emotionally, i am at the cottage

Content Warning: Spoilers for Heated Rivalry

💫 a quick note on availability

I’m currently booking out projects for 2026! If you’re looking for a ✨storyteller✨ to help develop sharp insights and practical applications for grounding your brand in culture (and want to market to real humans who are tired of AI slop), DM me! I’d love to write a custom culture deep-dive for you.

🏒 go sports!!

The way that self-pitying men felt about Joker, the way that theater kids felt about Wicked, is the way that I feel about HBO’s latest smash hit show, Heated Rivalry. All I want to do is talk about Heated Rivalry. I’ve consumed every piece of media from the Heated Rivalry press tour. I’ve watched the edits (Nelly Furtado’s “Maneater” still rocks, 20 years later)(20 years later 💀). It has become my latest hyperfixation and one of my favorite TV shows, and I only discovered it a week ago.

It was advertised as “gay hockey smut,” none of which I’m particularly compelled by, but the press tour was inescapable, and I started being fed interviews with the two leads: Hudson Williams, who plays the anxious and intensely focused Asian Canadian player Shane Hollander, and Connor Storrie, who plays his cocky Russian archrival Ilya Rozanov. Their (chaotic) chemistry that reflects their genuine love for each other (there are frequent jokes about them being a “bonded pair,” like kittens who need to be adopted together) and refreshingly secure masculinity is itself a joy to watch (and highly memeable, designed for maximum virality—they are Gen Z, after all), but what finally convinced me to watch it was their commitment to the development of their characters—reading this masterclass in characterization by Williams (“[Shane is] like a giant wooden suit with not too many articulating joints ... he is tight-lipped and tight-throated, and he walks like a little frickin’ square. He’s like a Roomba, and has the emotional expression of one as well”), and finding out that Storrie is not Russian but a Texan who was so determined to understand Ilya’s emotional unavailability and Slavic rigidity that he took four-hour Russian lessons every day for a month, to a proficiency that had actual Russians mistaking him for a native speaker.

And after binging all six episodes in a frighteningly short amount of time, it’s clear that all of that marketing, all of those headline-grabbing sex scenes—a face pressed into the mattress, glistening bodies in a steaming shower, lips caught between teeth—was a bit of a bait-and-switch, a Trojan horse for so much genuine heart and romance that the emotional impact is devastating.

The illicit sex scenes are racy, but honestly no worse than the gratuitous exposure (and literal rape) of Game of Thrones or the escapist fantasy of Bridgerton. They just happen to be between two men, which for some reason is considered obscene. But sex serves an important purpose in Heated Rivalry—instead of the classic romance narrative arc of the slow burn building to sexual fulfillment, sex is the primary language through which two emotionally stifled characters express themselves, a simultaneous point of connection and dance of careful avoidance. In response to the question, “As actors, how do you map out a character’s emotional arc when it’s largely playing out through sex?,” Storrie points out that what anchors them are the external factors in their lives that are expressed through sex. The intimacy in their sexual relationship isn’t necessarily gentle, flowery sex but it’s evident in their connection and the care that they take with one another, like Ilya asking Shane, “Is this okay?” knowing that it’s his first sexual encounter with a man. Physical intimacy is a way of negotiating relationship dynamics, which fosters mutual understanding and respect, which develops the emotional intimacy.

The most tender and intimate parts in the show have nothing to do with sex, but instead live in the moments in between. In Episode 5, “I’ll Believe in Anything,” in what is arguably the most arresting scene in the show, Shane and Ilya have already been hooking up in secret for eight years, but have struggled with the impossibility of defining their emotional relationship with each other, suffocated by familial expectations and a sports culture that normalizes the f-slur. Ilya calls Shane from Russia after the death of his father, but is exhausted trying to articulate with his limited vocabulary in English. Shane suggests that he speak his mind in his native language as catharsis, and Ilya delivers a gut-wrenching monologue in aching Russian. He pours his heart out, all of his sadness and frustration about cutting off his greedy brother, who has always shown him animosity and resentment for his success, and his guilt over not being there for his father’s tragic last days after battling dementia. He has essentially lost the only two people anchoring him to his homeland, the intense loneliness palpable over the delicate chords of Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata,” while Shane listens intently on the other end of the line. Ilya ends in Russian with, “That’s the whole fucking thing. I only want you. And I always only want you. I love you so much that I don’t even know what to do with it.” It’s the most vulnerable he has ever been and the first time he explicitly admits his feelings, against the backdrop of his home country that he knows could imprison or even kill him for them. It’s a stunning episode—a masterpiece of narrative construction and truly excellent acting, that holds an astounding 9.9/10 score on IMDB.

