‘Tis the Season to Yearn: Heated Rivalry Episodes 3 & 4 Recap

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Welcome back to hockey season updates for the girls and the gays!

Episode 2 of HBO Max’s steamy hockey romance show Heated Rivalry left us on the most heart-wrenching cliff hanger. Shane, alone, staring at his phone as he slowly deletes a text that Ilya will never see: we didn’t even kiss.

Things are starting to get juicy, and rather complicated, for hockey rivals Shane Hollander (Hudson Williams) and Ilya Rosanov (Connor Storrie) as they struggle to deal with their undeniable attraction for each other over the years of playing in a hockey league that is desperate to pit them against each other. Episodes 1 and 2 span the years of 2008 to 2014, wherein the two hockey rivals give into their attraction while wrestling with feelings of jealousy, shame, and intense familial pressure. And if that wasn’t enough, the NFL has yet to have an openly gay player, forcing them to hide their relationship behind closed doors in the brief, scattered moments they have together throughout the years.

(Find my full recap for Episodes 1 & 2 here.)

While the first two episodes are full of plenty of playful and swoon-worthy scenes, the beginning of the show does an excellent job showcasing how complicated their situation is and all the ways in which their unwillingness to admit the intensity of their feelings to each other will eventually blow up in their faces.

If only they would just admit how down bad they are for each other. But where would the fun in that be?

Now, onto the next two episodes!

Episode 3: Hunter

Episode 3 starts back in February 2014 during the Winter Olympics in Sochi. The same scene as before plays, Scott and another one of the Team USA players finding Shane in a cafe, discussing seeing the men’s short form figuring skating program. But as they talk about how brave it is to be openly gay in a place like this, the camera focuses on Scott, who suddenly looks just as nervous as Shane.

We jump another four months back to Scott running through the streets of New York, listening to hockey critics discuss his poor performance over the course of the current season. Ripping his headphones out, he looks up and, seeing he’s in front of a smoothie place, he decides to go inside. Here he meets Kip, the charming barista. After recommending him a decent smoothie with a deeply stupid name (and a camera focus on Kip’s hands skillfully peeling a banana), Scott leaves Kip with a gracious tip and a coy smile.

A passing customer recognizes him as Scott Hunter, leaving the two employees of Straw+berry staring after him in shock.

The scene cuts to a bar, with Kip watching the admirals play while his friends discuss Scott’s potential flirting (tbd, but he definitely blushed) and speculate if he’s even gay. The next day, Scott returns to the shop. “When something goes right with my game I try to repeat it and then I try to perfect it,” he says as he orders another smoothie, exactly the way Kip made it last time with the promise of seeing him next game day.

Kip changes his shift to Saturday, the Admiral’s next home game. This time when Scott stops in, he stays. As they discuss pre-game rituals, Kip’s comment about hockey players looking like hot lumberjacks by the end of May creates an odd tension between them, but before Kip can freak out Scott invites him to his game that night.

We cut to both Boston and Montreal over the next few days, where Scott receives quips from both Ilya and Shane after losing against each of their respective teams. The world sees Shane fight with someone for the first time after Scott tells him he’s starting to sound like Ilya.

Kip (literally) runs into Scott next at a fundraiser he’s serving at, dumping a tray of food all over his expensive suit. But Scott isn’t deterred in the slightest, and instead asks Kip to get Mexican with him after the event is over. Unfortunately (or fortunately?) the line is far too long and they decide to order in at Scott’s place.

“Can you stay?”

“Yeah.”

“Then stay please.”

In the morning, Kip makes Scott his usual blueberry and banana smoothie and Scott asks for what he wants. He wants Kip to be home when he gets back from practice, when he gets back from a game. He wants Kip, even if he shouldn’t, even if he feels it’s fucked up to ask Kip to hide here, for him. And Kip stays.

After days of secret, hot domestic bliss, Scott and Kip leave the apartment together for the first time to look at some art. Scott’s fear gets the better of him and he panics, fleeing the scene. Kip struggles with being in love with Scott and having to hide his relationship from his dad, despite that this is the happiest he’s been in his entire life.

