702. Heated Rivalry with Candy Tan

[intro]

Sarah Wendell: Hello and welcome to episode number 702 of Smart Podcast, Trashy Books. I’m Sarah Wendell, with me is Candy Tan, and we’re going to talk about a show you’ve never heard of ever. It’s called Heated Rivalry, brand new! You probably haven’t heard of it, but we’re going to tell you everything about it. Candy actually recapped Heated Rivalry on the site – I’m sure you know that – and was that enough? No, absolutely not. We had so many things that we wanted to basically exclaim at each other about, so why not turn on microphones, right?

We’re going to talk about the show, the acting, the adaptation, the fact that this show could not ever have been made in the United States. We think Jacob Tierney is a genius, and we have many a rabbit hole of research to explore. So if you have been thinking about this show a lot, come hang out with us! We’ve got lots to say.

And I have a compliment this week, which is so awesome!

To Sasha D.: True story: the other day I left my socks in a pool of sunshine, and then when I put them on they were very warm and soft, and I swear the delight traveled from my toes straight to the top of my head. And this is how you make your friends feel: warm and safe, comforted and soothed, and also very stylish.

If you would like a compliment of your very own, have a look at patreon.com/SmartBitches. Our show has no dynamic ads because of our Patreon. Thanks, y’all! With listener support, I was able to turn off all dynamic ads, which are the ones that are inserted immediately before and after a podcast file, because I wanted to avoid all ads for ICE and other right-wing propaganda, and so now instead of Patreon offering ad-free episodes to subscribers, our Patreon community made every episode free of dynamic ads for every listener.

If you would like to support the show, there are lovely benefits if you do. You get the full PDF scans of RT, you get a truly lovely Discord, bonus episodes, and multiple chances to connect and hang out with us during the year. Plus, if you are supporting the show, you are helping me procure more issues of Romantic Times, keep the show going, and you ensure an artisan transcript from garlicknitter. Hey, garlicknitter! [Hello! – gk] It would be lovely to have you join us, and your support means a lot. Head over to patreon.com/SmartBitches and find out more!

All right, are you ready to talk about this show no one is talking about? Let’s do this: on with the podcast with me and Candy. 

[music]

Sarah: The eyebrows, the cheekbones: we have so much to talk about. But before we do, would you please introduce yourself and tell the people who will be listening who you are and what you do?

Candy Tan: Yeah, absolutely. Hi, I’m Candy Tan! Once upon a time, I helped found Smart Bitches.

Sarah: Yes, you did! You’re the co-founder! Heated Rivalry has really not talk-, taken up a lot of room in your brain, has it?

Candy: I mean, it’s on-, it’s only taken up about 80 % of my background processes at any given moment? [Laughs]

Sarah: So you have like a small amount of mental processing space left over for, like, brushing your teeth or eating!

Candy: Yeah! Yeah, I know, like paying attention to my loved ones; you know, keeping track of, like, important life events. It’s fine. This is an extremely normal –

Sarah: I mean, I guess that’s important.

Candy: – state of being.

Sarah: Okay, so first question then: you’ve watched the whole show, you recapped it for the site, which was amazing, and thank you for that –

Candy: Aw, thank you.

Sarah: – ‘cause it was super dope. What specific details are you currently obsessed with?

Candy: Okay. God, so many –

[Laughter]

Candy: – different things – 

Sarah: I will tell you one of the things –

Candy: …go over.

Sarah: – that I cannot stop thinking about, and –

Candy: Yeah.

Sarah: I’m not actually a fetishist of this particular variety, but the way this show uses feet.

Candy: Oh yes, it’s so good! I – yes. Honestly, it’s part of the constellation of incredible little details that Jacob Tierney writes in and then reiterates and kind of riffs on throughout. So it’s little things –

Sarah: I know.

Candy: – like the foot touches, right?

Sarah: The toes touching.

Candy: The, the toes touching, like, in the, like, you know how in episode one, their feet don’t touch ‘cause, you know, they don’t know each other? And then at the end their toes are touching! And –

 Sarah: Yes! During, during difficult moments when they’re, when they’re privately supporting each other during public interactions –

Candy: Yes!

Sarah: – they will touch the sides of their feet to, like, I got you?

Candy: Yes!

Sarah: So, like, their side foot –

Candy: Yeah.

Sarah: – touches that are like –

Candy: Yeah!

Sarah: – We’re okay; we’re in this –

Candy: Yeah!

Sarah: – together.

Candy: Yes!

Sarah: And even the, even the close-up of skate blades that, like –

Candy: Yeah!

Sarah: – when they are at true odds, they have actual fucking knives on their feet –

Candy: [Laughs]

Sarah: – you get a little close-up. And, you know, you get the drama of a little –

Candy: Yeah, yeah!

Sarah: – little ice –

Candy: Yeah.

Sarah: – that goes chh – you know, that kind of thing.

Candy: Yeah!

Sarah: But seriously, the – I’m not even a foot fetishist and I’m like –

Candy: No!

Sarah: – I can’t stop thinking about feet! What is this?

Candy: Nooo! I know! And I mean, even, even little things like, like the way their looks at each other evolve over time?

Sarah: Oh my God!

Candy: At first, at first it’s mostly kind of resentful –

Sarah: Oh yeah.

Candy: – into horny/curious. And then pretty soon, they’re, like, shooting heart eyes at each other when the other isn’t looking. Or even when they are looking, but the other person’s just like, whoop, going over their head.

Sarah: Yep.

Candy: Especially Shane. Like, the, the entire time when Ilya is making the biggest heart eyes at Shane while they’re sitting, you know, talking during the tuna meltdown. Like –

Sarah: Yeah.

Candy: – it’s so, it’s so crazy-making and so good. But yeah, there’s like a million of those, like, fantastic little details for people who like to rewatch, like me, to catch, to catch. You, you know, after like the –

Sarah: Yep.

Candy: – you know, eighth rewatch, we’re suddenly like, Oh, oh! Oh fuck! [Laughs] Here’s a new thing that I didn’t realize!

Sarah: Did you see that? Did you see that? Yes.

Candy: Yeah! Yeah!

Sarah: And, and I think good direction is all about that visual –

Candy: Mm-hmm, yes.

Sarah: – confirmation of the story, and I love it?

Candy: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: But I also…that Jacob Tierney’s really, really good at it, because I’ve been a fan of his since Letterkenny? I think I’ve watched Letterkenny start to finish like five or six times?

Candy: Oh my God, amazing.

Sarah: Shoresy is the same thing.

Candy: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: This, this was – like, I remember saying to Amanda during a podcast, like, Oh, this is being adapted and written by Jacob Tierney; it’s going to be fucking great. It’ll get picked up in the US. I figured it would be like Hulu because Crave –

Candy: Yes, yes.

Sarah: – and Hulu –

Candy: Yeah, have a relationship, right? Yeah.

Sarah: – get along and Letterkenny – yeah, Letterkenny and Shoresy are both on – come to find out it was like six hundred grand to option the thing?

Candy: Which is such a deal! This is such a fucking steal for HBO. Oh my God.

Sarah: Jeez Louise! That’s like a, like a sneeze for HBO’s budget. Come on!

Candy: I know! I know. Fuck! Yeah, no, like, they got it for such a steal? And I, I just hope that for the other international contracts, I hope they negotiated much, much, much better rates. Once it –

Sarah: I have so much math –

Candy: Yeah.

Sarah: – and money information for you.

Candy: Oh, I am so excited to dig into that in, like, a little bit, ‘cause I’m like, I am such a nerd: I love hearing all these details? I, I love –

Sarah: Oh –

Candy: – talking money. I love finding out about money stuff, so yeah.

Sarah: Hard same!

Candy: Yeah. Yeah. But –

Sarah: So –

Candy: Anyway, I want to, I want to talk a little bit about, like, how Jacob Tierney’s so good at that, ‘cause you know what that is? It’s, it’s a good callback. He’s a comedian! And these are all –

Sarah: Hundred percent.

Candy: – callbacks. And –

Sarah: Yep!

Candy: – nobody understands the power of a good callback –

Sarah: Like a person who writes comedy.

Candy: You know, minutes – yeah! – minutes or hours later, you bring it up again, and the audience goes fucking crazy, ‘cause –

Sarah: Yep!

Candy: – they have context. An under- –

Sarah: That’s a Texas-sized 10-4!

Candy: Yeah, an under-, underrated skill, for real. And, and, like – and speaking of comedy, something I did want to bring up is, people don’t talk often enough about how funny this show is?

Sarah: Oh my God.

Candy: It’s really fucking funny! The, the book is funny! The book is funny, and –

Sarah: It’s hilarious!

Candy: Yes! And, like, you know, lots and lots of good lines, but also lots of really funny little understated comic moments, like the way the, the, one of the funniest things in the whole show is how Shane goes, Oh no. [Laughs] You know, when he’s concussed and the nurse comes in and he’s like, Oh no. It’s such a funny moment! It’s played perfectly –

Sarah: Yeah.

Candy: – it’s inserted perfectly; it’s timed perfectly. It’s all so good. Hudson Williams has a background in comedy, so he understands comic timing. If you’ve seen some of his unhinged shorts on YouTube, like –

Sarah: Oh, goodness, yes.

Candy: – he understands, he totally understands the brief for, like, you know, like, playing comic moments well? And, yeah, and, and I just, like, you know, lots of fantastic lines. Ilya gets most of them, ‘cause he’s, you know, he’s, like, the volatile, charismatic, funny one in the books and, you know, obviously in the show too. But –

Sarah: Deep, deep wells of Russian –

Candy: Yes!

Sarah: – sarcasm. Deep –

Candy: Yes!

Sarah: – Russian sarcasm, like –

Candy: The…

Sarah: – a very specific flavor of it.

Candy: Yes. And of course the, like, just deploying the eyebrows to magnificent effect, like, always.

Sarah: Just, just stop. It’s just, it’s just too –

Candy: It’s, yeah, it’s just – [laughs] – yeah.

Sarah: So speaking of Tierney, or speaking of the two actors, of Storrie and of Williams, what are your thoughts on their performances? I will be honest with you: I am actually a little worried about them? Because they are getting –

Candy: Right.

Sarah: – this super hyper-focused fame –

Candy: I know!

Sarah: – over-saturation? They have gone from, like, in November –

Candy: Yeah.

Sarah: – no one would know who they were. And now they are approaching what I call Target famous, which is –

Candy: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – they can’t go to Target without attracting a crowd. Like –

Candy: No.

Sarah: – Rihanna can’t go to Target –

Candy: Mm-mm!

Sarah: – right?

Candy: No.

Sarah: Beyoncé can’t go to Target. They are getting Target famous! Did – even at the Golden Globes last night, other actors were excited to meet them!

Candy: I know!

Sarah: How adorable was that?

Candy: I know! It, it was so wild to see, like, award winners and, like, big names get all fluttery and be like, Ohhh, they’re here! Or even, like, New Year’s Eve, Anderson Cooper and Andy Cohen, Anderson Cooper going, Have, have, has Heated Rivalry made us lose our entire minds? And then Stephen Colbert calling himself a, a pushy bottom? Was that it? Bossy bottom?

[Laughter]

Candy: I can’t remember which! But, like, Stephen Colbert! Oh my God! Holy shit!

Sarah: He’s the most, he’s among the – like, his whole performance is uptight guy?

Candy: Yeah!

Sarah: And when he gets raunchy, it is hilarious.

Candy: It is so funny and so good. Just in terms of, like, what my impressions of them are, to go to your original question?

