Heartstopper season 2 trailer brings teen drama, queer kisses – and a surprise love bite
Netflix has finally dropped the official, full-length trailer for the second season of Heartstopper.
In just two-and-a-half minutes, the new trailer manages to give fans some heavy hints about the how the love lives our favourite students will play out this time around.
The clip begins with an adorable moment that fans have already seen, with tender-hearted Nick Nelson (Kit Connor) clasping his hands around the eyes of boyfriend, Charlie Spring (Joe Locke). The clip was part of the season’s two-minute preview, which Netflix revealed last month.
While reviewers have assured fans that the series is still the same joyous queer love story – no ruinous dramas, no raucous love-making – it’s clear that season two is a little bit more mature, as the show’s creator Alice Oseman had promised.
In the first 20 seconds, we see Nick and Charlie go in for no less than three big kisses, with one even appearing to be up against a bedroom wall. If it sounds like a sickly sweet Taylor Swift song, that’s because Heartstopper is basically a sickly sweet Taylor Swift song, in all the best ways.
In total, there are five Charlie and Nick kisses – six if you include the hickey on Charlie’s neck.
The biggest plot tease the trailer provides is around Nick’s struggle with coming out. In one scene, he sorrowfully tells Charlie: “I want to tell people. It’s hard to find the right time.” In another, he messages: “Why is being out so complicated?”
It’s a sensible next step for the queer teen drama. As every member of the LGBTQ+ community knows, once you’ve overcome your own realisations about your sexuality, you’ve then got to work out how to share it with others.
Things get ever more complex for our the rugby lad when Charlie’s horrid ex-boyfriend Ben (Sebastian Croft) goads him with the spiteful question: “Does Charlie know you don’t want to come out?”
Proving himself once again to be the world’s most compassionate kid, Charlie tells Nick: “I want you to come out when and how you want to.”
Elsewhere, the trailer makes it clear that season two is going to let the Heartstopper supporting characters do a lot more of the heavy lifting this time around.
While Tao Xu (William Gao) is very much his usual grouchy self, there’s also the possibility that he and bestie Elle Argent (Yasmin Finney) could be more than friends.
As she compliments and touches his hair, the animated sparks fly – yep, the little animations are back and cuter than ever. In another scene, they lean in for a kiss, and it’s very much a will-they-won’t-they moment.
Meanwhile, Tara (Corinna Brown) and Darcy (Kizzy Edgell) are testing their relationship’s strength, with Tara telling Darcy she loves her. There’s trouble in teen paradise though, when Darcy doesn’t appear to want to say it back. Awkward.
Then there’s the end of the school trip to Paris, the intensely anticipated nucleus of Heartstopper’s second season. In potentially the most heart-warming moment of the entire trailer, Nick and Charlie spot a gay couple in Paris holding hands and decide to do the same. This is queer TV at its most wholesome, and its most vital.
There’s a lot of love in the air, but a lot of humour too: the short trailer is arguably funnier than the whole of season one.
Tao’s gob-smacked reaction to Charlie having a hickey is the trailer’s second funniest moment.
So, what’s the funniest? It has to be when Darcy walks in on Charlie and Nick kissing and exclaims: “Charlie, you’re being gay. Good job. Carry on.”
Heartstopper season two drops on Netflix on 3 August.