Bars around the city are welcoming Shane and Ilya fans for communal sing- and cry-alongs.
Photo-Illustration: Vulture; Photos Getty Images, HBO
In the three hours I spent at a Heated Rivalry marathon at a lesbian bar in Bushwick, the room went quiet only once. “Remember what I said about the monologue!” emcee Mary Michael shouted into the microphone as professional hockey player Ilya Rozanov (Connor Storrie) started to confess his affection to his Canadian rival and paramour, Shane Hollander (Hudson Williams). “I have no one now,” Connor says in Russian over the phone; Shane can’t understand but listens regardless. “Well, not no one. I have Svetlana. She loves me and I love her, but not like … not like I love you,” Ilya says. Inside Boyfriend Co-op, hands covered mouths and a few patrons looked up at the ceiling, either wishing away or summoning tears.
Though the evening was advertised as a lesbian-forward event (“Sapphics love a slow burn,” the announcement read), there were a handful of gay men in the crowd, including one in a custom T-shirt decorated with the full English translation of Ilya’s monologue on the back. Viewers stopped him when the episode finished, quietly reading through the text stretched across his shoulders, even though they were likely already familiar with the speech in question. They’d watched the show as it aired throughout December and rewatched it in the nothing week between Christmas and New Year’s Eve. Three viewings seemed to be the magic number for most attendees, though one woman told me she watched every scene and fancam that popped up on her TikTok feed, “so maybe it’s more, when you count all those.”
Since Heated Rivalry’s premiere on HBO Max over Thanksgiving weekend, the Canadian series about hockey stars who evolve from passive-aggressive rivals to steamy secret hookup and full-blown romance has dominated cultural conversations online and off. Boyfriend’s watch party was the latest in a string of events popping up around New York City; bars hosted watch parties when the finale aired the day after Christmas, and upcoming gatherings include a Tompkins Square Park meetup next Saturday and several dance parties at venues around the city later this month.
I arrived at Boyfriend a little after 10 p.m. on Saturday night to a line of about a dozen people outside of the bar, but neither the line nor the rain deterred would-be viewers, who occasionally drifted over to the bar’s fogged-up windows to watch the latest developments onscreen. As I stood on line, periodic screams from inside rolled through the glass like the wave at a baseball game. A group of disinterested friends passed by. “That show is still airing?” one asked after peeking in.
The bouncer has only been working at Boyfriend for a month, and though this wasn’t the most crowded he’d seen the space, this event was definitely up there. “My whole rugby team is inside there,” a soon-to-be patron named Gray added as they hopped on line. This would be their third rewatch, though not necessarily complete — they’d been cherry-picking the best scenes, mostly of the core duo and not parallel hunks Scott Hunter (François Arnaud) and his barista beau, Kip Grady (Robbie Graham-Kuntz), whose relationship inspires Shane and Ilya to take theirs to the next level. When I confessed to another patron that Scott and Kip’s arc mostly bored me, they shrugged. “Their sex scenes are hotter, though.”
I finally made it into the bar as the fourth episode was winding down, patrons scream-singing “All The Things She Said” by t.A.T.u. as it played in the club onscreen. Though a projector was set up in the far corner of the bar, several groups watched on phones synced up to the big screen. I lingered at one of these tables for a while, watching as some viewers mouthed along with the dialogue onscreen. Every needle drop became a sing-along, the fervor reaching peaks similar to “Mr. Brightside” playing at a millennial wedding. Patrons gathered in little pods around tables and couches, half-pizzas and White Castle boxes strewn about, as they mouthed Shane and Ilya’s dialogue. “They’re just cute,” one attendee said when I asked why these hunky boys appeal to lesbians specifically. She cited the combination of no-holds-barred sex scenes with a slow-burn love story (a glance there, a smile here) as key to the series’ appeal. “I don’t get bored watching these boys discover who they want,” another patron told me. Or as one person commented on the event announcement, “Omg it’s like gathering at a bar to watch sports but instead we’re watching gay people in love (who sometimes play sport).”
Just about every character onscreen (minus Ilya’s nasty brother) elicited a “My Shayla!” cry from someone in the Boyfriend audience. At one point, a passerby knocked a drink onto a viewer who didn’t even turn away from the screen as the spiller apologized. The audience screamed and cried and occasionally made out during the sex scenes. “If you haven’t watched, get over here,” shouted the leader of a smaller table who propped her phone on a box of cigarettes. Taller viewers ushered shorter patrons to the front of the room so they could see the screen in all its glory.
As for those first-time viewers who showed up to see what all the fuss was about, one noted the main duo “kind of talk too much” but clutched their heart all the same during Ilya’s monologue. Another first-timer named Emma told me they’d only seen half the first episode a few days before the watch party. “I don’t have HBO or anything, but my friends have been texting me nonstop,” they explained. Were they able to absorb and process the show with this lively of a group? “I feel like I’m getting it,” they said, gesturing to the crowd, “and I feel like I might need to watch it on my own after.”
The final moments of the penultimate episode “I’ll Believe in Anything” and Ilya’s triumphant “I’m coming to the cottage” line hit at exactly 11:59 p.m. The crowd erupted in cheers, more than had been granted to any sex scene or smile or confession of horniness to that point. The crowd started kissing and hugging and crying — New Year’s Eve who? — and when the credits rolled, a wave of people left the bar, either tired or burned out or perhaps having seen all they needed to see. Out in front, couples split cigarettes and groups of friends recapped the night as if they watched something they’d never seen before. “It’s really all about the monologue,” one person in a Hollander shirt said to their group. Passersby continued to gawk and gape as screams for the finale continued inside. “Maybe I should rewatch,” one girl mused before drifting off into the night.
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