Heated Rivalry accomplishes something extraordinary by depicting the lovely nuances of the ordinary. There are no grand gestures, no carrying boomboxes outside windows or running through city streets to publicly declare their feelings. Instead, it acknowledges that sometimes the most meaningful expressions of love—a tearful, private admission over the phone; the promise to be a little bit braver—are the small ways in which you show up for someone you care about, even if those things are out of your comfort zone.

🌈 radical notions

The reception of the show has been nothing short of wild. Spotify reported a “Heated Rivalry Effect,” citing streams of Harrison’s remix of “All The Things She Said” (a pivotal needle drop in the show) surging more than 139,000% over the past month. In just eight months, Williams and Storrie went from serving jobs in their respective cities to being signed by CAA and making their late-night TV debuts, with 2 million Instagram followers each (up from a couple thousand). Videos of Williams being escorted out of 30 Rock for his appearance on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon show screaming crowds, which according to the security guards rivaled those for Harry Styles back in the day, and Fallon himself compared to Beatlemania. The day before, Storrie presented 2026 Actor Awards nominations alongside Abbott Elementary comedian Janelle James, and ahead of his appearance on The Late Show with Seth Meyers, the show posted that no standby tickets would be available. We’re witnessing a meteoric rise, two breakout stars being anointed before our eyes. Perhaps the most remarkable part is that the show was never supposed to be this big—it was originally a small Canadian show released exclusively on Canadian streamer Crave, only for it to be picked up by HBO later for distribution because it was just that popular.

Show creator Jacob Tierney has made it clear that he wanted to focus on queer joy instead of trying to sell a specific agenda—it was not about pushing for acceptance but rather showcasing the sweetness and richness of a life fully recognized:

[My vision for the show was] Something extremely joyful. This is a gay love story set in the world of hockey, so its very existence is an act of rebellion. But the show itself is happily ever after. I didn’t want to subvert too many romance tropes—I love these stories. This show is queer joy for adults. None of the characters go back to a miserable wife. No one self-harms. There’s a tendency in queer art to focus on real tragedies. Sometimes, it feels like we’re still telling stories about the McCarthy era or the HIV/AIDS epidemic. We deserve to have a gay show that is sexy and horny and fun.

The source novel had a passionate fanbase, but its resonance with a universal audience has elevated it into a cultural moment. The easy answer is that sex sells. But to call it a “guilty pleasure” is reductive.

At a time when conservatism is rising, when the LGBTQ+ community is under relentless attack and there are fewer exclusively queer-focused stories, it is audacious for Heated Rivalry to not only exist but to give queer characters a happy ending—joy is still a radical practice, and driving off into the sunset still a faraway possibility for a lot of queer people. Heated Rivalry proves that cynicism is not sustainable; life is not all gritty dramas and love is not a trivial pursuit. It understands the gravity of the ordinary moments, the tenderness and vulnerability in a toxic maelstrom of a sport that allows for very little of it. It feels real because it acknowledges that intimacy can blossom in a friends-with-benefits relationship, when most media pretends that those things are mutually exclusive. Love is messy; there is bound to be spillover.

This beautiful piece from writer Jim Downs in The New York Times articulates how Heated Rivalry is representing gay male romance on-screen in a way that is rarely afforded to them without some kind of political agenda:

Maybe what we ache for now is not culture built to serve a political end but a focus on the intimate—someone on top of us, breaking down in tears as he confesses his love. What is turning us on is not the thrill of naked bodies but the shock of being emotionally known. That is what some of us have been missing ... We do not need more stories to prove that we exist. We need stories that capture how we live—in the touch, the embrace, the everyday if boring intimacies that were never meant to be translated. Our next frontier is not mere acceptance but depth.

Another striking thing about the show is how much it trusts its audience. While most streaming executives are looking for ways to maximize mass appeal and passive watching, Heated Rivalry does not pretend to be for everyone, doubling down on specificity and subtlety—much of the story is told nonverbally, with evocative camerawork and microexpressive body language.

Shane’s autism (confirmed by the source novel’s writer and spectacularly acted by Williams) manifests through a flat affect, but it’s easy to mistake this for “bad acting” if you don’t know the signs—minute facial expressions, monotone voice. But his sense of pragmatism and literality (meticulously folding his clothes before sex, making eight burgers for two people because “the recipe was for eight” instead of cutting it in half) and his comfort foods (macrobiotic diet and ginger ale) are patterns that reveal neurodivergence, even if Shane himself doesn’t realize it. It’s refreshing to see an autistic person that isn’t reduced to a cultural reference like Rain Man or a punchline like Sheldon Cooper of The Big Bang Theory, because it reminds us that autism is a spectrum—it looks different on everyone. Our current “Secretary of Health and Human Services” (or as I think of him, “Antivaxxer-in-Chief”) says about people on the autism spectrum: “They will never pay taxes, they’ll never hold a job, they’ll never play baseball, they’ll never write a poem, they’ll never go out on a date.” This kind of rhetoric is damaging to how people understand and interact with people on the spectrum. Autism is really just an operating system—everything you do and everything you interpret is filtered through that lens. To Shane, those rituals are just the things he needs to do in order to be the best hockey player he can be, and a disruption of those things can throw his whole life off-kilter. From TIME Magazine:

When autistic people are truly understood, valued, and welcomed into the world as we are, we will naturally rub off on the creative people around us, as all human beings do. And pieces of us will find their way into their work. Not as freaks to be studied from afar, mimicked, and exploited for other people’s creative whims or amusement, but as complex and whole parts of the world worth exploring and celebrating.

