Heartstopper: Episode 16

16. Perfect

Nick posts a picture of him and Charlie captioned as “Boyfriends” which means coming out to everybody on Instagram the morning of the prom. As they help Tara with preparations at the venue, they end up dealing with weird stares and random questions that continue all through the night. Tao asks Elle to be his girlfriend and she agrees, before she tells him during prom dance that she wants to pursue art school. Isaac snatches one of the books about Asexuality from the library’s Pride rack. Mr. Ajayi and Mr. Farouk agree that what happened to them that night in Paris was stupid and ends up opting for a dinner date next time. A concerned Tara heads over to Darcy’s house only to find her homophobic mother there. As they all leave the prom to just hang out at Nick’s house, Darcy shows up and admits that she is only out at school but not at home. As everyone starts to call it a night, Nick has a heart-to-heart talk with Charlie and they promise to be honest with each other about everything, including all the bad stuff.

There you go, the Ben closure that we all need. Something is obviously up with this kid and I didn't really expect his reasoning to go beyond anything as common as unsupportive parents. His speech mentions going away so this is probably his swan song. I love how the animated rainbow tried to approach him but he just walked away. Symbolic AF. As much as I want to side with him, Charlie effectively summarizes why I don’t. But as they say, “Hurt people hurt people.” As for Isaac, his role in the bigger scheme of things is now clear. He turns out to be the A in LGBTQIA+. To be totally honest, I only got as far as Q, and even that Q is something that I still do not fully understand. This show has been educational that way despite being too teeny bopper, and I admire that. I hope they dive deeper into his character should there be a future season. I would love to learn more about it. Hopefully they also introduce an Intersex character to raise more awareness. Not to mention they seem to be segueing now to eating disorders. I’m impressed.

“But why should they have to see? We've been so obsessed with the idea of coming out, it's like we've forgotten why we wanted to do it in the first place.” –Charlie

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