Sarah: Yes!

Candy: So –

Sarah: What did you think of their performances?

Candy: Well, first of all, I, their acting ability continually astonishes me? Like, Storrie’s ability to disappear into Ilya? So, like, it, it goes, it, it’s not just when he – it’s everything, right? So from his resting posture to his default expression, and of course his voice – his voice as Ilya is significantly deeper than Storrie’s.

Sarah: Yes, I read about that.

Candy: Yeah, it’s a shock.

Sarah: I read about that. I learned –

Candy: Yeah.

Sarah: – that part of the reason, allegedly, is that – and, you know, you, you might be familiar with this because I know you have familiarity with different languages – know, English is all up in the front.

Candy: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: It’s very easy to be nasal in English.

Candy: Yeah, yeah.

Sarah: Russian is all in the back. And so –

Candy: Yeaahh!

Sarah: …to drop your consonants and your flexion to the back of your throat –

Candy: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – it will lower your vocal cords, your vocal sound.

Candy: Oh, that’s fascinating. Wow!

Sarah: …wait, is that true? Yes! In Soviet Russia, accent has you!

Candy: [Laughs]

Sarah: It is, it is lower! And –

Candy: Wow, okay.

Sarah: – and it, it drives…voice to the back, or the, the diction of your voice to the back. Like, oh, that makes total sense!

Candy: That’s, that is fascinating.

Sarah: But my God, the way he just sort of swallows –

Candy: Yeah.

Sarah: That character comes out of his voice, and there’s a face as well. Like, you can –

Candy: Yes. Yeah, no! His face is completely different. His lips are different?

Sarah: Oh my God!

Candy: Everything is different.

Sarah: Yes.

Candy: Like, so it’s, like, really eerie how he completely disappears into Ilya. And Hudson Williams does a fantastic job disappearing into Shane, but it’s harder to see because he’s not doing something quite as flashy. He doesn’t have fancy accent work, right –

Sarah: No.

Candy: – to kind of anchor us to, oh, this man is doing acting. But, but then you see him in his YouTube shorts, you see him in real life, and you are like, Oh, shit. Like, Shane is masterful. Especially since Shane as a character is someone who’s very socially awkward and pent up and stiff, and, and, like, Williams delivers on that so beautifully. And then in the moments when Shane is vulnerable and having feelings, then every micro-expression, the tears that well up in Williams’s eyes, it, it’s so good; it’s so magical. It makes me want to scream, honestly, like how genuine it is. Like, and in those moments, these two boys disappear into their characters in a way I’ve only seen with, like, people like Robert De Niro when he was young or Al Pacino when he was young or Meryl Streep –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Candy: – you know, like where you forget you’re seeing an actor and you’re actually –

Sarah: Yes.

Candy: – just seeing the character. And –

Sarah: It’s like you’re seeing –

Candy: So rare.

Sarah: – you’re seeing Hudson Willian, Williams play Shane Hollander, and you’re seeing Shane Hollander –

Candy: Yes!

Sarah: – whereas there are a lot of actors who you are watching that actor play that character.

Candy: Yeah, yeah. Like, like Tom Cruise, for example. He’s always –

Sarah: Tom Cruise is playing Tom Cruise.

Candy: – Tom Cruise playing a guy. Yeah, Tom Cruise –

Sarah: Yeah.

Candy: – is playing a guy. And like, no matter how different the guy is, it’s Tom Cruise playing a guy. And that’s not –

Sarah: Glen Powell is playing Glen Powell in that movie.

Candy: [Laughs] Yeah!

Sarah: Right? Like it’s –

Candy: Yeah!

Sarah: And that’s not a problem!

Candy: No!

Sarah: It’s a different, it’s a different thing.

Candy: No, it’s fine!

Sarah: I think so –

Candy: But yeah.

Sarah: – so much of Hudson’s acting, what I’ve noticed the most was that the fluidity of his body would change when he was on the ice.

Candy: Yes!

Sarah: And when he was off the ice, he was very buttoned up and stiff –

Candy: Yes.

Sarah: – which is really interesting, because the costume designer has talked about how when Hudson is with his family, he’s wearing linen.

Candy: Yes, yes.

Sarah: They always put him in linen.

Candy: Yeah.

Sarah: You can, you can see the budget for this and how they repeat –

Candy: I know.

Sarah: – the pieces of clothing –

Candy: Yes, yeah.

Sarah: – but it’s meaningful –

Candy: Mm-hmm!

Sarah: – when they do. I’m like, you took that –

Candy: Yeah.

Sarah: – five shirts that you’ve got, and you work with it.

Candy: Yes.

Sarah: But on the ice or with his family, he’s a little bit more fluid, but on the ice is when he’s totally just, he’s like water.

Candy: Mm, mm-hmm?

Sarah: Off the ice, all of his acting, it’s, like, in his shoulders and his eyebrows.

Candy: Yes. Yes.

Sarah: It’s so restrained.

Candy: Yes.

Sarah: And once you, once I spotted it, I was like, holy crap, this guy is –

Candy: Yeah.

Sarah: – friggin’ masterful!

Candy: I agree. And, and the other time he’s fully free is when he is having sex with Ilya.

Sarah: Yes, I was going to say when he’s going to Pound Town, of course.

Candy: When he’s expressing, yeah, when he, when he’s expressing his desire, that’s when –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Candy: – you, when you see him really just fully let go and move and express in a way that is totally different than his default mode. And that is incredible! Like, it really speaks to –

Sarah: So subtle!

Candy: Yeah! It’s so subtle, it’s so good, and it really speaks to all of it! It speaks to how talented these boys are at acting. It speaks to how well Tierney is directing them, because we have seen, we have seen great actors be ruined by bad directors. Like, the Star Wars prequel movies turned, you know, incredible actors like Liam Neeson and Ewan McGregor into just, like, these weird, declaiming robots. And that clearly did not happen in Heated Rivalry. And of course, like –

Sarah: Natalie Portman as – [dramatic pause] – tragic.

Candy: [Laughs] I know…

Sarah: [Laughs] That’s her whole setting –

Candy: Yeah, I know!

Sarah: – and she’s very talented! Why was she just tragic the whole time –

Candy: I know! So –

Sarah: – tragic and mad?

Candy: – so many good actors wasted on, on those three episodes –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Candy: – of Star Wars; like, forever angry about it.

But anyways, so they are amazing. I want to say, too, that their press tour has given me just about as much joy as the TV show itself, because they are, they are riveting to watch. If you look at their, like –

Sarah: Yes!

Candy: – if you look at their thirst tweets segment and their, like, compliment battle segments, they are like five to six times longer than the regular segments that – like, thirst tweets is normally like three minutes, three and a half, done. They got eighteen minutes? [Laughs] I think people –

Sarah: I mean –

Candy: – get them in front of the com-, camera and they’re like, We can’t trim any of this. This is all fucking gold! Hudson Williams washes his face for twenty minutes and every, like, people are fucking riveted –

Sarah: Oh –

Candy: – ‘cause they are so funny!

Sarah: The charisma –

Candy: The charisma!

Sarah: Each of them has this, each of them has so much charisma, and then when they – I know a lot of people talk about things like chemistry –

Candy: Yes!

Sarah: – between characters.

Candy: Yes.

Sarah: Sometimes in a, in a movie I can see it; sometimes in a book I can see it?

Candy: Yeah.

Sarah: Here it’s just like the two of them have so much chemistry.

Candy: Yes!

Sarah: It’s like they’re –

Candy: Yeah!

Sarah: – flammable. It’s like they’re flammable, right?

Candy: Yes! Yeah, no, and, and, like, they’re obviously so effortlessly affectionate –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Candy: – and it’s really, it’s really healing to see, honestly. I like, I love it. I want them to continue having it. I don’t know if the pressures of everything are going to allow them to have it for much longer, which makes me very, very sad, honestly, but I think, like, for as long as they can keep this, I want these boys to have this connection and this happiness with each other, because it’s so effortless and genuine, and it is so rare to see two men be this demonstrative and this loving –

Sarah: Yes!

Candy: – without explicitly being in, like, a, a, a, like, a romantic relationship or some other kind of relationship that we have a ready name for that has, like, a public stamp of approval. Like, whatever these two dudes have going on, I fucking love it. I want people to – I mean, people obviously are going to have their feelings about it, but I’m just like, I’m like, Y’all keep it in the DMs –

[Laughter]

Candy: – or the, or the Discord server or in your locked AO3 fics. I’m like, Y’all can do whatever you want in your private time, but, like, but come on, let’s try and, like, shield the boys a little bit from this –

Sarah: Yes.

Candy: – ‘cause they don’t –

Sarah: Protect these beautiful angels.

Candy: I, I feel so protective over them. Like, I just want –

Sarah: Me too.

Candy: – to…these giant guys who are like, you know – [laughs] – eight to nine inches –

Sarah: I know.

Candy: – taller than me? I’m just like, No, put them in cotton wool! [Laughs] Please!

Sarah: And the thing that’s so interesting about them as actors and them as these characters is that, you know, if you’re a professional athlete, your body is a tool. Your body –

Candy: Yes, it is!

Sarah: – is your income, and if you damage your –

Candy: Mm-hmm!

Sarah: – if you damage that tool, if that tool gets hurt, you know, you lose your income. And so you’re –

Candy: Yes.

Sarah: – constantly aware of how your body is working. And the same is a lot, is, is true with acting. You need your whole body –

Candy: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – to inhabit the character.

Candy: Yes.

Sarah: And they are so secure in themselves –

Candy: Yeah!

Sarah: – they are so happy. They are so comfortable with each other. It’s like this version of masculinity is, I think, the, the, the, both the press tour –

Candy: Yeah.

Sarah: – and the show –

Candy: Yes! Yeah!

Sarah: – that version of masculinity, I think, is one of the reasons why people are so absolutely obsessed with it?

Candy: Yes.

Sarah: Because we see it so rarely, and we’re kind of thirsty for healthy men who are both sexual and comfortable with each other.

Candy: Yes, exactly!

Sarah: In a platonic way, like in the press tour, and then in a romantic way in the show.

Candy: Yes. No, absolutely. We are, yeah, we are thirsting for intimacy –

Sarah: Starving.

Candy: – basically. Yeah.

Sarah: Yes, we’re starving for intimacy.

Candy: Mm-hmm. Yep.

Sarah: Okay.

Candy: Hundred percent.

Sarah: So let’s talk about Jacob Tierney and how this is the greatest Canadian show ever made.

Candy: [Laughs] It really is, ‘cause he is, his sense of timing – again, that comedy background! – sense of timing, sense of drama He knows how to ramp up a bit. He knows how to ramp up a bit He knows how to hold the bit for just long enough that it’s excruciating, and then he knows how to, like, release that tension. Because –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Candy: – essentially, when you look at the way, like, when you look at the way, like, a really good joke is structured or a really good stand-up bit how that’s structured? It’s storytelling! It’s all storytelling. And I feel, I feel that – okay, so I’m going to go on, like, a little side rant for a second. It’s all totally relevant.

Sarah: You act like I don’t know that that’s going to happen. 

Candy: [Laughs]

Sarah: It’s not like I’ve never been here before, like we’ve never talked. Like, no, of course, yeah!

Candy: Please, indulge me in this rabbit hole, which you have never experienced.

Sarah: …I just went down a rabbit hole with math and taxes, so your rabbit hole –

Candy: Yes!

Sarah: – is just as valid as mine –

Candy: Yes!