And this is what Heated Rivalry does so well. It’s not trying to convince you of anything. It’s just putting on a really good show. The refusal to flatten people into stereotypes or caricatures is making people feel seen—Williams explained on Andy Cohen’s radio show that he was getting messages from closeted athletes: “Those are the [reactions] that really just kind of hit you and [you] go, Oh, so this is a fun show and it’s celebratory, but also sometimes it’s just hitting people right in the nerve.”

Unabashed earnestness is a rarity in an age of suspicion around what is real and what is performative or generated, and part of what makes the stars of Heated Rivalry so appealing is that they are not afraid to be seen caring. Williams and Storrie openly express physical affection for one another; they speak passionately about lessons from the show in giving yourself grace and believing yourself worthy of love. They’re creating space for vulnerability and honesty, leading by example, and it shows in every scene.

From GQ:

“Here’s the thing about smut,” Tierney says. “You can watch two guys have sex anywhere, anytime. I think what you’re getting out of this is intimacy and horniness.” Of his two stars, he says, “There would be no show without them. This chemistry, this is it. That’s what we’re here for. That’s what the popcorn’s for.”

There are a million other reasons Heated Rivalry succeeds at setting itself apart from other TV shows of this era. It stars unknown actors. There’s a noticeable lack of Instagram face. All of the female characters, while secondary, are well-written and multidimensional, with actual personalities. The cinematography is beautiful and the lighting is moody and sexy instead of flat and bright. It’s what art could look like free from the stranglehold of American capitalism.

It’s clear that everyone involved with this show was extremely passionate about making it and put so much love and care into the smallest details, something I haven’t seen so purely exhibited since the Daniels’ herculean efforts in creating Everything Everywhere All At Once were rewarded with seven history-making Academy Awards. While Tierney set out to make “a gay show that is sexy and horny and fun,” he accidentally made one of the most poignant pieces of television out there. Sex sells, but intimacy and passion are what leave a lasting impression.

Bonus: This very cinematic fan edit that’s low-key better than the actual trailer.

🔗 open tabs (recent reads)

• “How Trump turned a January 6 death into the politics of ‘protecting women’” (The 19th): A grim but incisive look into how the MAGA media machine operates. I don’t feel sympathy for her, but it does remind me once again that women are really only useful to a lot of people in this country once they’re dead and silent.

• “Can “Friendfluence” Save Dating?” (Cosmopolitan): This was fascinating and it makes some good points, but I think Tinder is conflating a desire to double date or group hang with the rise of social dating content. It’s not that friends don’t have input in your romantic life—most people have the experience of asking their friends for help in crafting a text message to a crush, or for advice in their current relationship—but I actually think the contentification of dating (which is actually new) explains a lot of problems with modern dating. Seeking too many inputs can make you reliant on mimetic desire rather than desire cultivated by personal taste. I find the trend of posting dating app profiles or personal anecdotes online for some faceless court of public opinion deeply dystopian and more than a little rude (unless they’re egregious). It makes it less of a “team sport” and more of a multiplayer game, which feels antithetical to creating a genuine connection with another person. Going on a double date with your friend is very different than creating dating content for a public audience. It also has the weird side effect of changing the way people present themselves in dating—if you know your profile is potentially going to be shared publicly, it alters the content. But the crux of it is this: If you value other peoples’ advice more than you trust your own judgment, the relationship is no longer between just you and your partner and maybe (hot take?) you shouldn’t be in it.

• “10 Master Perfumers on the Everyday Products They Can’t Smell Enough Of” (Cultured Mag): I love mixed high-low culture (if you can’t tell from every personal project I’ve ever done). It’s not only charming to know what household scents resonate with master perfumers, but I also love hearing expert analyses of “normal” things—another great example is these professional chefs blind-tasting boxed mac and cheese. Expensive perfumes and gourmet dishes are great, but it’s cool to see them actually talk about things relatable to everyday consumers, in a non-pretentious way. Also, possibly the return of the “premium mediocre” recession indicator?

