The Reel Rejects - HEATED RIVALRY Episodes 1 & 2 REVIEW!! Why Is EVERYONE Obsessed With This Show?!

Starting point is 00:00:00 This video is sponsored by Rula. More on them just a bit. John, you're ready to find out why people like this show? Let's do it. Hockey. Let's play. Gay hockey. All right, guys.

Starting point is 00:00:19 Well, prepper. Good luck. This is live. That's all that matters. Good job, team. If you were seeing this, is on YouTube. Everybody goes say thank you to prepor in the comments. Believe me, it

Starting point is 00:00:33 was the best version we could possibly get. Here, here. Uh, yeah, YouTube's hypersensitive to any type of sexual activity. But we watched the first two episodes of heated rivalry and I really enjoyed

Starting point is 00:00:49 the shit out of that. But, um, John, I'll let you go first. Are you gay now? I'm gay. Hell yeah. Yeah, we're fucking conversion television therapy. television therapy is highly effective uh yeah my whole lifestyle has gone undergone a complete overhaul and uh i'd really like to make out now if we could no i can't i got to eat these popcorners while you talk all right i'll lower my mic so it doesn't go into it's fine no this was this was very enthralling i mean you know i i generally uh you know over the course of life i've come to learn you know when you're younger you're like ha romance nah give me the give me the give me the the action ship but you know the more life has gone on you know especially in movies and tv

Starting point is 00:01:34 stories of any kind i've come to really appreciate like a well-told you know nuanced romance uh you know i love love that i can root for and uh you know growth and vulnerability that i can you know sink my teeth into and this has a ton of that so far uh you know this is just the chemistry is crackling and you know as we've been saying constantly like it's a really impressive feat of directing because you know these have moved really quickly despite having a very unique approach to like timeline and you know there's this element of like yeah what do you hear when you come into the show you hear like oh this is gay hockey show you know and and it has you know gay hockey stuff in it but but like it is uh like nicely tempered and nuanced in a way that

Starting point is 00:02:23 uh was it's a very just sort of lovely beautiful surprise because like this is in a lot of ways really top-notch kind of slice of life intimate filmmaking and then yeah there's the stuff that is like hot and all that but it doesn't feel like you're watching something like trashy hot it feels like something that yeah like has a very strong you know vein of of sexuality running through it but that is like a really observant what feels like yeah a little dromedy about you know what what is this life for people who are just discovering it people have been living with it for long time people who all have to conceal it you know it's uh it's fascinating i've been really enjoying these at least as these two episodes i'm hooked how are you feeling about are you gay

Starting point is 00:03:07 only clock about 10 minutes of sexual activity in total and um i think that's a disappointing number yeah bad ratio sorry i take it all back i take it all back yeah i'm really enjoying it i think it's really well acted and i'm really impressed with how it was directed too there's a lot of great visual language, a lot of great use of mirrors, and, like, the color scheme is often evoking the emotion of the scenes in ways that help elevate or enhance, like, a lot of times kind of telling of what the scene might actually be based off of the way the coloring of it is done. And, like, there's some amazing smooth composition to a lot of the shots, but very calculated on when to go handheld to evoke different senses of paranoia of either realism

Starting point is 00:03:53 or that someone's watching, the way that's all crafted together and spanning of time is so well done. While having a story that I imagine in the book, there's a lot of internal narration, perhaps. And like I love that. I just, I love that concept of watching something

Starting point is 00:04:14 where I'm aware there's a book and seeing actors who can embody the internal thoughts or even if it's not a first person point of view if the narrator's saying you can embody the thoughts, but you remove that narration and you just let the actors kind of roll with it, and as an audience, you get a pickup on it. And the show's really good

Starting point is 00:04:32 at knowing when to let, like take the last moments, for example. Like, there's an idea of what the Shane character's feeling and thinking, obviously with the distance and the constant push and pull, and after every sex, every time they have sex, it's

Starting point is 00:04:49 he's just distant and pushes him away. doesn't want to get like emotionally involved and to let the audience in in a very clear way of where his emotional head states at of him saying we didn't even kiss and deleting that i'm like oh perfect like that's all you really need even though obviously he's this is both of them are feeling feelings for each other and that's that would only increase the gap in the more the feelings come in the more shame would try to reach and the more uh, Ilya would pull. But to have that little line there is a really good indicator of what he's going through in that and that state. And yeah, I think it's a very like fascinating thing because you're,

Starting point is 00:05:36 you're dealing with hockey, which is a very masculine type of thing, right? Like that's a sport where they, you know, they'll fist the cuffs at each other when things go wrong. And it's very testosterone driven. And I'm seeing that.