Sarah: – so please go ahead.

[Laughter]

Candy: Yeah, so starting, I would say, I don’t know, like five, six years ago, you know, I just started noticing that the pacing for TV shows was getting worse and worse. Like, not just in terms of, like, information not being revealed in ways that make sense, or information being fed to me in, like, like, too fast a pace or too slow a pace or in the wrong part of the show entirely, but just like –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Candy: – little things like jokes being delivered and the pauses being like a, a beat or a half a beat too long or dramatic moments moving on too quickly when I just needed them to take a moment with it.

Sarah: I need to breathe here, yes.

Candy: Yeah, we need to breathe a little bit, and – and then come to find out that it’s not really just my imagination or me being, like, a grumpy old fuck –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Candy: – right? ‘Cause, like, ‘cause some of it is just like, wow, am I just, like, not understanding modern filmmaking vernacular all of a sudden?

Sarah: Do I hate everything?

Candy: ‘Cause I’m like –

Sarah: Maybe.

Candy: – in my forties now, is it just me?

Sarah: …hate everything.

Candy: Yeah. But come, come to find out that no: Netflix in particular, right? Is trying to cater to the second screen problem, and there’s –

Sarah: Yes!

Candy: – instead of, and instead of –

Sarah: Yes!

Candy: – instead of trying to make their shows so riveting that you cannot afford to look at your second screen, they’ve gone way the fuck the other way and they’re like, Well, we want this to be able to be playing in the background and for people to follow along while they’re, like, doing the, you know, New York Times crossword puzzle or whatever the fuck.

Sarah: Yes.

Candy: And that is –

Sarah: And so you get info dump in like one-cup servings in dialogue. They’re just, they’re just speaking their exposition the whole fucking movie.

Candy: Right! Yeah, exactly. And then they’re holding the joke for a moment too long ‘cause they want to make sure that people are, like, looking up and going, Oh! Oh, that was funny, ha-ha, before they move on to the next line. And it ruins, it ruins the show. It makes shows unwatchable. And –

Sarah: Oh yeah.

Candy: – Heated Rivalry doesn’t have that problem, because Jacob Tierney is specifically trying to do what, in my opinion, is the right thing, which is, I’m going to make a show that you cannot afford to look away from, and it’s going to be so magnetic and riveting that you’re going to be sorry if you look down for like three minutes, ‘cause a bunch of really important shit is going to happen in those three minutes.

Sarah: You might miss a butt. You don’t want to miss a single butt.

 Candy: [Laughs] You know what I mean?

Sarah: You might miss one.

Candy: Or you might miss, like, fucking Shane Hollander tearing up and looking super tragic and stabbing you in the heart, you know? As he slowly deletes, We didn’t even kiss. Right? You, like, it’s such a bold, ballsy move, and I think that can only come from someone who, like, if you’re a comedian and someone is, like, fucking playing on their phone while they’re trying to do your comedy, you have inherently failed?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Candy: And, like, comedy requires –

Sarah: I think –

Candy: – full attention, and I think, like, Tierney kind of ported that over into Heated Rivalry for drama, and fucking yes! That is exactly it, you know?

Sarah: Yeah. As Tori Amos said, you know, If you can look away when I’m, when I’m on stage, then I’m not doing my job.

Candy: Yes! Yeah!

Sarah: If you are doing other things during my concert, I’m not doing my job right. You need to –

Candy: Yeah.

Sarah: – I need to be riveting. And it’s, you know, kind of a big order from a big room full of people and one woman and a piano? It’s kind of a big order for two guys in a hockey show from Canada.

Candy: Yeah!

Sarah: You think, Oh,, this isn’t going to be compelling. No, this is the most compelling thing you’re ever going to see, and you’re going to watch it like five times.

Candy: No! I, I – and it’s because of the tension, and it’s because of the yearning! I was, I was talking to someone recently about how it, you know, so many people are completely losing their minds who have not really watched or encountered a lot of romance before: a lot of straight guys; a lot of gay guys; a lot of, like, you know, queer people who are used to, like, consuming, like, serious lit’rachah. And all of a sudden they are running into pure, uncut yearning, and they, and it’s like, you know, like, instead of having, like, baby-aspirin-tainted cocaine, they’re get-, you know, getting, like, the, the pure stuff all of a sudden, and they’re like, Whoa, whoa, whoa! What’s happening –

Sarah: I know.

Candy: – to our braaiins? And it’s like, Yeah, well, welcome, baby. This is what a good romance novel does to you all the time. Why do you think romance readers are so voracious and devoted a following? Like, this is –

Sarah: Yep!

Candy: – this kind of –

Sarah: We’ve been here.

Candy: – tension, this kind of yearning, this kind of catharsis. Like, you can’t really get that anywhere else, you know, not in this way. So welcome, babies! Welcome to romance! [Laughs]

Sarah: Welcome aboard, everyone. We’ve been here – and this happens –

Candy: Yeah.

Sarah: – every once in a while. Like –

Candy: Yeah!

Sarah: – this happened with Fifty Shades of Grey. People were like, Oh, it’s a romance! Women be reading romance! This happened with Twilight even.

Candy: Yeah, yeah!

Sarah: There have been books that have, have, like, have reached sort of cultural saturation?

Candy: Yes, yeah.

Sarah: This is a show that’s reaching cultural sat-, saturation –

Candy: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – but it is so solidly a romance.

Candy: Mm-hmm, yeah.

Sarah: And of course – ‘course! – you can’t – well, I mean, maybe you can now, but you couldn’t find the paperback because Harlequin didn’t print enough.

Candy: I know. That still makes me so mad, and I’m still crying over the fact that there is no TV show tie-in cover!

Sarah: Usually people hate them and people are like, No, I really want this cover.

Candy: I –

Sarah: Why do I not have it right now?

Candy: I, I need it.

Sarah: Why, why do I not have them gazing at each other’s nipples with no shirts and those, and those giant hockey pants? Like, we –

Candy: No! That –

Sarah: What, what’s happening here?

Candy: They had, they, they made the perfect book cover, which is the one, the one of the, the two of them, like, holding their necks, right?

Sarah: Yeess!

Candy: And they’re, like, half naked, and then there’s that, like, gorgeous teal cover –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Candy: – and background? And, like, why is that not the cover for the book? ‘Cause I want that cover. I’m –

Sarah: I will –

Candy: – I’m not normally someone who’s into, like, these, like, like, photo covers –

Sarah: No!

Candy: – at all?

Sarah: No, never!

Candy: I want these. I want these. ‘Cause I, like, looking at these boys, it makes me –

Sarah: Uh-huh.

Candy: – think of the show, and that makes the good brain chemicals go. So.

Sarah: Right? Like, this is all about the dopamine and the serotonin of this experience –

Candy: Fuck!

Sarah: – your job is to continue. Like –

Candy: For fucking real.

Sarah: – how do you drop the ball that hard? How? How?!

Candy: I know! Do they –

Sarah: The rumor?

Candy: – do they hate money? Do they hate money?!

Sarah: Well, there, there – [sighs] – it was Steve Ammidown, who used to be the librarian at the Browne Popular Culture Library and is now doing more romance analysis – says, said that Harlequin is a mail-order company that still thinks it’s a publisher, but they’re a, they’re a mail-order – ‘cause they were originally a subscription service.

Candy: Yeah. That’s so true.

Sarah: The other, the other rumor that I heard – and this is, this is not paywalled, everyone, so I’m reporting rumors that I’ve heard out onto the whole-ass internet – the rumor that I heard was that a different title about JD Vance was prioritized in print over running a second run of this book for the show ‘cause they didn’t think it would be a big deal.

Candy: God!

Sarah: They prioritized some other political title over…

Candy: Wooow!

Sarah: – in their print run. I cannot verify this?

Candy: Yeah?

Sarah: I have heard it from two different people. I, there’s no way – I mean, did you see Harlequin’s statement? What we can say is that we are getting orders from publishers and from bookstores and sending them books. I’m like, That’s your job as a publisher.

Candy: Yeah!

Sarah: That’s literally your entire fucking reason for being. How is that your statement when you’re in the middle of what is a visible corporate crisis? Like, we’re all pissed –

Candy: I know!

Sarah: – that you didn’t do your job, and your answer is, But we do our job! And I’m like, What?! [Laughs] What the fuck? Are you kidding?

Candy: Yeah. We, we dropped the ball catastrophically, and now we are picking up the ball. Like, congratulations! How are you – what?

Sarah: To, to use the correct metaphor, this is such an empty net.

Candy: Mm-hmm!

Sarah: They’re just a, they are just an empty net at this point.

Candy: Mm-hmm, yeah.

Sarah: They are, their whole strategy is What if we don’t have a goalie? And it’s like, that’s not great. [Laughs]

Candy: Yeah.

Sarah: So you and I talked on Discord about how this show is so Canadian, and this show could not have been made in the US under any circumstances.

Candy: Oh, no fucking way. I, it would have been – first of all, I, I think that they would have wanted to attach some hotties with cachet and renown to it?

Sarah: Hmm…they needed a name…

Candy: I, I think they would have, because America right now, American film-making, and honestly, American, like, publishing too, is so attached to, We don’t want to put in the work to promo? We want –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Candy: – we want people who have followings already –

Sarah: Yes.

Candy: – to plug into and exploit.

Sarah: Yes.

Candy: So they probably would have wanted, like, someone. Like, God, like –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Candy: – I don’t know. Like, they might have tried casting fucking Jacob Elordi as fucking Shane Hollander. Who the fuck knows? Something horrifying like that.

Sarah: I think Glen Powell –

Candy: Which, like –

Sarah: – would have been involved in some way.

Candy: Oh, fuck! Gross. I mean, anyway, like, like, I love Jacob Elordi as an actor, you know? I, I, I love –

Sarah: Yes!

Candy: – I love these people! Don’t get me wrong. They’re great, but –

Sarah: I don’t mind Glen Powell, he’s perfectly cromulent, but, like –

Candy: No, they’re great! But, like, just –

Sarah: – this is not him.

Candy: – no, reject, right? Incorrect.

Sarah: Yeah.

Candy: They probably, like, they definitely would not have allowed any of that sex to exist. It would have been like –

Sarah: They would have fought about hiring an intimacy coordinator and a chore-, choreographer for those scenes. They would have fought about that.

Candy: They would have thought about it; they would, they would have tried to push the sex scene to, like, as, like, the climax of the series versus something that happens basically immediately like it does in the books. They –

Sarah: Hmm.

Candy: – would have tried to – like, America in particular is so bought into – and I’m, when I say America I don’t mean American people in general? I mean, like, American –

Sarah: American culture.

Candy: Yeah, American – well, not even American culture, necessarily. American, American tastemakers, American showrunners, and Amer-, like, the people who control the money at the studios. Which is very –

Sarah: Yes.

Candy: – distinct from the people –

Sarah: I understand what you’re saying.

Candy: – right? Yeah, who want to see this stuff –

Sarah: Mm-hmm, yep.

Candy: – and the people who want to make this stuff. So the people who get the final say are so invested in the kind of will-they-won’t-they that is driven by sex versus driven by emotion. Because there’s polit- – like, God, when the show first came out and the takes first started rolling out, everyone was like, Oh, where’s the will-they-won’t-they? They fuck like twenty minutes into episode one. And I’m like, Jesus Christ –

Sarah: Yeah!

Candy: – they engage in a will-they-won’t-they for like nine years. [Laughs]

Sarah: Yeah. I’m sorry –

Candy: Nine years of will-they-won’t-they.

