breathe — they do it consistently with Charlie and Nick. Because they're our main characters, they have the time to explore their meaty storylines that you wish every character could get (or at least come close to, they are still supporting characters, after all). Never are we reminded more of how good Heartstopper can be than in this season's fourth episode, "Journey." In this episode written by Oseman and directed by Andy Newbery, we learn that Charlie is spending two months at a mental health clinic to grapple with his eating disorder. The episode tracks those two months and what led up to them first through Nick's perspective, and then rewinds and retells the story from Charlie's point of view. 

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Heartstopper so delicately and lovingly deals with Charlie's anorexia and OCD diagnosis. We see his struggles, but it's never graphic. We see how his time at the clinic and with his therapist Geoff (a great Eddie Marsan) slowly help pull him out of the low he was in while also being honest that this isn't a cure all, that Charlie will be dealing with this for the rest of his life. What makes the episode extra-special, however, is that Heartstopper pays equal attention to Nick's story, exploring how difficult it can be to love someone so much but be unable to help them when they need it most — to understand that person needs more than you can give and let go, to know a person is getting the help they need but still grapple with the heartache of missing them. Heartstopper goes beyond Nick in this regard, too, showing us how a person's mental health issues can affect all those who love them. Both Locke and Connor convey the complex gamut of emotions inherent in this situation with such ease, they've only gotten better with each season. That moment when Nick can finally visit Charlie at the clinic and they spot each other down a hallway? The relief and excitement and angst and ache is all there in their faces, they don't have to say anything. It is Heartstopper at its best.

This storyline works so well though because the build up to this episode was done with such care and because the series doesn't shy away from showing us how something like this has such a wide-reaching ripple effect. It changes Charlie, it changes Nick, it changes their relationship (all for the better), but it also affects Charlie's relationship with his sister Tori (Jenny Walser) and with his mother Jane (Georgina Rich). Digging into so many facets of this storyline saves it from feeling like an after-school special — it reveals a maturity in storytelling that aligns so perfectly with the fact that this ensemble is growing up, too. It's a great example of the magic of Heartstopper that stems from how serious it takes its characters and how serious it takes its message of hope, and a reminder of what this show can pull off when storylines are given the time and space needed to really make them sing. 

All three seasons of Heartstopper are streaming on Netflix.