When Scott is back in New York, Kip and Elena attend a party where Elena confesses to Scott that Kip is miserable. “Nobody wants to be kept a secret,” she says, but Kip is so in love with him that he’ll put up with it. Even if their relationship is killing him. They both deserve the best. They both deserve sunshine.

But when Kip invites Scott to a gay bar for his birthday, just as his friend, he can’t do it. He begs Kip to wait a few years, but even though Kip is tired of lying to his family, he knows he cannot keep Scott from his. So he leaves, goes home to his dad, and attends his party with his friends.

At the Sochi Olympics, Scott puts on the blue, banana socks that Kip gave to him.

Episode 4: Rose

It’s the summer of 2014, just a few months after Shane asked Ilya if he even wanted to go back to Russia for the summer. But despite the feelings Ilya is obviously ignoring, he is back home, exchanging cute and flirty texts with Shane. While the two of them train and go about their summer lives (Ilya partying and Shane doing ad campaigns), Ilya focuses on the calendar, shooting Shane a text that he will see him soon.

We see moments of them throughout the season on and off the ice, ending with Shane holding the MLH cup after the Metros’s win for the first time in 16 years and Ilya watching the game from his couch.

It’s Summer 2015 and the pattern continues. Shane reading alone at home, shooting more ad campaigns, as Ilya parties and makes out with women. The Metros bring home another trophy.

Texting, texting, texting. It consumes both of them all throughout the Summer of 2016, distracting them from the things that should be more important. But their routine hits a snag in October when Hayden, Shane’s teammate, convinces Shane to meet his wife, Jacki’s, “hot” friend so they can do couple stuff together.

Back in Boston, Ilya obsesses over–no, wait–watches a boring TV segment of Shane giving a tour of his lakeside house. Svetlana convinces him to go out, where she asks him if he’s seeing anyone serious. He says no, not even Jane.

When Shane and Ilya meet next, Ilya asks Shane to stay. Though he is hesitant at first, Shane agrees. The two fall into a morning of domestic ease. Ilya makes Shane breakfast and they sit on the couch together, watching TV. Ilya talks about Svetlana and asks Shane if he likes girls. Shane says of course he does, to which Ilya says he likes girls too, but that he also likes Shane.

Their conversation is interrupted by a phone call. It’s Ilya’s father, alone and freaking out. When Ilya returns, Shane asks how his father is. After a quick joke about Shane knowing Russian now, Ilya pulls Shane to him, cradling his head against his chest as he plays with his hair. Shane instigates a passionate moment between them and suddenly it’s no longer Hollander and Rosanov, fucking between games any chance they can get. It’s just Shane and Ilya, tender and loving. But the raw intimacy is too much for Shane. Scared, he runs away, telling Ilya he can’t do this.

When invited out to a bar by one of his friends, Shane meets actress Rose Landry. They converse over a plate of fries, where they trade secrets, childhood memories, and hot takes about bad movies. During the night, Rose’s hand ends up on Shane’s thigh and Shane rests his hand over hers.

We then cut to Ilya, training in the gym, when an article about Shane and Rose breaks. The cover photo is an image of them holding hands and the article quotes that this is the happiest they’ve ever seen Rose. Ilya stares at his phone.

No relationship is confirmed, but countless photos of them together circulate the internet and a video of Rose blowing Shane a kiss at a Metros game is played on TV. Ilya angrily turns off the TV.

Two weeks later, the Metros and the Raiders play. Shane texts back and forth with Rose before the game and stares at the last text Ilya sent him. The Metros win 1-0 and the announcers comment on the absence of Shane and Ilya on the ice. Pent up with frustration, Ilya angrily tells his roommate that he needs to get laid and that they’re going to the club. Now.

There, from the bar, Ilya sees Shane and Rose dancing. And Shane sees him too, his hands and mouth all over a random girl. They stare at each other and Shane is reminded of all the emotions he fled from the last time they were together. But at the end of the night, it’s Shane who spends the night with a girl and Ilya who goes home alone, both thinking of the other.