Sarah: – you need to buckle up.

Candy: Different will-they-won’t-they! [Laughs] Different!

Sarah: We need you to get some snacks. This is going to be a journey for you.

Candy: Yes! Like, wow! And yeah, and, and, and you see it too in, like, the, the, the straight hockey podcasters who, you know, watch this, like What Chaos! and Empty Netters. The first episodes, they’re like, Whoa, they, they’re going for it? They’re going for it. They’re going for it already?

Sarah: Yep.

Candy: What’s the rest of the show going to be about? And then, and it’s amazing to see them gain romance literacy as –

Sarah: Yes!

Candy: – the series progresses! So that by the time, like, episode four or five hits, they start suddenly being able to, like, predict beats in a way that they were not able to in the first, you know, episode or so.

Anyway, so, like, this kind of structure would have been anathema, right, to the people –

Sarah: Yes.

Candy: – holding the purse strings. They would have – God, I don’t know – like, they would have just tried to cater to the loudest and worst and most restrictive audience in America, which is to say, like, probably, like, try and fit this into a, a least offensive mold, which would have –

Sarah: Oh yeah.

Candy: – absolutely killed everything that is good about the show.

Sarah: You know how, like, all houses right now that are for sale, they’re all staged in gray?

Candy: Yeah, greige.

Sarah: It would have been –

Candy: Would have been greige.

Sarah: – it would have been the gray version. And you know, it’s interesting that the, the guys who are, like, hockey guys watching the show – you know, sports have a narrative structure.

Candy: Oh, absolutely, yeah!

Sarah: Hockey has three acts, y’all. You know how this works.

Candy: [Laughs]

Sarah: So, like –

Candy: Yeah!

Sarah: – the structure is not that far off.

Candy: Yeah!

Sarah: The thing with American movies and television is that they only want the tentpole property. They only want that –

Candy: Yes!

Sarah: – mega IP. Like, there has to be –

Candy: Yes!

Sarah: – a Marvel. If they’re not making a hundred billion internationally, then they’re not going to do it. And they’re already, not only is Netflix tailoring shows to the audience that isn’t paying attention, but, I mean, American studios have been tailoring to the needs of the Chinese market because they make so much money there.

Candy: Yeah! Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah!

Sarah: Especially with the Marvel concept? So, like –

Candy: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – if you don’t have –

Candy: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – a tentpole, if you don’t have, like, a mega IP, then what is the point? The other night my, I, I made my husband and my older child watch Double Team with Jean-Claude Van Damme and, and Dennis Rodman. This is not a good movie.

Candy: [Laughs]

Sarah: This is an abysmal fucking movie. I think the Fug Girls wrote about it because Dennis Rodman’s clothing is so incredible. And to be fair, it is. But –

Candy: Yeah.

Sarah: – it’s bad. Like, it’s genuinely terrible. And, like, the first third is boring. And then once Dennis Rodman shows up as Dennis Rodman plays an arms dealer, he, he gets to fight Jean-Claude Van Damme and at one point, like, picks him up, and Jean-Claude Van Damme is like, like two-thirds of him? It’s –

Candy: No! Jean-Claude Van Damme’s not tall! [Laughs]

Sarah: No, and, and Dennis Rodman is, like, picking him up with, like, one arm. This movie was not good, but I had to explain to my son, who is twenty, we used to have these ninety-minute thrillers and ninety-minute action movies and ninety-minute comedies like all the time. We had all of these little ninety-minute mid-budget movies.

Candy: Yeah! Yeah!

Sarah: You could see them like six months later at the dollar theater. My –

Candy: Yeah!

Sarah: – entire childhood was all of these little movies. We don’t –

Candy: Yeah!

Sarah: – have those anymore.

Candy: Yeah.

Sarah: If it’s not a two-and-a-half-hour, sorry for your bladder, Marvel masterpiece with no intermission –

Candy: Oh my God.

Sarah: – then they’re not doing it. So this –

Candy: Yeah.

Sarah: – this could never have been a movie, and I think TV would have gone the same way. It would have been the –

Candy: Yeah.

Sarah: – the greige of TV.

Candy: Yeah.

Sarah: And this was very, very colorful.

Candy: Yes. And, and, and it did this old school TV thing where each episode had it, had, like, its own, like, A plot, B plot, and a, and a little –

Sarah: Yes.

Candy: – cliffhanger? Which –

Sarah: Yes, they put a whole book in episode three! Like, there’s a whole-ass book –

Candy: Yeah!

Sarah: – in episode three there. Like, wow, Jacob, okay!

Candy: Yeah.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Candy: But, but also, like, just, like, adapting sections of the book as, like, discrete things, right? Like, okay, you know, we’re going to tackle Tuna Meltdown and Rose Landry in one episode as, like, a coherent arc that has, like, again, the A plot, B plot, little cliffhanger. It’s, it’s so classic, and it worked for decades, and then somehow along the way we abandoned it, and TV has been a little bit, or maybe a lot bit worse ever since.

Sarah: Yes, totally agree.

Candy: Yeah.

Sarah: Absolutely. And I don’t watch a lot of TV. Like, I joke all the time that I’m terrible at it? And I am also one of those persons where if I’m like, All right, I don’t like this, I’ll turn it off in the middle and walk away and never go back. I’m not a completionist. I’ll start –

Candy: Yeah.

Sarah: – in the middle.

Candy: Yeah, same.

Sarah: I don’t give a fuck.

Candy: Yeah, same.

Sarah: And I’m not great at watching television, because I don’t find a lot of television to be that great?

Candy: Mm-hmm, yeah.

Sarah: I think a lot of the time it insults me, or it’s going to extract anxiety out of me as an emotion?

Candy: Yeah.

Sarah: That’s not –

Candy: Yeah.

Sarah: – an emotional – like, making me anxious is not actually emotional fulfillment for me, sorry. Don’t…

Candy: Yeah, yeah. We have plenty of our own! [Laughs] We don’t need store-bought anxiety! We have plenty –

Sarah: No, I –

Candy: – at home. [Laughs]

Sarah: I have an, I have an in-, ingrained natural supply of anxiety. I don’t need to be given more, thank you.

Candy: Yeah, yeah.

Sarah: So I have some things to tell you that I’m so excited about. First of all –

Candy: Oh yes, yes, yes.

Sarah: – would you believe that Jacob Tierney, Jacob Tierney only has a hundred and thirty-one thousand followers on Instagram. What is that about?

Candy: What?!

Sarah: I know –

Candy: What the fuck?

Sarah: – it’s incredible.

Candy: Okay, I’m going to –

Sarah: It’s incredible.

Candy: [Gasps]

Sarah: Okay, second of all, I already told you about this, but I’m just going to tell everybody: I’ve been a fan of Jacob Tierney for years because of Letterkenny and Shoresy? I think Letterkenny –

Candy: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – is one of the best television programs I’ve ever seen?

Candy: It’s so fucking good.

Sarah: I adore it.

Candy: It’s so funny.

Sarah: It’s so good, for all of the same reasons that Heated is good.

Candy: Yeah. Okay.

Sarah: I wanted there, first of all, I wanted there to be a Shoresy cameo –

Candy: [Laughs]

Sarah: Heated Rivalry. I just wanted to see number 69 go by, or I wanted to hear Jared Keeso go, like, chirp at somebody.

Candy: Fuck you, Reilly!

Sarah: Fuck you, Jonesy! Thing about Shoresy is he’s the most profane character in Letterkenny, but then you get to Shoresy, and he has the most charming romance arc? Like –

Candy: Oh!

Sarah: – he’s obsessed with this woman. He’s like, I would French kiss your toaster just to vacuum your fucking car; I would be so good to you. And nobody takes him seriously ‘cause he’s like this crass weirdo, but great romance arc.

So here’s what I learned about this movie. So on a, a pop culture thread on Reddit about it, Unlucky Duck says, quote,

>> I have dug around trying to find numbers, and I don’t know if this is some part of marketing, that the show was dirt cheap.

Candy: Mm-hmm!

Sarah: It wasn’t cheap, but it wasn’t as expensive by these standards. So here is – I messaged you earlier –

Candy: Yeah.

Sarah: – that Carly Rae Jepsen and Heated Rivalry have something very important in common. There is something called the Canadian or the Canada Media Fund. And the budget –

Candy: Yeess!

Sarah: – for 2025 to 2026 is 364 – excuse me – $346 million program budget, and it went up from 338 to 346. This is money that is given to movies and all of these, like, visual projects to make a Canadian film and media industry, because they have a lot of competition from like, you know –

Candy: Mm-hmm! The US! Right?

Sarah: Yes, their merk-, their, their merkin, as I like to say…we’re, we’re kind of this merkin.

So this whole fund gives out money to media projects! Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe” video was funded by the Canada Media Fund.

Candy: Oh, no way!

Sarah: It’s a CMF project. Yeah, I mean, there’s other funding sources –

Candy: [Laughs]

Sarah: – but that’s a major, major, major part of their, of their, their purpose. The CMF supports the Canadian screen industry, and that is funded by – [dramatic pause] – taxes! See what happens when you pay a little bit more in taxes? You get dope shit like a whole media fund!

Candy: I –

Sarah: So!

Candy: God, why? I want, I want to pay Canadian taxes, frankly. Can I, like –

Sarah: Listen, I would pay –

Candy: – divert my American taxes to Canada? ‘Cause I would much rather give the Canadians my tax money right now, tell you what. Fuck!

Sarah: Like, I, I just want to grab people sometimes and be like, Do you not understand what happens when you pay a higher taxes with a functional government? You have so much dope shit.

Candy: I know, for real.

Sarah: Do you know that you don’t have to replace the rims on your car semi-annually because of potholes? ‘Cause they get fucking patched! Like, little dip, like, little things happen. And then you have, like, a whole media fund that helps you fund digital and television and movies for your country so you have a viable, you know, media competition. It’s like, it’s like laws in France where a certain number of songs on the radio must be in French? They can’t just be in English, that kind of thing?

Candy: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Sarah: So, Heated Rivalry was funded to the tune of 3,136,536 Canadian dollars, which Mr. Unlucky Duck has translated: that’s about 2.5, 2.25 million US dollars.

Candy: That’s crazy! That’s nothing!

Sarah: Now, probably –

Candy: That is so little money for a TV show. [Laughs]

Sarah: It is, it’s like a teensy, teensy little thing!

Candy: Holy fuck!

Sarah: Now, that’s certainly not the entire budget –

Candy: No, no,  no, obviously, yes.

Sarah: – because Jacob Tierney’s production company is involved, and he wrote it –

Candy: Right.

Sarah: – and he adapted it, and he directed it –

Candy: Yeah!

Sarah: – and if you look…

Candy: Bell Media’s involved, right?

Sarah: Exactly.

Candy: Yeah.

Sarah: There are a lot of other money sources in here? But according to Unlucky Duck, alleged figures – there’s no, like, able, able to be traced source for this figure, but most people are thinking, okay, it was probably about twelve million Canadian for the entire season.

Candy: What?! That is so small! [Laughs] Holy shit!

Sarah: And if you’d like to know, that’s $8.6 million.

Candy: Fucking –

Sarah: What the hell gets made for $8.6 million?

Candy: What?!

Sarah: Like, literally nothing.

Candy: Like, that –

Sarah: Incredible.

Candy: That is the cost of like one actor for an, an MCU movie.

Sarah: Right?! That’s like the cost of, like, catering for two hours –

Candy: Yes!

