Heated Rivalry Episode 4 Destroyed a Generation with a Single Drop of a Needle

This article contains major spoilers for “Heated Rivalry” episode 4, “Rose”.

Four episodes into “Heated Rivalry,” Crave Canada’s must-see queer hockey romance series that exploded in popularity in the United States after being distributed on HBO Max, and this show has completely torn me apart at the seams. I’ve had a “professional” and “nuanced” relationship as an entertainment critic with the adaptation of Rachel Reid’s books for weeks, but the last 10 minutes of “Rose” shattered any hope of objectivity. The desire between Canadian golden boy Shane Hollander (Hudson Williams) and handsome Russian disaster Ilya Rozanov (Connor Storrie) has become a spectacle that audiences are unable to relax for (me included). Yet the inclusion of a single needle drop seemingly pushed an entire generation over the edge.

Hollander and Rozanov continue to sneak away throughout the seasons to see each other, but something in their gravitas has changed. The heat is still molten, but after a rare period of domestic sweetness, Ilya finally lets himself be vulnerable – and Shane quickly panics and blows her up. A heartbroken Ilya bursts into a club looking for anyone who isn’t Shane, and as our ravishing Russian enters the mist and lights, the crescendo of one of the most agonizing anthems ever written about forbidden love begins to play – “All the Things She Said” by tATu

For a generation of queer viewers, needle drop was the sleeper agent code word that unlocked all the buried, brutal memories of realizing you feel love and attraction in a way the world will punish you for. And in a show already tormented by capturing both the beauty and brutality of that turmoil, underscoring it with tATu was like regressing us into a collective flashback.

For the uninitiated, tATu is the name of the Russian pop duo consisting of Lena Katina and Julia Volkova, an abbreviation of “Та любит ту”, which roughly translates to “this girl likes this girl”. The group was formed in 1999 when Katina and Volkova were 14 and 15, but their popularity exploded in 2002 with their single “All The Things She Said.” Undeniable pop petardthe clip featured the two teenagers kissing in the rain behind a fence while people looked at them with disdain. Something instantly changed in the culture.

Never mind that Katina and Volkova aren’t actually a couple; the way they were censored across the world echoed the way real homosexuals were censored, and their mere existence allowed a generation to love out loud and shout “They won’t have us!” at the top of our lungs.

The inclusion of “All the Things She Said” in “Heated Rivalry” is more than just a catchy needle drop, as the context of the song’s place in history and culture cannot be erased or undermined. This is something showrunner Jacob Tierney clearly understood, playing the song in its entirety before switching it to a club remix from artist Harrison, with male vocals emphasizing the unexpressed thoughts and feelings of the characters as they stare at each other on the dance floor. How can any of us be expected to think normally when two men who are clearly in love but who are not allowed to absorb each other’s longing glances because “I feel totally lost”, “Being with you has opened my eyes”, “I keep closing my eyes, but I can’t block you” and “It’s not enough” ring in our ears?

Queer media fans were quick to point out that this club scene is reminiscent of season 3, episode 3 of the Norwegian teen drama series “SKAM.” There, characters Even (Henrik Holm) and Isak (Tarjei Sandvik Moe) attend a neon party, dancing and kissing with other people despite their feelings for each other, and ending up looking into each other’s eyes while Robyn’s “Call Your Girlfriend” plays. Similar scenes have been found in shows like “Young Royals” and “The Sex Lives of College Girls,” but for this writer, in particular, it evokes the feelings I had when I first saw the sapphic classic “But I’m a Cheerleader,” in which Natasha Lyonne’s Megan and Clea DuVall’s Graham walk away from a conversion therapy camp to a gay bar and… dance with girls who aren’t the ones the others while Saint Etienne’s “We’re in the City” plays.

Tierney has long excelled at visual storytelling with music (see: any fight scene from “Letterkenny” or an extended hockey scene on “Shorsy”), but “Heated Rivalry” takes things to a new level. Once the song was released, I was overwhelmed by my own Pavlovian response, with all the pent-up emotions of being “all mixed up, feeling cornered and pushed around” in 2003, praying that my parents wouldn’t see the music video that had thrilled me, knowing full well that the feelings I had toward other girls were a bad thing. Tierney’s strategic placement of lyrics aligns with the blocking of the scene (drenched in bisexual flashes, no less) only exacerbates things. I’ve been out publicly for so long that I’d almost forgotten what it felt like to be overcome with fear and shame like Shane and Ilya, but tATu was there to remind me.

“Heated Rivalry” is available on Crave and HBO Max. New episodes come out on Fridays.