Warning: This article contains spoilers for Heated Rivalry season one through episode five.
Queer hockey romance series Heated Rivalry‘s popularity has continued to climb, and episode five pushed it into rare company.
The penultimate episode, the longest yet at 55 minutes long, officially tied for the best-ranked episode on IMDb alongside Breaking Bad. The Crave Original series, streaming on HBO Max in the U.S., aired the episode on Friday, Dec 19.
Fans and critics alike have sung the episode’s praises as a standout of the year, if not of all time.
The series follows rival hockey players Shane Hollander (Hudson Williams) and Ilya Rozanov (Connor Storrie). The pair fall for each other from the beginning of their rookie season, keeping their relationship secret from the outside world. The series is directed by Jacob Tierney and adapted from Canadian author Rachel Reid’s Game Changers series.
Episode five delivered humor, grief, and a turning point
Episode five, titled “I’ll Believe In Anything,” packed in several major events from the novel. It begins with Shane breaking up amicably with his girlfriend, Hollywood actress Rose Landry (Sophie Nélisse), after she figures out that he’s not really into women.
She coaxes him into coming out to her in the gentlest way, leading to one of the funniest lines of the episode, pulled straight from the book.
Meanwhile, the Tampa Bay All-Star Game reunited Shane and Ilya, playing on the same team for the first time. The tone shifted soon after as Ilya’s father died, which sent him back to Russia to bury him. Storrie then delivered one of the most impactful monologues in nearly-perfect Russian. From there, Shane gets knocked out for the season by one of Ilya’s teammates, leading to a hilarious hospital scene that people can’t stop memeing.
The episode ended with Scott Hunter (François Arnaud) coming out publicly after winning the in-world Stanley Cup equivalent. He finds Kip (Robbie G.K.) in the crowd and pulls him onto the ice, kissing him publicly in the “sunshine” for the first time. This is the “game changer” moment that finally causes Ilya to decide to go to Shane’s cottage in the summer.
Social media reactions and an IMDb record
Considering the emotional rollercoaster of an episode, it is understandable that fans of the show can’t get enough. People have been pouring out praise for the love letter to the queer community, from elders who survived the AIDS epidemic to athletes who wished they could have had someone like Scott Hunter to show them that it was okay to be queer.
One viral video filmed by a fan of the show in a sports bar in West Hollywoodrevealed a packed crowd of hundreds reacting to Scott and Kip’s legendary kiss, cheering and crying for them. G.K. himself reacted to the video on Instagram, overwhelmed by the response of fans.
On IMDb, meanwhile, the episode reached a 10/10 rating with over 22K reviews and counting. Consequently, it tied with Breaking Bad‘s episode “Ozymandias” from season five as the highest-rated episode of all time. Breaking Bad‘s episode came out in 2013 and has over 273K reviews.
Hudson Williams shared the news on his Instagram Story, writing, “HUHHHHHHHH?!!?? 😭😭😭😭” while François Arnaud also posted a simple, “wtf.”
The season finale, “The Cottage,” is set to premiere Friday, Dec 26.
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