Sarah: – on a Marvel movie.

Candy: Yes! Oh my fucking God! Wow!

Sarah: Just dropped a hardcover on my foot; I don’t recommend that to anyone. Just be, be aware. This is, this is not good. So anyway.

So I don’t know what the, what the, like, the divide of that budget? So say it was twelve million Canadian; how much of that was production, how much was marketing, how much was media? One person on Twitter who was associated with the production apparently said that they were using really, really expensive cameras?

Candy: Yes, they were.

Sarah: – but they were using them –

Candy: Yes.

Sarah: – because they could only film for a month?

Candy: Yes.

Sarah: And they had to shoot the very highest quality that they could, but if you think about it –

Candy: Yes.

Sarah: – so many of the, of the visuals are very tight?

Candy: Yes!

Sarah: The hotel rooms are small.

Candy: Yes.

Sarah: They had one restaurant scene –

Candy: Yep.

Sarah: – ‘cause it’s expensive! You got to pay all those people, and you got to pay to get the set!

Candy: Yeah.

Sarah: And then, you know, hockey rinks, not difficult to find in Canada –

Candy: No.

Sarah: – there are a few. There are a few.

Candy: Yes.

Sarah: So they had a lot of flexibility in terms of, like, the sport and the, the gyms.

Candy: Yeah, yeah.

Sarah: I’m pretty sure it’s the same gym that they use in Shoresy that they use for this. Like, I’m like, Uh, kind of looks like a very familiar shower wall. I think I’ve seen other butts in that, in that shower.

Candy: [Laughs]

Sarah: This was so cheap to make!

Candy: No! For fucking real.

Sarah: And a large part of it, a large part of it was from the Canadian Media Fund, which I think is so fucking cool!

Candy: It is really fucking cool. I am – I – We –

Sarah: Kind of like, I’m in awe of how much they accomplished with that budget.

Candy: No! I, like, for real. I, I have actually been, like, nerding out on, like, the cinematography of –

Sarah: Yes!

Candy: – Heated Rivalry ‘cause I –

Sandy: Oh, sweet God!

Candy: – love it so much. The director of photography deserves every single props and award, in my opinion.

Sarah: A hund-…Yep.

Candy: ‘Cause, just, yeah, Jackson Parell is a wizard, and ‘cause it is shot so interestingly. And speaking of –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Candy: – like, things that would not have been, would not have adapted well, I, I feel like – [huffs] – American-made romance novel adaptations –

Sarah: Mm-hmm!

Candy: – tend to be very –

[Laughter]

Candy: – I know.

Sarah: [Laughs with sobbing noises]

Candy: [Laughs] It’s like, the sobbing will continue until morale improves, which means we’ll be sobbing forever. It’s fine.

[Laughter]

Sarah: Yes. I mean –

Candy: Yeah, but –

Sarah: – just this week, People We Meet on Vacation came out on Netflix, and people are like, This is a perfectly serviceable rom-com. And there are people who are like, No, this actually is wooden and crap. And –

Candy: Yeah.

Sarah: – it’s hard to make a book into a movie.

Candy: Yeah!

Sarah: It’s hard to do that.

Candy: It’s very, very hard. But the thing is that a lot of, a lot of the creative decisions that go into adapting a romance novel in particular tend to be really straightforward and uninteresting. They’re just like, Well, we have a built-in audience already, so all we need to do is, like, adapt it well enough that it sort of looks like the movie in their heads. So then they have really boring cinematographic decisions. Like, I was watching episode six of, of Heated Rivalry. And –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Candy: – I was watching how they framed Ilya’s approach to the car while Shane waits for him at the airport, right?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Candy: And you could do a really obvious thing about the approach, which is that you could just have the camera follow Ilya as he walks down the concourse or whatever, and then you can have him just going in or whatever, but instead they do it like a bunch of, like, really interesting quick cuts that are framed really well. They, you, the, you know, Tierney obviously was like, Well, we need to show Shane nervous, so you get a fantastic little beat of Shane drumming his fingers and kind of like being nervous in the car, and then you follow his point of view and look at the rear view mirror; you see Ilya approaching; you see the baggage being wheeled along the ground briefly, you know, with the clattery noise. Him, boom, putting it into the boot; close; he gets into the car; we switch to the windshield view; he immediately chirps Shane about the fucking car, which is hilarious. Immediately establishing that, yeah, they’re still, they’re still the boys. Ilya is still going to shit talk Shane at every moment, and Shane’s going to secretly love it while pretending to be indignant. And it’s so well done! It’s fast; it doesn’t waste any time? It doesn’t cause any kind of, like, unnecessary lingering. It establishes exactly what it needs to establish. It does it quickly, efficiently. You can’t look away from the screen, ‘cause if you look away from the screen you’re going to miss Shane’s point of view and how nervous he is.

Sarah: You’re going to miss the tension.

Candy: [Growls] It’s so good. Yes, the, the narrative tension that the camera establishes is integral to the storytelling of the TV show. I’m completely obsessed with it.

Sarah: Oh God.

Candy: Then they go to the cottage, they do that incredible oner where, you know, from the moment they leave the car to the moment that, you know, they make out on the couch, it’s just one long handheld panning shot. And it is so beautifully choreographed and shot. It is, it is done so well, and there, I have not seen any romance adaptation do this. Red, White & Royal Blue, the cinematography, frankly, was shit. It was so boring and flat and uninteresting and uncreative?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Candy: And this one isn’t! It’s not!

Sarah: There are, there are royals. You need to see –

Candy: Just, like, the way they follow the characters. It’s so flat! Nothing’s framed interestingly.

Sarah: [Hums] Do-doot-do-doot-do-doo. Yep. And Jacob Tierney is going to make you something that’s interesting to look at with a deep level of economy. Like, he is –

Candy: Yes!

Sarah: – so precise and economical –

Candy: Yes! Yes!

Sarah: – with the amount that he shows, but it still sustains –

Candy: Yeah!

Sarah: – the tension. And the same thing is true on other shows that he’s made.

Candy: Yeah!

Sarah: Like, this guy wri-, this guy directs hockey action shoots. Like –

Candy: Yes!

Sarah: – there are active hockey scenes in different parts –

Candy: Yeah.

Sarah: – of the other shows that they –

Candy: Yeah.

Sarah: – and, and you can – listen, I can’t follow hockey.

Candy: Same.

Sarah: I can’t even see the puck!

Candy: No, me neither! [Laughs]

Sarah: …how do you, how do you know? Like, my sister and her partner are – I mean, first of all, they’re from Pittsburgh, which is a big hockey town, and when I was growing up –

Candy: Yes, yes.

Sarah: – that was when the Penguins were the, were great. We had Mario Lemieux –

Candy: Yeah.

Sarah: – and all these other cool guys –

Candy: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Sarah: – running around. And, you know, and one of the characters that this was allegedly inspired by was…

Candy: Sid Crosby!

Sarah: – Sid Crosby. Like, I am familiar, deeply, with hockey. It’s like, it’s just sort of in the air. You can’t avoid it. I can’t follow the puck! My eyes aren’t that good. Where the fuck did it go? I don’t know; a bunch of guys went that way; a bunch of guys – where’s the puck?

Candy: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: It, it could not even be on the ice, and I would not be, no, I would have no idea! Like, I can’t – but with your filming it like that –

Candy: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – go so close, and you can –

Candy: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – follow not only the tension of the story –

Candy: Mm-hmm!

Sarah: – but the story has to happen on the ice like that?

Candy: Yeah, yeah.

Sarah: He’s so good at it.

Candy: No, he is! He –

Sarah: One of the, one of the things you said –

Candy: Yeah, his eye.

Sarah: – one of the things you said when you were talking about the rom-com adaptations, where they sort of arrive asking the audience to have already brought their feelings?

Candy: Yes! Yeah.

Sarah: That is such a good point, and it really opened something in my brain, because one of the things that’s really popular in romance right now is fanfic. We have a lot of books that are fan couples. We’ve got a bunch of ReyLos –

Candy: Yes, yeah!

Sarah: …Dramione; we’ve got –

Candy: Yeah!

Sarah: – a couple other part-, partnerships –

Candy: Yeah!

Sarah: – going on in here.

Candy: I mean, Fifty Shades was fan-, was Twilight fanfic.

Sarah: And Twilight, yes, exactly.

Candy: Yeah.

Sarah: So –

Candy: Yeah. So Fifty Shades I feel like really kicked the door down in terms of like –

Sarah: Exactly.

Candy: Yeah.

Sarah: But the thing with fanfic that makes it such a great tool for writers to figure out how to do the job of writing is that the audience is already coming in with an understanding of the characters and the tension.

Candy: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: You could take the characters –

Candy: Yeah.

Sarah: – and put them in an alternate setting, or you could –

Candy: Yeah.

Sarah: – take the setting and add characters!

Candy: Yeah!

Sarah: But the audience is coming to you with fluency.

Candy: Yes.

Sarah: They are already familiar with this property, and they –

Candy: Yeah.

Sarah: – probably already have the feelings ready to go, like, Oh, when’s going to be the tense moment where so-and-so isn’t going to admit what they, we all know that they feel? Like, that’s going to be in there somewhere.

Candy: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sarah: This, adaptations are a lot of the time asking audiences to do the same thing: bring all your feelings about this book –

Candy: Yeah.

Sarah: – but you’re going to need to supply some of the emotional energy and some of the emotional tension from your knowledge of this story –

Candy: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – because we’re not going to put it all in the adaptation.

Candy: Right.

Sarah: It’s a reflection of what you’ve already read –

Candy: Yes.

Sarah: – and so you’re expected to bring all of, you’re, you’re expected to bring all of your knowledge and all of your emotional fluency about this particular story to the story that’s being shown to you.

Candy: Right, yeah.

Sarah: And –

Candy: Yeah.

Sarah: – that is not true here.

Candy: No.

Sarah: Heated Rivalry does not expect anybody to show up with preconceived knowledge of this property.

Candy: No!

Sarah: They don’t expect anybody to be like, Oh yeah, I read all the fanfic and, you know, I’ve, I’ve met –

Candy: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – both of the guys in real life! And I’m like, No! None of that! You have –

Candy: Nope!

Sarah: – none knowledge of this.

Candy: Yeah!

Sarah: And that is so fucking awesome.

Candy: Yes, and I, I do –

Sarah: It’s such an achievement. I want to just –

Candy: It is!

Sarah: – give them awards. Like, you get this one and you get this one –

Candy: I know!

Sarah: – and hugs for all of you! Platonically – I don’t, I’m going to be respectful, but oh my God, I’m so proud. Like, I’m so proud –

Candy: I –

Sarah: – of how good this is.

Candy: I know, and I think part of the magic –

Sarah: Like I had anything to do with that!

Candy: No, no! No, but, but, but, like, the thing is that I, I feel that as long-time romance readers and lovers –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Candy: – we are so invested in this because it’s good! [Laughs]

Sarah: Yeah! It’s good!

Candy: It’s good, and I feel like part of the Yay, we did it! kind of a feeling is like We’ve been telling you it’s good for decaaades! And y’all wouldn’t listen to uuus! You know?

Sarah: I know.

You mentioned that you wanted to talk about situating Heated Rivalry in the correct context.

Candy: [Laughs] Yes.

Sarah: It’s not fanfic, Boy Love; it’s not Brokeback Mountain with a happy ending onto it. It’s not – it’s a secret fourth thing.

Candy: Yes.

Sarah: Tell me about this, ‘cause I agree with you so much.