Starting point is 00:05:52 pop up it i i feel like i see this a lot in like mediums now as as the it's the thing of like this is the real masculine position but our main characters are actually gay yeah you know i'm in my vibe with it i don't know it's a real position it's a real position people are pushed into yeah these are things that seem to like kind of pop off now in mediums yeah well i feel like we're at the point in in in storytelling and culture where instead of yeah where it's now we're acknowledging that like you know queerness is a spectrum and you can be in a very masculine presenting position

Starting point is 00:06:26 you can be very masculine and also be you know in this life you know yeah and uh I don't know this chip piece somewhere on camera nasty little I didn't finish chewing something give me some of that gay

Starting point is 00:06:41 gay you didn't even let me eat the chips out of your mouth fucking gay but yeah it's I could totally see why every straight woman in America is talking about this show. Yep. Yeah, absolutely. I was rooting for them boys to communicate.

Starting point is 00:07:01 And gay guys are every straight woman in America. I like it a lot. Yeah, it's nice. It is a great show. It is really strong. And I didn't know what to walk into necessarily. You know, I didn't know if these characters would be in relationships. I didn't know if it was going to be something that was a little cheap.

Starting point is 00:07:20 easy uh it's it is very like i and i appreciate that the actual sexual scenes as as as as as as as graphic in depiction as it is it feels necessary to go there for the storytelling purposes actually it never just feels like we're fucking HBO let's go you know it actually is doing it because it's telling of the characters and and a lot of times i think think in Hollywood especially, they shy away from the way characters sleep with each other and watching the changes in how they sleep with each other, how that can actually be telling what the characters are going through without relying on dialogue. And if you look at like when they were first hooking up to the next time, they're going

Starting point is 00:08:12 from just getting past some nerves to like uncomfortableness and then sweet. tender than now to just like dominance and trying to establish a certain type of reserve and coldness it's it's that letting that play out instead of hiding from it is is related i think that's like universal i think like straight couples go through that you know like it's not something that's exclusive to gay guys who are struggling with their sexuality i think like that's just a thing that happens in life you know fellow reject i've been going to therapy since I believe around 2012 and admittedly in the past couple of months I've haven't been as consistent as I like to be and with that I tend to fall into like old patterns of having a

Starting point is 00:09:03 difficult time asking for help having a difficult time being honest with myself having a difficult time just opening up in general but going back recently it's helped me reconnect with my actual values in life and already I feel like the direction has been helping me get my mental health and personal life back on the track I wanted to be at. And that's why today I'm happy to talk about Rula. It's an online platform that helps you connect with licensed therapists that will specialize in you. Rula makes it easy to find affordable, high-quality therapy that's actually covered by insurance.

Starting point is 00:09:34 You just go to Rula.com slash rejects, answer a few questions, and they'll match you with a therapist who fits your needs and schedule. You can meet with them online. And Rula patients typically pay $15 per session when using insurance. They made therapy accessible in a way that alleviates a lot of the problems that I often hear from people when they're trying to get into therapy. There's no waiting list. There's no calling around. It's seamless. And of course, if you do decide to sign up, you'll more than likely be asked how you heard about them. It would mean a lot if you could also support us and let them know, we sent you by choosing our name and their drop-down menu. And sincerely, you deserve mental health that works for you and not against your budget. So you can find the therapist that's right for you at ruler.com slash rejects. That's our you. ula dot com slash rejects

Starting point is 00:10:21 thank you again rule i take care of yourselves people anyone experiencing yeah levels of intimacy like that's the thing is it's interesting because yeah like there is i don't think anything we're still in that mode of this societal evolution where like something like this would be relegated to like a special niche queer genre or something like that but what's really cool about watching it at least you know here and now is that yeah like you know because it's not like the most mainstream cause more mainstream than ever before but

Starting point is 00:10:54 obviously we're still not a point where it's mainstream so there's that novelty but once you remove yourself from that it is yeah like a really lovely and well-observed feels well-observed exploration of the different kinds of intimacy you can experience and the different things that hold people up and hold people back and block you from being you know your fullest self and some of that comes from family expectations some of that comes from the of society some of that just comes from being afraid to like you can see how ilia wants seems seems like he wants to be tender he wants to access that part of himself because when they're texting and stuff he's very flirty you know and he's very sort of sweet at times and yet it's so

Starting point is 00:11:36 hard to get that in person and you know the way that they behave with each other can sometimes be so plugged in and then you'll get these moments like at the end of the second episode when they're in bed together and you feel all this distance and yeah it's like there's so much extra in life that can be really hard to figure out on your own as well as when it comes to you and somebody else you know what am i thinking and how do i express it and how do i go over the fear and nerves and shame of trying to express it and i think that's one really cool thing about it's like this show like both the flirting stuff where they're talking their desires the sort of i guess for lack of a better phrase dirty talk