• “The MAGA Beauty Aesthetic Tells the Story of America Today” (Marie Claire): I’ve often wondered why so many Republican women look downright horrifying, seemingly without realizing it. Surely, they can’t think that looks good! But something clicked when I read this: “Not engaging with the favored aesthetic is seen as a moral failure—something deeply at odds with the essence of femininity and womanhood.” It’s why “Mar-a-Lago Face” is so common—they would rather look bad trying than be accused of not trying at all. It doesn’t matter if your contour looks muddy and your hair extensions cheap and your lip injections unnatural; the point is that you’re using them at all, that those things are visible, because it signals that you’re aligned with a singular of femininity. Extremely ironic coming from the party against gender-affirming care. And considering the fact that no-makeup makeup is often a lot more effort than full glam.

• “Logomania Didn’t Die—It Evolved” (Business of Fashion): Community and belonging has been a status symbol for a while, but it has shifted toward a more niche, insider-y vibe, like the perfectly-timed status post. It goes back to knowledge-as-a-status-symbol, which I’ve talked about for years—it’s not enough to just buy the right things anymore; you have to be familiar with the lore, the idiosyncrasies, the language of that brand or community.

💎 little gems (recent favorites)

• Triple Berry Pie Crust Cookies from Janie‘s Life-Changing Baked Goods: I’m naturally skeptical of places with names like this or places that claim to have the “World’s Best XYZ,” but Janie has humbled me, because the “Famous Pie Crust Cookies” are incredible. They’re essentially like miniature pies, but easier to eat. It’s a small disc of pie dough topped with a little scoop of filling and then rolled in streusel crumbs. It tastes of pure butter and magic. It’s gorgeous. I did try recreating them, but they were a lot of work and while tasty, still did not even approach the level of perfection of Janie’s.

• Letterloop: I love a newsletter (obviously); a majority of my reading comprises newsletters, and during the early days of COVID lockdown I actually started a little newsletter club with a couple of my friends. My mom and sisters and I have a group chat and a weekly FaceTime, but we also recently started using Letterloop which adds another dimension that we really enjoy—you get a notification once a month (or however frequently you want) and it asks you a series of questions, and then compiles everyone’s answers into one email, like a digest. It asks us questions we wouldn’t normally ask of each other, and delves into the mundanities of our days that we wouldn’t think to ask about. I like it also as a personal reflection exercise, allowing me to take stock of my month. It’s so fun reading all of our replies—I recently submitted a question in our last issue: “If your life was a theme park, what would the gift shop sell?” (which I stole from TikTok and have added to my bank of non-boring icebreakers), and my youngest sister’s answer was both incredibly funny and on-brand for her: ““I lived that whole life and all I got was this lousy T-shirt” T-shirts.”

• “Lines I don‘t reckon AI could write” (Vikki Ross): I’m obsessed with this Pinterest board from copywriting queen Vikki Ross.

• Roar Organic electrolyte drinks: I never drink enough water, which probably would be fine except that I never get enough sleep either, which means that when I was working at LEGO two years ago I started getting headaches from the weird hours. I’d drink water to feel better, but I also developed a habit of buying electrolyte drinks as a way to “supplement” the water I was drinking. At first I tried every brand of coconut water (gross) and Pedialyte/Liquid IV-type drinks (grosser), but then I found these which have a coconut water base but don’t taste like it, and they come in delicious flavors like Blackberry Lemonade and Cucumber Watermelon. Even though I’m off the weird schedule I still drink them in addition to water sometimes, as a treat, because I crave a mid-day fun drink.

• The 2026 U.S. Figure Skating Championships: I really only watch sports every four years, and it’s for one sport in particular: figure skating. I grew up lightly following figure skating because Michelle Kwan was (is) an American hero, and I always feel patriotic watching our team compete in the Winter Olympics (even if we haven’t medaled in Women’s since Sasha Cohen’s silver in 2006). It’s such a beautiful demonstration of sport + art. This year, Amber Glenn, Alysa Liu, and Isabeau Levito will head to Milan for the Games, and I’m so excited. I cried watching Amber win her third consecutive national title (the first woman to do it since Michelle Kwan!) with a short program to Madonna’s “Like a Prayer,” especially since she was forced to withdraw in 2022, and watching Alysa Liu come out of retirement and free skate to Lady Gaga. These women are such powerful representatives for us on the world stage, and I’m so happy to see their redemption arcs. One major grievance: They put ADVERTISEMENTS on the ice this year. I don’t even want to talk about it; I just want to point it out. I complained to my friend and he wrote back, “Next year, it’ll be on her costume, like NASCAR.” Enshittification comes for everything 🫠.

💖 jenny

Thanks for reading Constellation Theory ✨! Subscribe to receive new posts and first access to projects.

to the stars 🚀

This newsletter will always be free. But if you’d like to support the publishing fees or just show some love and appreciation, you can buy me a coffee (or boba) here! 🧋