Candy: Yeah, yeah! The secret fourth thing it is, is it’s a fucking romance novel!

Sarah: Whaat? People like romance? Are we going to – Oh, I love when that happens. It’s, we, we go through this –

Candy: No, revelation.

Sarah: There have been so many articles. One of my questions I want to ask you is like, What are the worst takes that you’ve seen? ‘Cause there have been so many!

Candy: So many, there have been so many! Like –

Sarah: And this happens when a romance property becomes pop-, popular?

Candy: I know…

Sarah: We went through the same thing when, when Bridgerton hit Netflix –

Candy: Yeah.

Sarah: – when a book takes over. It’s like –

Candy: Yeah.

Sarah: – Wow! The girlies be reading! Look at that! Let’s write about it! The women are reading. The women are reading sexy books. Wonder what that’s about. Like –

Candy: [Laughs] It’s so funny to me because, like, first of all, the – I want to, I want, I want to first of all, like, correct the record for, like, the whole Boy Love roots thing because that’s been everywhere and it’s been fucking driving me crazy? And then I’m going to talk about desire and the female gaze or whatever the fuck, you know? So, but, but first of all, the, the roots of Heated Rivalry are very solidly in American, like USA romance novel with a healthy dose of fanfic. And I’m not saying that Heated Rivalry is fanfic. I’m not saying that – yeah, anyways, what I am saying is it’s very much in the mold of an American contemporary romance novel.

Sarah: Mm-hmm!

Candy: It is –

Sarah: Yep!

Candy: It is also very much – like, the fact that it’s m/m is very much informed by slash fiction rhythms, tropes, and even sentence structures? Because, like, there’s an AO3 house style? You read enough fic, and you’re like, there’s a house style attached? Heated Rivalry has –

Sarah: …yes, oh my God! 

Candy: Heated, Heated Rivalry has the fucking AO3 house style. Rachel Reid’s later books have it less and less because she starts –

Sarah: Yep.

Candy: – you know, like, she, she matures as a writer! Like, Heated Rivalry, I think, was her second published novel.

Sarah: It’s a muscle!

Candy: And, and that’s not even to be a slam on, like, the AO3 house style fanfic, because –

Sarah: No!

Candy: – some of the best works I have ever read, full stop –

Sarah: Oh yeah.

Candy: – have been Stargate Atlantis fucking fanfic. [Laughs]

Sarah: Mm-hmm. Oh yeah. There are fanfics…

Candy: A deeply mediocre show that had fucking, like, Booker Prize-winning fucking writers!

Sarah: Yep!

Candy: [Laughs] People who deserve to win the fucking Booker Prize writing for that fucking fandom for some fucking reason.

Sarah: So because Heated Rivalry is situated in a context that we are very familiar with, but a lot of other people are not, it’s like this novelty! And, and you and I are both like, Wait, it’s not a novelty! We do this all day!

Candy: No, exactly! Like, hi, babies! [Laughs]

Sarah: Oh God! We’ve been here.

Candy: Yeah! So, so, like, so that’s, those are, like, the, the roots of Heated Rivalry. And like, it’s not Boy Love! I mean, like, look, I’m Asian! I get fucking pissed when people erase Asian influences in pop culture, like when people behave as if like Kung Fu style choreography was invented by, like, white dudes, I get fucking mad. But –

Sarah: No, it was invented by Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon; don’t be silly.

Candy: I mean –

Sarah: [Laughs] Candy’s going to reach through the screen –

Candy: Yeah, I – [laughs]

Sarah: – and punch…the nose, and we are on opposite sides of the country, and it will still – you should have seen the face that she just made!

Candy: Boy Love is its own genre! Boy Love has its own tropes and ways of structuring the story. And furthermore, there was relatively little cross-pollination until the internet made it a lot easier. So, like –

Sarah: Yep.

Candy: – yes, you could absolutely get manga and anime and all that good stuff back in the ‘70s, back in the ‘80s, but you had to really, really, really work for it. Like, it was –

Sarah: Oh yeah.

Candy: – a pretty niche interest? And it –

Sarah: Yeah.

Candy: – wasn’t until the ‘90s – I feel like the’80s kind of, like, set the stage with, like, things like Voltron and Robotech kind of, like, laying, laying the ground, Dragon Ball Z. You know –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Candy: – all of that being huge hits and, like, setting the stage. And then in the ‘90s, that’s when you start seeing, like, huge influxes of, like, high quality anime. Like, you know, things like Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo and, you know, stuff of that starting to make more of like a huge cultural impact to where, you know, even normies like me started getting into it because freaking Cartoon Network Adult Swim was showing –

Sarah: Awww!

Candy: – Cowboy Bebop, right? Like, that –

Sarah: Honestly?

Candy: – that was, like, a huge boost for the North American audience, and that’s when the cross-pollination really started happening with Western audiences!

Sarah: How much of an impact did Adult Swim have on –

Candy: Oh my God!

Sarah: – culture, on youth culture?

Candy: Oh my – for real!

Sarah: Like –

Candy: Like –

Sarah: – incredible.

Candy: – part of the culture?

Sarah: Yes!

Candy: Like Space Ghost Coast to Coast? [Laughs]

Sarah: Yes!

Candy: Right?

Sarah: Yes, exactly!

Candy: Fucking…in terms of, like, timing for, like, informing m/m traditions as they exist in America in particular, like, we already had that. We already had –

Sarah: Yes.

Candy: – Kirk/Spock. We already had a whole immense tradition of zine making and nerds, you know, having their ships and, you know, people shipping Mulder and Krycek on The X-Files. [Laughs] Although, you know, obviously Mulder/Scully was, like, the huge ship in X-Files. But, like, we had it already in America. Like, we did not need to import the m/m here. We –

Sarah: No, we already had it.

Candy: …almost convergent evolution, you know?

Sarah: And I think it’s important to be like, no, stories about men emotionally connecting and yearning and having all of the sexual –

Candy: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – and physical and emotional uncertainty? That has been popular here and abroad in ways that you don’t know and understand. This is –

Candy: Yeah, for like fifty years –

Sarah: – this has –

Candy: – or more.

Sarah: Yeah. This has been here. This isn’t new. It’s just new to you seeing it on HBO.

Candy: And that’s another thing that I want to talk about real quick: people making the shocked Pikachu face that women are so into it? Like –

Sarah: I don’t understand why the media makes this surprised face. Like, oh my goodness, women enga-, enjoying male/male romance; what’s that about? Like, where – A, where have you been? And B, why is it a big deal? But I would love to hear you talk about this; tell me everything.

Candy: So the thing that, the thing that that tells me is that these writers don’t know many lesbians who consume porn, ‘cause every lesbian I know who consumes porn consumes gay male porn. And consumes –

Sarah: Not in front of my salad, Candy!

Candy: I know, shocking, right? And, like, they – and, and, and they will absolutely read and write gay male smut? Like – and then, and that’s not even taking into account aromantic and asexual people who read and write smut of every kind.

Sarah: Oh yes.

Candy: I think, I think the default presumption is we read and write for some level of self-insertion?

Sarah: Mmm.

Candy: And I feel like the dominant view is if you’re not identifying with at least one of the characters, then the story is a non-starter, which is, if you see early romance academia, people are turning themselves inside-fucking-out on, like, Ooh, is the reader identifying with the heroine or the hero? Like, there are entire essays in Dangerous Men and Adventurous Women dedicated to that!

Sarah: Laura Kinsale wrote one, didn’t she?

Candy: Yeah!

Sarah: Didn’t Laura Kinsale write –

Candy: Yeah!

Sarah: – one about how, No, we’re identifying with the hero? Oh, fascinating.

Candy: Yeah, yeah! And, and, and, like, Janice Radway’s Romancing the Reader [Reading the Romance] also just, like, kind of like has such a hard time with this and, like, again, turns itself inside out trying to, like, explain what’s going on, especially with all the sexual violence that’s being, you know, inflicted upon the heroine. And of course this is applied very specifically to romance over and over again. You don’t see this happening with horror, because nobody’s asking Why are we reading about killer clowns? [Laughs] And we’re not, and we don’t do it with –

Sarah: Why?

Candy: We don’t. and we don’t do it with mystery, right? We don’t, we don’t look at Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers and going, Why are all these women writing about these, like, weird, eccentric, effeminate men solving mysteries like badasses, and in one case, you know, with Lord Peter Wimsey, you know, landing a hot babe like Harriet Vane. Like, why, why is that appealing? That is so weird. Are women, women just want to be detectives. Nobody in their right mind asks this fucking question because we fundamentally understand we are all engaging in a, a, a mutual delusion called reading fiction.

[Laughter]

Candy: And, and, and I want to learn things! I want to feel things that are not my own things. And this is why I read fiction. This is why I read basically anything! And, well, once it’s romance; once, like, love, like, romantic love and sexual feeling come into it; people turn their brains off, and they’re like – [funny voice] – Whyyy are women into reading m/m romance? And it’s like, honey, because it’s hot, because it’s well written, or it hits some kink that we’re into. There’s, like, so many reasons, so many reasons. And instead what we get are garbage-ass answers like, Oh, because women have been sexually assaulted. This has been quoted in multiple articles I’ve seen, like Lucy, Lucy something, Lucy Neville, I want to say? And her research on how, like, women who have been sexually assaulted make up, like, a good portion of the audience for m/m romance, cause then they don’t have to engage with the female body as it goes through the motions of sex or whatever. And I’m just…

Sarah: I did not know the title. Okay, Candy, I just looked this up. The title of Lucy Neville’s paper from Middlesex University: Male gays in the female gaze: Women who watch male/male pornography.

Candy: I –

Sarah: Draws on wide scale mixed methods to examine the mo-, motivations behind women who watch gay male pornography. I’m sorry, whoever came up with Male gays in the female gaze, I want to give you a cookie, ‘cause that’s really good. I also want you to know that when –

Candy: [Laughs] No, that’s a –

Sarah: – when I googled –

Candy: – that’s a very clever title.

Sarah: And when I googled Dangerous Men and Adventurous Women, ‘cause I wanted to know when it was written, it was written and published in 1992. So, like, way back at the very tail end of Bodice Ripper Land –

Candy: Yes, mm-hmm, yep.

Sarah: – in the romance timeline.

Candy: Yeah.

Sarah: Also, Dangerous Men and Adventurous Women by Jayne Ann Krentz: people also searched for this book; it’s called Beyond Heaving Bosoms.

[Laughter]

Sarah: Go us! Go us! Thank you, Google; you have made my day.

Candy: Anyways –

Sarah: But yes, I, I don’t, I don’t understand why people need to figure out – especially when the media is writing about a phenomenon like this?

Candy: Yeah.

Sarah: I’m baffled by why they need to figure out why it’s popular –

Candy: Yeah.

Sarah: – by examining the motivations of the consumer. Like, what are you getting out of this?

Candy: Yeah.

Sarah: And there’s almost, because it’s romance and sex, there’s this, like –

Candy: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – prurient angle.

Candy: Mm-hmm!

Sarah: Like, Oh –

Candy: Yep.

Sarah: – you must like the kinky stuff. And you and I started the whole fucking site because –

Candy: Yeah!

Sarah: – we would tell people we like romance, and they would, as you said –

Candy: Yeah.

Sarah: – revise downward their estimations of our intelligence because we read it.

Candy: Yeah!