Starting point is 00:12:14 elements are almost therapeutic in a way because I got to imagine like a lot of people have their struggle to articulate themselves when it comes to desire or romance. And so seeing two people who are kind of blocked up trying to do that is like kind of a nice exposure therapy when it's done as, you know, potently and lucidly as they've been doing it here. Yeah. Yeah. And it's the kind of thing where it's like, yes, it's a queer show, but at the same time, it's universal themes, you know, this kind of thing. If you could put any two people in this situation, and I would be interested and it would apply to my life

Starting point is 00:12:47 because you know this is stuff that applies to life and yes there is the queer element of we got to keep this secret but there's so much else that is just flatly universal in a lovely kind of way and hats off to the casting

Starting point is 00:12:59 because Hudson Williams and Connor story that have such chemistry and uh and yeah it just makes me wonder like what the prep was with the approach to cat like you know you gotta know what you're getting into and show like this but at the same time like

Starting point is 00:13:13 you know it seems like more than just seeing some auditions and casting a couple of people, you probably got to, like, really consider and, you know, pound and fold your casting until it's, like, the perfect group. Over here, his American accent

Starting point is 00:13:26 popped through at times later on. Where is he from? In Texas. I kept wondering. He's a joker fully a do. Is he the guy who... Offs? He could be.

Starting point is 00:13:41 I can't remember fully. Yeah, I can't fully draw his face to my, but it could be. but yeah they have it's great it took me a long time to like be like it wasn't until like we don't like oh I know I kind of hear shade of it I yeah I mean I'd been wondering this whole time

Starting point is 00:13:54 until you had the Texas pulled up there and yeah like they're they're they're really good at playing you know the more bad boy versus the more you know the guy who's like really proficient at the rules versus the guy who's like really good at getting away with breaking and bending rules

Starting point is 00:14:10 and I like how it's also a sports drama too you know it's an actual sports show so it preserves that it preserves that masculinity i think you feel like you're in the lifestyle like it does make you feel like you're sort of on the road and you know living in these different hotels and yeah you have these games and these different it's weird like it's it can be kind of difficult sometimes to make sure that you're fully pinpointed in time so i appreciate all the different titles and stuff but but like yeah it because you rarely there's no home base really we've been to shane's house and stuff like that but

Starting point is 00:14:48 we're not really like anchored anywhere and so it does like transcribe i would imagine just from the outside it feels like you know yeah what life on the road is like for a player and you know there's at least a bit of that you know we're talking stats and they're at this event and that a bit and then we're playing and we're doing the olympics and we're doing this championship and stuff like that it's it's a nice primer anyway even if it's not getting too inside baseball about it yeah i don't watch hockey i don't really understand hockey at all but i i didn't feel like lost when i was listening to it yeah they did a really good job i really like that a lot i really like that a lot yeah what do you guys think about this especially what else he's done um oh letter kenny and and

Starting point is 00:15:29 shorzie is a spinoff of that too it's like very hockey oriented so letter kenny letter cany is like yeah it's like a canadian comedy series and then shorzy is a spinoff from that that is hockey oriented but the tone of those i think is is quite different i've more like broadly comic i think yeah i've seen a little bit anything this guys i've seen a little bit i've been shown a little bit of shorsy so yeah and these guys are all brand new people to me yeah and i dug it i dug it quite a bit good stuff two straight actors doing the work are they straight i don't know i was wondering i too because like you know on the one hand you're like well you know you just cast whoever has the best chemistry and whoever the best actors are for the job but then in a

Starting point is 00:16:12 a show like this i am curious as to whether you do intentionally go hey this is a queer show we want to cast queer actors you know it's like because they seem like they're living the experience in a really lucid way so i have to imagine there at least no they can't be gay queer life no they can't be otherwise they they sound like this that's right that's oh my god i love the puck i'm russian that's how all gay guys actually sound yes this is fiction yes yes We know. The most distracting part was how none of them talked right. None of them talk, like, how I know every single gay guy on the planet to sound.

Starting point is 00:16:53 I couldn't tell who the gay characters were. What a fantasy show. Yeah. Total lack of attention to the details. All right. What did you guys think, man? Leave your thoughts down below. Up to you guys.

Starting point is 00:17:07 Let's hope that this does all right. And then we'll continue based off of that. Because this is It's probably hard To put together In Game of Throats It's trying to make a life easier And somehow I made it a lot more difficult

Starting point is 00:17:22 I hope we get it by And I hope we can do episode three So boost this up If you're seeing then See you again

The Reel Rejects - HEATED RIVALRY Episodes 1 & 2 REVIEW!! Why Is EVERYONE Obsessed With This Show?!

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