Heated Rivalry vs Bridgerton (The K.O.)
Have you watched? Spoilers for everything up to season 4.
Now, obviously M/M is my favourite and Rachel Reid is someone who grew up reading (maybe writing) fanfic, like me, so there is a definite biased. But even without that… the gap in quality here is huge.
I think it’s down to the quality of the directing more than the original writing—assuming, I haven’t read the Bridgerton series—and a great deal due to Jack Tierney’s (HR producer/director) talent and sensibilities.
Regardless, what a mess Bridgerton 4 was. Like, season 3 was somewhat lifted by Penelope being a pretty interesting character, even more of a protagonist than everyone else in her role as the narrator of everyone else’s stories. Even then, the weird panning of to random characters. Sure, we love the idea of the Mondrichs… but this is a romance, the focus and tension depend on the main couple. Having a small break, showing family scenes (Daphne’s conversations with her mother, the Duke’s relationship with his friends) does build the tension while the romantic leads aren’t together, but a completely separate storyline is hard to do. Three or four requires high level talent. The new show runner is nowhere close (Just found out seasons 1 & 2 were run by a different person and damn, YES, I actually rewatched those and they are still great).
Bridgerton utterly fails at it again and again this season imo, YMMV.
Adding to that… Both Sophie and Benedict are pretty bland. But then again, they must have got 60% of the screen time the other main characters did, and to be honest, their love and attraction felt really forced. Both the staircase scene and their love making made me want to look away in discomfort—especially after Sophie lists everything she is risking and then Benedict declares his love and Sophie, the supposed super rational and sensible person… forgets everything in supposed ‘passion’ that feels nothing of the sort. It was not hot, fully stop.
Benedict’s previous indulgent affairs with both men and women were the kind of porn that has you looking out the window. I loved him discovering his bisexuality, but everything else about those scenes felt like watching someone else at a party and thinking; great for you, buddy, but… boring for me. It’s not that we are bad people, it’s that happiness without previous difficulty or tension does not activate our dopamine receptors the same way as a hard-earned happy ending.
Speaking of endings… What the actual fuck was that scene with the queen and her bbf laughing maniacally after the show runners their resolution of the plot made no fucking sense, but whatevs? Did they imagine if they told us that Mrs Mondrich is impulsive and she just went for it in hopes the Queen would randomly decide to be generous would satisfy us?
Because it left me feeling like they couldn’t be bothered to do the work of resolving the plot. Something that is even worse when you consider they have a novel that makes sense to base themselves on.
5/10 feels generous of me.
***
Heated Rivalry, on the other hand… 10/10. And the key reason for me is the intimacy the main characters share throughout the story. They are fuckbuddies and they feel closer than Sophie and Benedict feel when he’s asking her to marry him in public (guess the parallel of secret relationship here means I should give them points for making the relationship public, but it felt forced). Sex in Heated Rivalry is never gratuitous, in fact, many sex scenes are fade to black because the intimate contact has already been achieved.
The sex to me feels very male in a way I struggle to articulate, for example when Shane silently cups his hand for Ilya to spit on it. In Bridgerton, you’d get someone sucking on those fingers sensually, in Heated Rivalry they are in an actual fucking hurry and they don’t give a fuck about propriety. I’d have to reread the book, but I like how it feels new to me as an M/M reader (historically 90% written by women), a generous invitation from a friend into a world I don’t quite know.
I couldn’t name a favourite scene, but I can tell you I had to pause at several points because I had too many feelings. It also had me roaring with laughter and feeling so completely seen it did not feel like I was watching alone (I so want to do a watch along for this one!)
When Shane admits he’s gay and Ilya goes to sit by his side… Fuck, I almost cried. As men, neither of them is encouraged to speak of their feelings and, in fact, Ilya’s teasing sometimes is a little too sharp for my taste, but Shane so clearly gets it that it’s just more proof of their connection with each other.
And then, of course, the walls between them begin to crack and it’s so fucking beautiful to watch…
I want 16 more seasons, but at the moment, I think I will rewatch this one.
Okay, that’s all I have to say. What did you think?