Mark your calendars and clear your agenda because in August, all we’ll do is binge! With three of the most anticipated queer autumn releases coming up, let’s not waste any more time and dive into everything we know so far about this iconic trio from their release dates, to the cast, where to watch these releases and the plot.
August 3rd: HEARTSTOPPER S2
Where to watch: Netflix
Starting off strong: get ready for Heartstopper season 2!! This season wrapped filming in December 2022 and is now promoting in full force for its release on the 3rd of august. After the success of the first season, Netflix greenlit this series for another two seasons, which means that the upcoming season will be the second out of a total of three seasons.
The series ‘Heartstopper’, follows the events of the book series by Alice Oseman. The back of the first book has these iconic loglines that describe the story perfectly: ‘Boy meets boy, boys become friends, boys fall in love’. What more is there to tell? Just add a highschool, loads of texting, a propper full on gay crisis, friend drama and an anoying bully in the mix and you’ve got a pretty accurate idea of where we’re left in the story.
If you’ve read the books, you know what’s coming. This season, we follow our boys on their trip to paris. And judging by the hickey on Charlie’s neck in the promotional stills we got, their relationship developed a long way from the shy ‘Hi’s we got in season one.
This season, we’ll meet Nick’s older brother, who’ll stir up some trouble for our couple. We’ll also meet Sahar; a character we haven’t met yet in the series. This new friend, portrayed by Leila Khan will join our Paris squad to add some kindness and brain cells to the mix.
Another update that I’m personally thrilled about (and I’m sure many of you with me) is that they changed Tao’s hair! Judging by the adorable little video we got for Tao and Elle, it’s much shorter and styled so well. Truly a blessing.
The Heartstopper team is really stepping up their game in terms of promotion. So far we’ve gotten a season teaser, poster, cute video’s for all tree of the main couples (Nick & Charlie, Elle & Tao, Tara & Darcy) and of course Isaac reading a book (mood). And to top it all off, we even got a look at the opening scene of episode one:
Cute right? You thought that was it? Nope! For the first time, we got to see the epidode names for all eight episodes and I’ve made a list for you:
- out
- family
- promise
- challenge
- heat
- truth/dare
- sorry
- perfect
Well… Let’s just say, keep your tissues close during episode 7.
My biggest hope is that we’ll get Kit Connor (Nick Nelson) speaking french haha. No but for real, I’m curious to see this story most of us have read and love come alive with this cast that is so perfectly chosen. Even though I hope this season is not too traumatic and sad, because our boys deserve some happiness, I’m not too confident we’ll get just that. Especially since there will still be another season to make up for it, I think this season will have quite some angst.
Either way, count on me to be sitting in front of my TV with a big bowl of popcorn on august 3rd. Whatever you do, make sure to finish this series within a week so you’ll be on schedule for the next drop:
August 11th: RED, WHITE & ROYAL BLUE
Red, white & royal blue, is the screen adaptation after the 2019 novel with the same name by Casey McQuiston. It’s a queer ‘enemies’ to lovers story about two boys. Not just any two boys though: Alex Claremont-Diaz is the son of the first female president of the U.S. and Henry Fox-Mountchristen-Windsor is the prince of England.
I remember reading this book and just seeing the entire thing play in my mind. The cake incident, the museum date, the photoshoot. It’s always exciting to see if the way you had it in mind actually matches the production. It was quite a while ago that I finished this Casey McQuiston book, but I can’t wait to get back to this story and the characters.
The trailer for this film dropped just last week and it’s looking very promising. Some of the scenes look like a really high budget drama, while others give off coming of age indie film vibes. I think that’s extremely fitting for the story too: in public, Alex and Henry are high profile royals, but behind closed doors, they’re just two boys growing up.
Nicholas Galitzine (Henry) and Taylor Zakhar Perez (Alex) star as our two leads. The role of Prince Henry was right up Nicholas’ lane with his previous credits as Prince Robert in the live-action ‘Cinderella’. Taylor is also certainly not a newcomer to big movies with his previous experience in the kissing booth films. Joining this cast as a cherry on top (of the wedding cake ;)) is Uma Thurman as Ellen Claremont, the first female president of America.
Don’t have an Amazon Prime Video account? Don’t worry, you can just get the 30-day free trial and watch this movie and many more fun ones for a month.
YOUNG ROYALS S3 : Exact release date not announced
Where to watch: Netflix
This Swedish series has received an insane amount of love internationally for a foreign language production. What can we say… our generation really eats anything up that’s about two boys falling in love. Bonus points if at least one of them is a royal. The first two seasons of Young Royals explore Simon and Crown Prince Wilhelm meeting each other, falling in love and navigating all the hardships that come with a secret relationship. Jealous peers, royal duties, misunderstandings and a leaked video all make for an angsty love story between the two.
Even though the exact release date has not yet been announced, we have reason to speculate it will be very close to the other two on this list. How fun would it be for it to drop in August ;). The filming of this last season wrapped in June and since then, promotion has been slowly but surely picking up. The season trailer has not yet been released, but at the start of production on the 13th of april we got a video showing the cast and crew getting ready for stepping on the Young Royals set one last time:
Both Omar Rudberg (Simon) and Edvin Ryding(Wilhelm) expressed their excitement for the upcoming season in an instagram promotional video: