Intro for January 23, 2026

Dear Gossips,

I finally watched Heated Rivalry, so now I just want to talk about Heated Rivalry. Sorry to be late to the party, I tried to watch from the comfort of the post-holiday liminal space, but I wasn’t in the mood—to watch anything. All I did that week was read, cook, and do my hobbies. There was very little screen time. But now, the mood struck, and I watched, and I love it, and as a long-time Letterkenny fan, I am so, SO happy for series creator/writer/director Jacob Tierney, who co-developed Letterkenny, directed all of the episodes, and starred as Pastor Glen, to have this enormous creative success. What I am NOT thrilled about is HR coming up in the Baldoni-Lively lawsuit.

On the one hand, is there any greater sign of cultural relevance than to be entered into the record via legal proceedings? On the other hand, it was Justin F-cking Baldoni’s lawyers who brought up HR while seeking a dismissal of Lively’s harassment and retaliation case. Basically, Lively’s lawyer argued that “improvis[ing] on set was not an excuse for kissing and nuzzling that Lively had not consented to, therefore providing basis for a claim of gender-based discrimination”. Jonathan Bach, Baldoni’s lawyer, countered using HR as an example, positing that “if a male actor on Heated Rivalry improvised during an intimate scene with another man, could there be a complaint of gender-based discrimination?”.

That’s a question for lawyers to answer—seems like it definitely would be sexual harassment if one person was uncomfortable with the contact—but the part I want to speak to is how Jonathan Bach has clearly never seen Heated Rivalry. He’s trying to say a dude can’t sue another dude for gender-based discrimination in a similar circumstance, which I don’t think is right, but more to the narrative point is just a GROSS misunderstanding of Heated Rivalry.

The sex scenes are all about consent! Ilya is constantly checking on Shane when they’re having sex! Consent is fundamental to the intimacy between Shane and Ilya. Sure, Ilya bosses Shane around in bed and they both make sexual demands of each other at one time or another, but they are constantly communicating about their wants, their comfort, their readiness for the next step. Their communication in every other regard sucks, but when it comes to sex, they’re locked in and taking care of each other. I WISH Judge Lewis Liman HAD seen HR just so he could make that point back to Jonathan Bach!

Jacob Tierney, who wrote and directed every episode, spoke to Teen Vogue about the importance of showing consent as a vital (and sexy) part of sex, saying, “Consent was huge for me, and more so, just concern. It’s a huge part of Ilya’s character…” Ilya’s insistence on Shane’s consent is, for a period of actual years in the storyline, our only real glimpse into how much Ilya truly cares about Shane. It’s the only time he drops his guard, and the first thing revealed is how sensitive Ilya is to his partner’s comfort and enjoyment. Consent is a baked-in trait critical to our understanding of the character. It’s a considered, thoughtful, meaningful inclusion in the story.

Basically, the total f-cking opposite of everything Lively has accused Baldoni of while making It Ends With Us, which, according to Blake Lively, was not consensual scene-staging or thoughtful storytelling. It was the opposite of safety, concern, consideration, and care. The opposite of understanding. The opposite of true intimacy! Jonathan Bach is flinging HR around because he thinks he’s actually saying something, but he’s just revealing he does not understand the role consent plays in intimacy, whether it’s real or manufactured on a movie set. He needs to keep Heated Rivalry out of his mouth!

Live long and gossip, 

Sarah