Crave's Heated Rivalry exploded on social media this weekend

Dear Gossips,

Last Friday in this space I told you, I told you that your timeline was about to be taken over by a new show. And I know it’s not just my algorithm – Heated Rivalry exploded on social media this weekend.

Lena Waithe just posted about it.

Did she watch it with Cynthia Erivo?!

Heated Rivalry isn’t just blowing up on Crave in Canada, it’s now the second most popular show on HBO Max. And what makes the Heated Rivalry debut that much more impressive is that the HBO deal was only announced a week before the premiere so it did not get the big marketing push in the United States that most series putting up these numbers would receive. No doubt, there was a promotional strategy in place for Canada, but our media here often doesn’t cross over to other territories.

The audience is finding it though. They’re watching all the interviews that the show’s stars, Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie, have done from Toronto, they’re making fan edits, they’re all over BookTok obsessing over every kiss, every scene that matches Rachel Reid’s novel from where the series is adapted, and now, Heated Rivalry is mega-viral… concurrently with a juggernaut, Stranger Things season five. The fact that Heated Rivalry was still able to make an impact the same week that the first installment of the highly anticipated final season of Stranger Things dropped is a huge accomplishment. And it’s only growing. Because we’ve only just seen the first two episodes – with its five wonderfully luxurious love scenes, LOL – and the angst is coming. The best thing about angst though is the payoff is always super f-cking horny.

That’s another thing that Heated Rivalry and its showrunner, Jacob Tierney, did not overpromise on: the horniness. Didn’t I tell you that the fellatio is flying all over the place on this series? What I love about all the lust in the show is that nobody involved with it is embarrassed. The actors aren’t out here trying to downplay, trying to rationalise all the sex by redirecting the conversation to character development or whatever. Hudson and Connor are both like, yeah, we get freaky because we are freaks!

And they are being rewarded for it. Is this progress? Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie, who respectively play Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov, are fresh faces playing queer characters in their breakout roles. There used to be a time when this would be seen as a career stopper. Instead, they’ve both tripled their social media followers, and counting, in the four days since Heated Rivalry premiered. Their agents don’t have to worry about opportunities. Instead, they can ride this wave and build on the momentum. And, hopefully, get started on season two. The material is there – the book is called The Long Game – and Crave and Jacob already hinted to me last week when I moderated at the Toronto premiere that they both want more.

Plus, one more time for the people in the back, remember the audience that is being served here: 2SLGBTQ+ viewers and women. Give it to us and we will …um… come.