SPOILER ALERT: This post contains spoilers for Season 3 of Netflix‘s Heartstopper.
Season 3 of Heartstopper entered new territory in more ways than one for the television adaptation of Alice Oseman’s beloved graphic novels.
The third installment of the Netflix coming-of-age series, starring Joe Locke as Charlie Spring and Kit Connor as Nick Nelson, signaled several adult decisions for the main pair as well as their friendship group, many of whom had university choices on their minds as the season came to a close. Oseman, who penned the show’s scripts, was working on volume five of the graphic novels while adapting Season 3, which was different than the construction of previous seasons.
“There was a point when I got to the end of writing Season 3 where I was sort of writing the same scene at the same time in both formats. They collided right at the end, but at the time of writing season three, I hadn’t even planned volume six,” Oseman told Deadline. “The writing of season 3 was very much the point at which the comics and the show have met. They’re at the same point now. It was scary in that sense because normally, in previous seasons, I would give the books to all the cast, and all the heads of department would all get to read the comic and see what the scenes from the scripts are in the original comics, but I couldn’t do that for volume five, because it literally didn’t exist as a book yet.”
Oseman initially thought that volume five would be the last in the Heartstopper series of books, but she decided to split up the story into two more novels — volumes five and six — to spread out all the beats of the story. Volume six will expand more upon the show’s highlighting Charlie and Nick as individuals “able to stand on their own” after Nick supports Charlie through his eating disorder and mental health.
“Towards the end of the season, the seesaw goes the other way. Suddenly it feels like Nick is the one who’s starting to struggle a little bit more while Charlie is doing well, and that’s a really interesting flip of the dynamic,” Oseman said. “Nick has been so helpful and loving and an amazing boyfriend throughout Charlie’s journey this season, but Charlie is his own person, and, especially now. When he’s made so many positive steps in his recovery, he doesn’t need Nick there all the time. That’s an important thing to see because they are their own people. I’m working on volume six now, that’s sort of what the next chapter of the story is all about: the boys feeling confident in themselves outside of their relationship, and how that will make their relationship strong enough in the long run.”
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See-Saw executive producer Patrick Walters praised both Locke’s and Connor’s building of the TV versions of Charlie and Nick, highlighting a specific moment of Connor’s acting that snagged the season’s second Billie Eilish needle drop.
“We did a collab with Billie Eilish where ‘Birds of a Feather’ from her album was on the teaser that we released, and that was the first time anyone had heard it. Then we were also in a position where we had this one bit in ep four, where Nick is telling Charlie that he loves him, but he’s directing it to Tao’s video camera because Charlie’s not there,” Walters told Deadline. “It’s at a Halloween party, and we struggled to find a bit of music to underpin that that would have believably been played at a Halloween party full of teenagers, but also had the emotional resonance that we needed in it. Because we knew the Billie Eilish team, it was an amazing thing where we’re like, ‘Maybe we try one of those songs?’ which we wouldn’t normally do because a megastar like that might be quite expensive, but we put ‘BLUE’ a song from her album at that moment. That’s one of my favorite season three music syncs, because Kit’s face and his performance are so emotive, and you believe it, but then that song is so singular and brilliant.”
Walters had organically heard through a mutual friend that Bridgertonstar Jonathan Bailey loved Heartstopper, which led to the actor making a cameo as historian Jack Maddox (Henry Maddox in the mini-comic, changed because of Nick’s second dog named Henry in the show) in episode six of Season 3. Bailey only shot his scene for one day on set, and Oseman recalled having to write him lines spur of the moment.
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“We hadn’t actually scripted very much for him to say, and when we were on set, we realized, ‘Oh, we need him to say a little bit more.’ So I had to, on the day, on set, I wrote him like, a full paragraph of stuff to say about ancient history and literature sort of give that to him and be like, ‘I’m so sorry. Please learn this paragraph right now,’” Oseman said. “He was very happy to do that, so I was very grateful for that. He brought a lot of joy and brightness to set that day, which was lovely.”
Haley Atwell brought another new character to life in Season 3 — Nick’s Aunt Diane, and Oseman revealed that the Menorca scene in which Atwell comforts Connor’s Nick was the last scene they shot for the third season. In the comics, the exchange takes place between Nick and his mother Sarah (Olivia Colman), but Colman couldn’t return to that role for Season 3.
“We were like, ‘Look, we’ve, we’ve got a bit of a situation where we need, it’s a really important arc, and it’s slightly changing from who it would have been initially,’” Walters told Deadline of his pitch to Atwell’s agent. “And it just worked out in terms of, she had the time. She loves the show as well, and I think she’s fantastic in it.”
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Isaac and Elle also got major moments that weren’t in the comics. Isaac’s character isn’t in the comics at all, but Oseman, who identifies as asexual and aromantic, wanted to explore a character like that in the TV show.
“In Season 3, it all leads to this scene in the aquarium, which I was really excited about, because Isaac’s story this season is very much about his feelings of isolation and alienation from all of his friends because most of them are in a relationship, and they’re very obsessed with romance, and those are things that Isaac just doesn’t relate to at all,” Oseman said. “He feels like society is telling him that sex and romance are the most important things you could ever hope for, but he doesn’t want that, and that makes him feel lonely and out of place in his friend group. In the aquarium, he finally gets to confront his friends about those feelings and express himself. It’s a really beautiful scene, and Tobie did an absolutely incredible job with it.”
Elle Argent’s actress Yasmin Finney collaborated with Oseman on exploring the character’s transgender identity, which led to a pivotal interview scene for Elle that matched the present cultural moment surrounding trans people.
“We see a lot more of Elle’s experience as a trans girl. This season, we see her experience of having gender dysphoria and how that impacts her relationship with Tao, but we also get a sense of the sort of wider culture of transphobia that she’s dealing with every single day. It’s on her Instagram. It’s just in the media all the time, which is very realistic to certainly what it’s like in the UK at the moment, and I’m sure in the US as well,” Oseman said. “I want viewers to see that in the show, and that sort of comes to a head in this radio interview, where Elle thinks she’s there to talk about her art, but she’s confronted with a load of questions about being trans, and I think that’s such a relatable feeling for trans people, where their identities are being picked apart and used as debate material and used in politics and journalism and on the news. It’s very upsetting, because Elle just wants to be a normal girl who’s hanging out with her friends and making art, and having a fun time with her boyfriend, but she can’t, because there is this culture that’s just inescapable around her. I wanted to express that, and this season.”
Though Netflix has not yet renewed Heartstopper for another season, Oseman is on board for a final installment.
“I would like there to be [another season]. We’ve got no kind of confirmation yet. I would love to adapt volume six. I think you one more season or one more, whatever it could be, would finish the story, conclude everyone’s character arcs, and help us to kind of say goodbye to all of those characters. So yeah, keeping my fingers crossed.”