The second season of Hearstopper is just around the corner!
Netflix’s gay teen romance is returning next week with a brand new season that will focus on Nick (Kit Connor) and Charlie (Joe Locke) as they navigate their new relationship and Nick struggles to come out to everyone.
But despite Locke’s character Charlie having meaty plotlines in season two, he said in an interview with TV Insider — which was conducted before the start of the SAG-AFTRA strike — that his favorite storyline of the season is between Tao (William Gao) and Elle (Yasmin Finney).
“I think it’s really gorgeously played out, because I think there’s this idea sometimes of Heartstopper that it just simplifies what teenage relationships are,” Locke told the outlet. “With the Tao and Elle story, there’s a lot of chewing and fraying. Will they, won’t they, but in a different way to what’s Nick and Charlie’s relationship, which I think is great. This Heartstopper is all about showing different types of relationships.”
Courtesy of Netflix
The synopsis for the upcoming season reads, “Nick and Charlie navigate their new relationship. Tara and Darcy face unforeseen challenges, and Tao and Elle work out if they can ever be more than just friends. With exams on the horizon, a school trip to Paris and a prom to plan, the gang has a lot to juggle as they journey through the next stages of life, love, and friendship.”
The 19-year-old actor also alluded to the potential for drama to crop up in his character’s relationship with Nick in the new season. When asked about a scene in the first season where Charlie tells his sister that he wants everything to be perfect with Nick, Locke admitted that may be wishful thinking.
“That’s a classic line of foreshadowing for the audience rather than anything else,” he explained. “Also, I don’t think Charlie really believes that. He wants to be an optimist at heart, even though I’m not sure he necessarily is.”
Courtesy of Netflix
While Locke says the show is never going to be explicit, it does “mature” as the new season goes along, but it sounds like we still have a lot of young love to look forward to. “They try but they have this infatuation for sure that they can’t deny,” he said. “I think in the early episodes they get caught a few times.”
As for how season two ends, Locke wouldn’t give anything away, but did admit that while it was the “hardest scene to do as an actor” it ended up being his favorite scene of the entire season.
“Without giving too much away, it’s just a very emotionally raw scene and it’s also the most grownup scene in the show,” he said. “It shows the real maturity of Nick and Charlie as characters. I’m very excited for people to see it, but also it was hard and really tested the craft.”
Season two of Heartstopper premieres on Netflix on August 3.
