Featured Image Credit: Netflix.
Topics: News, TV and Film, Netflix
Keryn Donnelly
The second season of Netflix's teen rom-com Heartstopper has received a rare 100 per cent approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
The series is based on a graphic novel and webcomic by British writer Alice Oseman and follows protagonist Charlie Springs (Kit Conner), who is openly gay at his Grammar school.
One day he's paired up with Nick Nelson (Joe Locke), the school's star rugby player, who is described by one of Charlie's friends as 'the straightest person I've ever seen'.
Soon, Charlie and Nick's unlikely friendship develops into something more.
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In the final episode of season one, Charlie and Nick shared their first kiss before Nick comes out to his mum, who is played by Olivia Coleman in the series.
The second season picks up right where season one left off, with Nick kissing Charlie after telling him about how he come out to his mum.
However, it won't be all smooth-sailing for our teen lovers.
"While season one followed a typical romance story structure, season two sees the characters begin to explore more complex emotional truths about themselves and each other," Oseman said at Tudum in November 2022.
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The first reviews for the season are in and like the first, it already has a perfect score on Rotten Tomatoes.
Richard Lawson from Vanity Fair writes: "Heartstopper is, quite winningly, not a show about panic or rashness or other dramatic swings. Its pacing is deliberate, its emotions awfully measured for a show about young people experiencing fits of passion."
Kathryn VanArendonk from The New York Times says it's 'hard to deny how winning this show can be', while Fletcher Peters from The Daily Beast says something about the show feels 'revolutionary'.
Carol Midgely from The Times UK writes: "Teen dramas can often be tiresomely self-indulgent, melodramatic and conflict-based, but Heartstopper has a depth and tenderness that a great many adult dramas fail to achieve."
While Laura Jane Turner from Digital Spy writes: "This next chapter of the story perfectly balances the line between depicting the not-always-perfect journey of needing to continuously come out, while still prioritising the queer joy that the show has become known for."
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But fans of the graphic novel should be warned the new season deviates from the source material.
“We had a good foundation [with Heartstopper, Volume 3] but there’s not enough in the book to [make] a whole season of TV,” Oseman said.
“There had to be a lot of creation of new stuff, which I was really excited about.”
Heartstopper season 2 is streaming on Netflix from Friday, August 4.