Sarah: And so, I mean, you and I have both spent like, what, twenty-odd years defending romance and explaining, no, it’s great. And here we are again with the same set of articles, like, women like this sexy stuff! Why do men, why do women and straight men like to watch this? And I’m like, because – for many, many reasons, culturally, this is not a surprise. Most of them are under patriarchy. Sorry, that’s why!

Candy: Yeah, yeah, yeah! No –

Sarah: But also –

Candy: – patriarchy: hell of a drug!

Sarah: It’s real-, it’s, it’s just fucking everywhere, and we can’t fucking escape it. It’s really, really annoying.

Candy: We can’t, and, but, yeah.

Sarah: But have you seen this many articles about why do men like X?

Candy: No! For real, right?

Sarah: We don’t do this when it’s popular with dudes. No one’s like, Wow –

Candy: No.

Sarah: – why do you think Marvel is popular? I mean, you can ask that question, and I’m sure it’s a very interesting analysis in the hand of someone –

Candy: I think that would be a much more interesting question, frankly.

Sarah: I mean, honestly, really good media analysis of why the –

Candy: Yeah!

Sarah: – Marvel omniverse is –

Candy: Yeah.

Sarah: – so popular?

Candy: Yeah! 

Sarah: I mean, I would love to read that paper.

Candy: Yeah, yeah.

Sarah: That would be great.

Candy: Absolutely.

Sarah: It, it, it’s not like, you know, the Guardian or Hello or –

Candy: Yeah.

Sarah: – you know, a random newspaper is, like, going to assign a writer to Why do men like X?

Candy: Yeah.

Sarah: It’s weird.

Candy: No. No. How weird, huh? So, so strange, and it’s only been, like, like when a non- – God, what’s the term for it? Like a, a non-normative body or whatever, when, like, that’s only, that’s only the time we’re interested in, like, asking these questions. But also, what –

Sarah: Wait, are we circumventing heteronormativity? Why are we doing that? God, I can’t imagine why. It’s very weird.

Candy: And then another thing I want to bring up, too, another thing that –

Sarah: Please!

Candy: – drives me fucking crazy about all this discourse is, like, it often erases or elides, like, the existence of queer women, lesbians, queer non-women, and, like, so many –

Sarah: Nonbinary –

Candy: – people.

Sarah: – asexual, demisexual – like –

Candy: Yes!

Sarah: – people have different forms of sexuality and identity. Yeah.

Candy: Yeah, and I, and I, everything acro-, we can think of across the gender spectrum, agender people, whatever, you know? Like –

Sarah: But Candy, what about the straights? Won’t someone think of the straight people? I don’t understand.

Candy: …all I have to think about all day. I’m so tired of it.

[Laughter]

Candy: Can I please forget about the straights for two seconds? But, like –

Sarah: Yes.

Candy: – yeah, but it, but it’s like, it’s so – ‘cause, like, a lot of people, when they say women, I’m like –

Sarah: Which are you talking about? Which, which ones?

Candy: Yeah! Because, like, first of all –

Sarah: I need some adjectives. Need some adjectives.

Candy: Yeah. And, and, like, first of all, a part of me feels like, you know, doing the Wikipedia Citation needed – [laughs] – square brackets? And also, like, you know, I remember seeing this chart of, like, the gender breakdowns for readers and writers on AO3, and, you know, like, from, like, when the site first started or shortly after it started, and then another gender survey several years later, and, you know, when it first started, like, overwhelming majority were, like, cis, straight women writing and reading, you know, fics. And then, lo and behold, several years later, the gender makeup changes pretty drastically. It’s still majority straight women, but –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Candy: – it’s shifted significantly towards queer women and queer non-women of every gender. And I don’t think that the demographics – I mean, obviously AO3 expanded, changed, whatever. But I’m just saying that there was, like, some people found out a bunch of stuff about themselves while they were reading and writing a bunch of queer shit and all of a sudden were going, Fuck, wait a minute; I have options. Because, you know, guess what? Like, that happened to me in my thirties. Like, all of a sudden I was like, You know what? I’ve been in this box for like decades, and I never ever expected that I could have an option that’s not this box, and then all of a sudden I was like, Wait, you mean I can just, like, I could just opt out? Okay, I would love to opt out! [Laughs]

Sarah: Oh yeah.

Candy: Sign me up for opting out! You know, like, so, like, that happens over and over, and that happens because we get models and experiences, among them fictional models and fictional experiences that show us what’s fucking possible!

Sarah: Mm-hmm, yup!

Candy: And, like, the fact that there, there’s just this, this presumption that it’s all, like, straight women doing this, that’s really not true. Like, show me your fucking numbers, please. I mean, if nothing else, like, take a look at the, you know, latest, like, gender breakdown surveys from, like, AO3 or whatever. And you’ll see that, yeah, still, fine, still majority women, cis women, most of them straight, but, like, like, it’s, it’s, it has shifted radically as time has gone on, you know. Anyways.

Sarah: I just, I just love how the answer to the Why do all these people like this show? Is, well, it subverts patriarchy and hetero-, heteronormativity, and that’s real fucking hot right now. That’s one –

Candy: Yeah, no! It’s hot!

Sarah: Right? Like –

Candy: And, and also it’s well done!

Sarah: – it’s really hot! Yeah.

Candy: It’s well shot. It’s well acted. It’s well directed.

Sarah: Beautiful.

Candy: It’s well written. The tension is not manufactured. The tension is real. You don’t have people sulking for incredibly trivial reasons. You have people sulking because they are Russian and have to grapple with, you know, the, like, implications of fucking coming out while still being a Russian national. Or they are gay and are grappling with the fact that they are gay and in the NHL, you know. That! You know? [Laughs]

Sarah: The part with the NHL kills me. It’s like, you will not let people wear pride jerseys even to fucking practice – not even for a game, fucking practice. You were going to cut down on the pride jerseys, and now you got people coming out of the woodwork to come see your sport –

Candy: Yeah. Fuck you guys.

Sarah: – all because of the show –

Candy: Yeah.

Sarah: – about two men.

Candy: Yeah.

Sarah: A bunch of whole, there’s a whole bunch of couples; it’s four of them, four men –

Candy: Yeah!

Sarah: – falling in love with each other on the ice.

Candy: No.

Sarah: You, you, yeah, okay –

Candy: No, yeah, no.

Sarah: – great.

Candy: I know.

Sarah: What is your wish for the second season of Heated Rivalry? We’re going to get –

Candy: God!

Sarah: – we’re going to get another season. What are you wishing for?

Candy: I –

Sarah: And do you trust, do you trust Jacob Tierney to deliver a good second season?

Candy: I, I, I genuine-, I trust Jacob Tierney with my life right now?

[Laughter]

Candy: I just do.

Sarah: Fair!

Candy: [Laughs] Jacob Tierney, run everything in my life for me. It’s fine. This is a normal thing to want. He, I trust him to pace the, the show well, ‘cause he has a fantastic sense of timing and pacing. ‘Cause I haven’t read The Long Game. I, to be honest, have no interest in reading The Long Game, ‘cause I have beloved friends who are huge Heated Rivalry fans who read The Long Game and went, Well, you know? – [laughs] – and that, that, Well? it made me go, Okay, I, so what I want is I want you to monologue at me about The Long Game. And then I want to –

Sarah: Yeah, just, just give me the highlights. I’ll read a synopsis?

Candy: Yes.

Sarah: It’s like, it’s like when you write a review and you’re, and you’re going to give it a C?

Candy: Yeah!

Sarah: It’s like, yeah, those were some words in an order. That happened.

Candy: Yeah! Yeah!

Sarah: Okay. Hmm!

Candy: And I mean, like, you know, no shade to anyone who loves it. Like, for anyone who loves it, like, fuck yeah! Fucking go ahead and love it. Like, I love that for you. But I know me, and the people I know whose tastes I trust are, are like – [distressed noise]. So I trust Jacob Tierney to take the pacing that’s in the book and make the pacing work for a TV show, ‘cause he did that for, for Heated Rivalry. Heated Rivalry –

Sarah: Yes, he did.

Candy: Heated Rivalry, I thought, was, like, a really solid book to begin with? I thought it was going to be impossible to adapt because it’s sex scenes and internal narration and sex scenes and internal narration. And he did it! He fucking did it!

Sarah: …and a really, really wide timeline. This isn’t…

Candy: Yes! Long timeline.

Sarah: We’re not falling in love over a summer, or it’s like a year.

Candy: Yeah –

Sarah: This is –

Candy: – no.

Sarah: – almost a decade of time…

Candy: Yes!

Sarah: – to pass.

Candy: Yes.

Sarah: I love how they solved that problem by giving poor Hudson bangs? Those were bad bangs, y’all. Those –

Candy: Those bangs! His hair is –

Sarah: His youth…

Candy: – plausibly bad. Let’s just put it that way.

Sarah: His youth –

Candy: He has hockey hair.

Sarah: His youth bangs are unfortunate? But I understand why he had the youth bangs. I mean, we all had youth bangs.

Candy: Yeah, no, I know. 

Sarah: Right? But those were some bad youth bangs.

Candy: It’s so, it’s so relatable. His hair is so awful, and he gets so much hotter as they – like, and, and actually, like, like, Ilya, he does change a little bit, but like, the Shane transformation from young to – like, someone posted a little timeline of, like, Shane through all his different phases, and he looks so different. And I noticed it too when I did, I did like a full, like, binge watch-through? And, like, the difference between Shane in episode one? Like –

Sarah: Mm!

Candy: – just the face shape. I don’t know whether they gave him, like, little, like, cheek pads or fillers, but his face is, like, noticeably rounder when he’s…

Sarah: He ate like –

Candy: – you know?

Sarah: – five margaritas, a plate of salt. They just made him bloat.

Candy: [Laughs] Yeah, they, like, just gave him the bloat, you know? But, like, his face just looks, like, rounder when he is –

Sarah: Yeah, it does.

Candy: – just a teen, and then by the time he is in the last episode he looks like a grown man; he no longer looks like a teen. But Ilya, Ilya looks mostly like Ilya all the way through. Which is actually, like, honestly, kind of keeps with the books, too, ‘cause in the book, you know, Shane’s like, Fuck, I still look, I still have this fucking baby face that I can’t shake, and Ilya already looks like a fucking grown-ass man? And, like, and, and that’s so real, ‘cause different people hit puberty at different stages, and I like that the show, you know, it’s just like, yeah, Ilya gets to look mostly like Ilya, and Shane gets to transform.

So I just, just little things like that. I trust Tierney to do it. I just, I trust Tierney to treat the characters with care. I –

Sarah: Mm-hmm. We already know he respects the story, the characters, and the world.

Candy: Yes!

Sarah: And –

Candy: He loves it! He loves it!

Sarah: He is –

Candy: That’s so important.

Sarah: – respecting what he’s doing –

Candy: Yeah.

Sarah: – which is great.

Candy: He, he’s…

Sarah: So I have a question.

Candy: Yeahyeahyeahyeah!

Sarah: So if a media person came to you and said, Okay, so why is this so popular? Why are so many people in love with this? Why did women start loving it and then it went out beyond that? Why is this so popular? What is your, what is your answer?

Candy: My answer is that it’s just, it’s a really well-made show.

Sarah: Yeah, it’s a good show!

Candy: With fantastic acting, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And –

Sarah: You ask why people like Mad Men? No? Okay. [Laughs]

Candy: No, exactly! Exactly. Like, it’s –

Sarah: Why do people like The Sopranos? Nobody asked that question.

