‘Heated Rivalry’ Is Getting a Second Season. Here’s What Fans Want to See.

“SHUT UP OMG YES,” Alexandria Kinsey, a full-time content creator who regularly posts Heated Rivalry reactions, told TSBK via text.

Season two is widely expected to adapt The Long Game, the sequel novel that revisits Shane and Ilya 10 years after their relationship begins. For many readers, the second book deepens the emotional stakes, and that’s exactly what Kinsey is hoping the show preserves.

Kinsey wants the second season to include Rozanov’s mental health struggles. “He goes through such a hard time in book two—him and Shane both do—but the therapy sessions Ilya attends are some of my favorite parts of the book. Also the emergency plane landing!!! I’ll need to be sedated after seeing that.”

Kinsey also pointed to a more subtle thread she hopes the series continues to explore. 

“I would’ve liked to see a bit more emphasis on how much Ilya struggled with English not being his first language. But it’s such a short season I think they’ve done a pretty good job getting the message across with the time they have! I think with his therapist in book two it’s a bit more emphasized so hopefully they keep that in the show!”

The show’s impact transcends streaming numbers and TikTok views. Since the premiere, Reid’s Game Changers books have gone in and out of stock nationwide. Copies have reportedly been checked out across the New York Public Library system, while bookstores have also struggled to keep Heated Rivalry on their shelves.

The show’s leads have been surprised by the scale of the response.

“Yeah, it's weird. Connor and I were talking about this, but it sort of feels like we were doubting the reception of it because we were like, ‘We're just in some bubble. This is just what we're hearing because we're in it. Our algorithms are just catering to us,‘“ Hudson told Entertainment Weekly. “But I'm in L.A. now and we've been stopped in the street. And then I was recently in Whistler in Vancouver and people are coming up. It's now starting to hit that maybe it's not a micro-bubble and it's becoming this bigger thing, but even then I can't really fathom it. But it sure means a lot.”

“Even before the show was coming out, my algorithm, anything online has been so geared towards Heated Rivalry that I've convinced myself this is just my device,” Storrie said in the same interview. “Then the moment I came back from Canada, every single day I feel like someone's stopping me and being like, ‘I love the show.’”