Book vs. Movie

While Heated Rivalry the book focuses only on Shane and Ilya’s romance, Episode 3 “Hunter” is a tribute to the first book in the series titled Game Changer. I haven’t read the book myself, so I can’t give any insight into how well HBO adapted Scott and Kip’s story, but I am really happy to see them included in the show. Since all the books are about characters in the same universe, their stories overlap, weaving in and out of each other as the series progresses. Not only is it nice to be able to see the beginnings of Scott’s story, but I also think it’s important to see his struggle with hiding being gay as a major league hockey veteran because of Shane’s similar struggle. It’s nice to see that Shane isn’t alone, even if he feels like he is.

In terms of Episode 4, there aren’t too many differences from the book to the show, but one I did find interesting is that we see no time between 2014 and 2016 in the book. Instead of catching bits and pieces of Shane and Ilya texting back and forth between a contrasting montage of their lives when they’re away from each other, the book immediately jumps to October of 2016, when Ilya is watching Shane on TV at his lake house. After that, the only other major difference is that even though Shane agrees to stay the night, he doesn’t actually make it that far before getting scared. But, despite the change, the show still gives us the same emotional vulnerability that sends Shane running out the door.

As I talked about in the previous recap, the book (naturally) gives us more insight into the emotions of the characters than the show can, and this is particularly impactful during the scene in which Shane and Ilya’s relationship starts to noticeably shift into something more than just occasional hookups. This scene is told from Shane’s perspective, and going into it, we know that Shane is actually intending on ending things with him. For a while now, things have been getting a bit too personal for Shane’s comfort, adding to the sense of “wrongness” he feels about what they are doing. All those thoughts go out the window when he sees Ilya shirtless.

As the scene progresses, the show does an excellent job encapsulating Shane and Ilya’s emotions, but it is absolutely heartbreaking to not only read the way Shane describes Ilya during their last tender moments together as it becomes obvious that Ilya is falling harder for Shane than either of them intended, but also to hear Shane’s internal dialogue as he realizes he is falling just as hard.

“And Shane knew he should ask whether or not everything was okay at home or something, but he was now consumed by one thought:

No one makes me feel like Ilya Rozanov does.”

Or when Ilya starts to backtrack when Shane begins to pull away.

“‘This is nothing, Hollander.’

Hollander, you called me Shane.”

Shane’s thoughts are just as much a punch in the gut as Episode 2’s we didn’t even kiss, and it’s things like this that the show unfortunately, but understandably, just cannot capture.

Chapter 14 follows the second half of episode 4: Shane meeting Rose, Ilya internally freaking out when seeing pictures and videos of them together, and ending up at the same club with Shane staring at Ilya as he makes out with a girl. And of course, Ilya staring back. These scenes are all very accurate to the book, and while I think the earlier scenes weren’t quite able to grasp the full intensity of the emotions Shane and Ilya are feeling, I have no such complaints for these. I actually find that the visual of Shane standing in the club, alone with the strobing lights, loud music, and people dancing around him, as he and Ilya stare at each other, is a much more impactful image than reading the exact same scene. And, of course, Hudson Williams does such an excellent job capturing the wounded look of yearning that Shane so obviously feels when seeing Ilya with a woman instead of him.

The story continues…

Episode 5 is airing on Friday 12/19 (which will be out by the time you’re reading this) and Episode 6, the season finale, on Friday 12/26.

Even though there are only two episodes left, don’t you worry! Season 2 has already been confirmed, with Hudson Williams describing it as “Hotter. Wetter. Longer.” Heated Rivalry will continue to follow Shane and Ilya as we progress into season 2, possibly finishing the rest of the book (since Episode 4 only puts us 49% of the way through with just two episodes remaining), as well as heading into the story of The Long Game, book 6 in the Game Changers series and the sequel to Heated Rivalry.

With the appearance of Scott and Kip in this season, I also think there’s definitely a possibility of seeing more of our Game Changers couples. Ryan Price and Fabian Salah from book 3, Tough Guy, seems like almost a sure bet, since Ryan’s name has already been mentioned in this current season. Other names to look out for are Eric Bennett and Kyle Swift from Common Goal as well as Troy Barrett and Harris Drover from Role Model, the other two books in the series that take place between Heated Rivalry and The Long Game.

Happy watching!