Candy: No! It’s well made. It’s well made, it’s well acted, and it gives us this incredible tension that it manages to sustain throughout! Like, from the first episode, the ending of each episode had a moment of tension that drew you onward. Like, you know, episode one, we end with, you know, the angry kiss at the roof, at the rooftop of the Vegas hotel, and Ilya going, Hollander, with this longing in his voice. And then episode two, we end with We never even kissed, from Shane. So, know, flipping it, right? Episode three, we have Scott standing outside Kip’s birthday alone, pondering his life choices. Episode four, we have the two of them mutually realizing they fucked something up. Like, things are not correct here, right? So like episode one, you know, Ilya is kind of, like, the one who’s kind of longing, right? Episode two, Shane’s the one who wants something more. Episode three, different couple wanting more. Episode four, both of them wanting more. Episode five, both of them also wanting more, but with the hope of catharsis just over the horizon. And then episode six, we see them riding off into the sunset together in this glorious…

Sarah: …golden light and Canada –

Candy: Yeah! Yeah!

Sarah: – being pretty. I mean, I need Canada to just calm down a little bit.

Candy: [Laughs] I know, right?

Sarah: Canada, I, listen, I know you are aware how shitty it is here, but you’re not helping.

Candy: No, I know, right?

Sarah: You’re not helping, Canada. [Laughs] I need you to just dial back the awesome for a few minutes so I can breathe!

Candy: No! But, but, I mean, but you, you see, like, how clever that is, the structure of it, like, you know, flipping like person to person, and then doing couple, but with, like, a certain type of devastating angsty tension, and then the couple again, but with hope as the tension this time, instead of dread or loss. Again, going, going back to the cinematography, the, the ending sequences for episodes four and five –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Candy: – are two of the best sequences I have seen in any TV show! And because they are so masterfully shot and they, they – he externalizes the internal using camera angles and fantastic actors.

Sarah: Were there articles – you know what? I’m going to google. Why do people like Mad Men so much?

Candy: [Laughs] Why? Why do people like Game of Thrones so much? Why?

Sarah: It’s a question on Reddit and Quora. Like, Business Insider said in 19-, 2017, “Mad Men is the Best Television Show Ever and Here’s Why.” But that’s not about why people are watching it. The people who are asking why is Mad Men so popular? Why do people like it? is on Quora and Reddit. The mainstream media was not interested in this conversation.

Candy: No!

Sarah: Why do people like –

Candy: Of course not!

Sarah: – The Sopranos?

Candy: No! Or The Wire. You know, that’s another one where, like, everyone’s just like, Oh yeah, of course, you know, if you have a modicum of taste, you love The Wire. Which, for the record, I do love The Wire. But nobody asks people, Why do you love The Wire? This –

Sarah: Okay, again, I googled Why do people like The Wire? All right, Reddit and Quora. And then there’s, like, the BBC, Why The Wire is the greatest TV series of the 21st century.

Candy: [Laughs]

Sarah: That’s not the same question.

Candy: No.

Sarah: Judging its quality and saying, Here’s why it’s the best –

Candy: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – that’s not what we’re asking here. Why do people like it? And –

Candy: Yes, yeah.

Sarah: – this is not, clearly it is not a mainstream media question.

Candy: You know –

Sarah: Is there any other show, like – something interesting: I googled, do people like Game of Thrones? (RIP, my search history here.)

Candy: [Laughs]

Sarah: There are…articles about this. Forbes, why we’re so hooked on Game of Thrones. Why is Game of Thrones so popular?

Candy: It’s – yeah. Yeah. No, because it’s fantasy, right?

Sarah: It’s fantasy, and that’s not, like, we don’t –

Candy: Yeah.

Sarah: – we don’t usually focus that hard on fantasy.

Candy: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: The Sydney Morning Herald – hi, Australia – “The five psychological reasons why Game of Thrones is so popular.” This caught attention ‘cause it’s fantasy –

Candy: Yes, yeah.

Sarah: – and it’s a massive ensemble cast. So people were like, Oh wow, that’s different. But nobody asked this about The Wire, The Sopranos, Mad Men, which was a historical drama –

Candy: Yes, yes, absolutely! But you know, I mean, you know what’s funny though? Nobody, nobody asked pointed questions based on gender or sexuality or even, like, nerd alignment necessarily about Game of Thrones. Why are women so into Game of Thrones? You know, like, stupid shit like that. Like –

Sarah: Mm-hmm. Nobody asked that. Well, men liked it, so it doesn’t matter who else likes it. The men, the men approve, so it’s good. Meanwhile, why do people like Bridgerton? The articles…pages and pages and pages and pages.

Candy: Please, please, I cannot do –

Sarah: Here’s why period dramas are having a moment. Like, okay.

Candy: …fuck’s sake.

Sarah: The gender element is so important, I think, to examine when you get asked these questions? And I –

Candy: Yeah.

Sarah: – and I don’t like to be an asshole to people who ask them because – I mean, some people are just like, Why is this so popular? I’m like, Oh, I would love to tell you. And sometimes it’s like, Oh! Well, why is this the thing? I’m not into it, so what value does it have? That condescending Why is this valued? question really churns my butter because it’s like, that’s almost always tied to gender and sexuality –

Candy: Yeah.

Sarah: – and queerness, and it’s like, No! Nonononono!

Candy: Yeah.

Sarah: People like many, many things, and it’s okay!

Candy: Yeah! Turns out, yeah.

Sarah: It’s, there’s a reason why Railed by the Krampus was a –

Candy: [Laughs]

Sarah: Do you – I think – C. M. Nascosta said on the record that Morning Glory Milking Farm helped her pay off her mortgage.  She wrote a –

Candy: Fuck yes!

Sarah: – she wrote a story –

Candy: Yes!

Sarah: – about a –

Candy: Yes!

Sarah: – centaur jerk-off fertility clinic.

Candy: No, minotaur, minotaur!

Sarah: I’m sorry, I beg your pardon.

Candy: Minotaur! Very… [Laughs]

Sarah: Thank you. Very important distinction. I apologize –

Candy: Yes.

Sarah: – to everyone who was listening –

Candy: Yeah.

Sarah: – and just screamed out loud. I apologize. My bad.

Candy: [Laughs]

Sarah: It’s the end of the day; my brain is starting to shut down. But like, she paid off her mortgage writing Morning Glory Milking Farm! Like, what, what –

Candy: Absolutely love it, yes.

Sarah: – why, why do we need to keep asking this question? Just, just –

Candy: No!

Sarah: – just stop it!

Candy: Yeah!

Sarah: Not that I’m bitter or anything, because, honestly, we’re going to stay in business because people ask this question, and that’s –

Candy: Yeah.

Sarah: – also fine?

Candy: Yeah.

Sarah: But, like, we don’t ask this question about stuff that dudes like. So just everybody calm down.

So I always ask, are there any books you want to tell people about before we go?

Candy: So after I was done with Heated Rivalry, the show, I was just like, I need, like, heightened drama hockey gays? So I picked up Game Misconduct by Ari Baran, Baran? I’m probably fucking up their last name pronunciation. It’s B-A-R-A-N. And, y’all, it is so fucking good. [Laughs] I hesitated for a while because it has themes of, like, addiction and I have some history of dating people with addiction that has kind of left me really like, I don’t want to read about this in fiction, really. So it took me a while to want to pick it up, but I picked it up, and I’m so glad I did. It is so well written. The, there’s a lot more hockey in this in, like, the good way, because it just talks about hockey in a way that’s like, it’s very clearly a passion for these two guys –

Sarah: Yeah.

Candy: – that, like, they’re willing to break their bodies. They’re willing to destroy their lives for hockey in this, like, really fucked-up, delicious, obsessive way? They’re so, they’re so into hockey, and they’re so into hitting each other? I mean –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Candy: No! It is so hot. It is so fucking hot. And, like, in, in, like, in a way that, like, Heated Rivalry tries to make Shane and Ilya mad at each other, but I, the – one of the weakest parts of the book, I thought. And again, I want to stress that I do enjoy the books a lot. I’ve read Heated Rivalry three times. But the anger that Shane expresses, especially in the beginning of the book, just doesn’t feel correct or organic to him? And I’m glad that in the show, Tierney and Hudson Williams played it differently?

Sarah: Yes, they very –

Candy: They just, the rivalry feels like, like, something more, like, manufactured by the media –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Candy: – to keep the boys in competition ‘cause they’re so fun to watch as they clash, right?

Sarah: The rivalry – yes.

Candy: It’s a rivalry and not an enmity, right?

Sarah: Yes, it’s a rivalry without enmity and malice, but it’s also –

Candy: yeah.

Sarah: – a rivalry that, that is profitable.

Candy: Yes, exactly!

Sarah: The only reason rivalry is a narrative is because it’s profitable for the team, the, the merch, the media.

Candy: Yes, yes. Yeah!

Sarah: That’s, that is, you know, monetizable. The rivalry –

Candy: Yes.

Sarah: – is –

Candy: Yes.

Sarah: – lucrative. And so –

Candy: Yes…

Sarah: – they have this…

Candy: Yeah.

Sarah: Yep!

Candy: But so, so, so that part never felt really real to me, even in the book, and I’m glad that the show kind of dispensed with that? But the anger between Danny Garcia and Mike Sato, that feels really real in Game Misconduct. Like, you buy into how fucking mad they are.
And it’s so good. So if you love Heated Rivalry, fucking read Game Misconduct. It is so good. Oh my God. I, I’m, I’m waiting in line for, like, the next books to come in, so I’m just going to, like –

Sarah: …so happy –

Candy: – binge them. Put them into my face! And I’ve been reading a bunch of –

Sarah: Unhinge your jaw and just…

Candy: Yeah, ahhh!

[Laughter]

Sarah: – swallow them whole like a, like a snake.

Candy: Yeah! Exactly.

Sarah: Where can people find you if you wish to be found? If you don’t wish to be found, that’s okay.

Candy: No, I can be found on Bluesky, @beautifulduckweed, and I can also be found on Tumblr at beautifulduckweed, and occasionally writing at Smart Bitches!

[outro]

Sarah: And that brings us to the end of this week’s episode. This was a beefy one! We had a lot to say!

And if you have things you would like to say, come find us on smartbitchestrashybooks.com/podcast under episode 702.

I will have links to everything that we mentioned and, of course, links to the articles we discussed as well.

And speaking of links, if you like to listen to your favorite podcast, this episode will be available in video on the day of release for Patreon subscribers, and on Sunday after release for everybody. Can head over to our YouTube channel; I will have a link in the show notes. And I would deeply appreciate it if you subscribe, because I had to restart it from scratch because, well, for some reason YouTube deplatformed me, and I have a limited time in my life, and figuring out why an algorithm doesn’t like me all of a sudden is really just not even in the top fifteen things I need to do. So I restarted it. If you would subscribe, I would be deeply grateful! Thank you!

As always, I end with a terrible joke. This joke is for all of the Australian listeners – I can hear you groaning – and this is from TheDoctorisInane on Reddit.

Did you hear about the baker in Australia who invented an exploding pie?

Yes! Baker in Australia who invented an exploding pie?

He’s calling it a boom  meringue.

[Laughs] Boom meringue! Boomerang! It’s so bad! I am pretty certain that I am going to hear groaning from the other side of the planet; that’s how bad that is. You’re welcome, Australia!

On behalf of everyone here, we wish you the very best of reading. Have a wonderful weekend, and we’ll see you back here next week! And in the words of my favorite retired podcast Friendshipping, thank you for listening; you’re welcome for talking!

[end of music]