The Readirect Podcast
Shifting the conversation back to books. Hosted by Abigail Freshley and Emily Rojas.
The Readirect Podcast
BONUS: Heated Rivalry Episodes 1 & 2
We're popping in with a check-in chat quickly discussing our initial thoughts on episodes one and two of Heated Rivalry!
This long-awaited adaptation is finally here. If you were sick of us (Emily, mostly, let's be honest) before, it's only going to get worse from here!
In this brief bonus episode, we're talking our expectations, viewing experiences, initial reactions, and even discussing the popularity of MM romance as a genre.
Let us know what you thought & if you'd like us to keep doing this for future episodes. We are ever at your service <3
Follow us on Instagram and Bluesky at @readirectpodcast.
You can also follow Emily on TikTok and Instagram at @emilyrojasreads and Abigail is on TikTok at @fabigail11.
Morning. This episode is largely unedited and contains mature subject matter. It is not intended for children or anyone who is related to either Emily or Abigail. If you are one of our relatives, please kindly tune out and join us for our next more appropriate episode. If you do choose to listen to this, do so at your own risk, and please don't mention to us if you see us in public. Thank you!
SPEAKER_00:Welcome to the Redirect Podcast. My name is Abigail Freshly.
SPEAKER_01:And I'm Emily Rojas. The Redirect Podcast is the show where we shift the conversation back to books. We discussed themes with some of our favorite books and how those themes show up in our real live experiences.
SPEAKER_00:On today's episode, we are doing a quick chit-chat check-in about the heated rivalry adaptation on HBO Max. Episodes one and two.
SPEAKER_01:Episodes one and two. I like chit-chat check-in. Anyways, if you love us and you love this mini episode, why don't you go ahead and go let us know that you love us and leave us a five-star review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and tell us everything you love about our show.
SPEAKER_00:You can also follow us on Instagram and Blue Sky at redirectpodcasts. You can follow Emily on TikTok at Emily Rojas Reads and me on TikTok at Fabigale11. And if you really, really love the show, you can share our show with a friend because sharing our show with a friend is by far the best way to grow our community of book loving nerds. And let me tell you, Heated Rivalry has built some community within my existing community. But I I so my friend Zippy. Uh-huh. Shout out Zippy. Um she told me originally to read Heated Rivalry before you'd read it. I started reading it. I wasn't here's here's what I have to say about Heated Rivalry.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I started listening to the audio. The audiobook is horrible. I have heard that. It's really cringe, it's really, really bad. Somehow, Shane's parents and Heated Rivalry, the audiobook, have southern accents. They're from Canada. That makes no sense.
unknown:Okay.
SPEAKER_00:It's the whole thing is bad. The narrator does a thing where when he's talking in a woman's voice, he goes on dog like that. No, no. Everything about it is so bad. So I think that coupled with not being in the right headspace for yearning in that moment. So, anyways, now that I am a believer, I've seen the light, I texted Zippy and I was like, hey, he had a rivalry watch party. And she was like, Oh my god, would you want that? And she's like, Let me open it up to the book club, yeah, and I'll host it at my house. And I was like, Great, I finesse my way into an invite at your house, and I don't have to do anything.
unknown:Great.
SPEAKER_00:Um anyways, so our friend Colleen read it, and then two other people who hadn't read it showed up anyway, and now everyone's in it. We have a group text.
SPEAKER_01:Amazing.
SPEAKER_00:And the name of the group text is Nine-inch Hockey Stick. Anyways. No, it is a lot. It's a lot.
SPEAKER_01:It is. It's sweeping the nation. Heated rivalry craze from Canada to the US. Um, it's happening. My dreams are coming true. So, anyways, we had to do a mini episode. So, an audit, obviously. Let's start with this.
SPEAKER_00:So that was my watch experience. We I watched on last night. So today's Monday, last night on Sunday night. Right, it's Monday, right? Today's Monday. Okay. Yeah. Unemployed. Unemployed. Lazy. What's that audio? Yeah. That probably. Anyway. Um, they had. So what was your watching experience?
unknown:Shut up. Okay.
SPEAKER_01:So I uh my watching experience, I was on Thanksgiving with my family. We go to the beach every year. Thanksgiving. Extended family, cousins, everyone. Uh, aunts, uncles, grandma. And so I did in my heart, I thought, I'll just wait till I get home to watch it. But I simply couldn't do that. I couldn't do it. So I had it pulled up on my phone. I woke up.
SPEAKER_00:God, you did this on your phone and not I got crazy. I mean, I at most, this was a laptop activity. Yeah. This is in a family home. This is not a TV activity.
SPEAKER_01:No. And this was one of the houses. There was not like I had a TV in my room, so I guess I could have done that. But um, sometimes we go to a house where there's like a lot of common spaces. This one did not have a lot of common space, so it would have definitely been out there. Anyways, I just watched it, so I was off work on Friday. I got up and I just watched it on my phone, like in bed in the morning with my coffee.
SPEAKER_00:Um, was it how is it watching it on a tiny screen? Insane. I did do a rewatch. You're you're gonna you're gonna bleep this out for sure. But did you feel like you were like watching porn on your phone in bed? Because this is basically softcore porn, dude. And it's like, why am I like I'm watching this on my phone? Yeah, it's like a little, yeah, saying illicit on the TV. It's just like, whoa, this is a really like crazy thing to put on TV. Your phone. Your phone, it's like a suspicious behavior.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. So I I did re-watch it yesterday at home on a TV, and I feel like I enjoyed that experience more. I would recommend doing that. It was just like, oh, it's the first two episodes, and everyone's gonna be talking about it. And they were like the episodes. I mean, the first one was 50 minutes, the second was 45.
SPEAKER_00:Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_01:So yeah, I locked in. What can I say? And then I went Black Friday shopping and against my will, and um, that was my day on Friday, and yeah, I loved every second of it. Honestly, I did. So that was my experience.
SPEAKER_00:Um okay, what were your expectations going in?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I expect I was actually trying to think when I knew we were gonna record this. I was trying to find a comparable adaptation that I could compare this to of what I expected it to be, and I couldn't really think of anything. I don't know if you have anything. Red White and Royal Blue.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, okay, yes. Because that was like the low budget, low, yeah, honestly, low quality book to screen adaptation I thought this was gonna be, and I just thought I would love it, and it would be kind of cheesy and whatever. Like red white and royal blue. I'm not sh on on red, white, and royal blue. I'm just no, like it's fun, but the quality is good, yeah. It's like the quality of both performance and production value, and like but like the budget was obviously much lower than this one.
SPEAKER_01:Right, yeah. So yeah, so that's what I was expecting. Like, I was expecting it to be fun, probably really cheesy. I was expecting not great acting, like I just didn't expect these two little guys to be great. Um, and yeah, I was expecting just to have a good time, but not to be like super blown away or anything. And uh what did you expect?
SPEAKER_00:I similarly, I think I had lower expectations, and I was I was I just didn't have many expectations or had lower expectations about the chemistry between the two leads and their ability to convey the characters well. Yes, but you know what? Um so I think and I think I have book blindness because I think as I'm watching, I'm inserting the book characters into the portrayals, and I think if you were going in and you hadn't read the book, I don't know if the performance would have seemed as amazing. Um I don't know, like, and I'm I'm open to that take. Yeah, I thought it was really good, I thought the portrayals were really, really good, but also I just want to name that I have the book blindness where I already loved the characters, your project and I was seeking out like those little quirks and things about them because I felt I already knew them.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, totally. I agree. I I think that most of all, I did not expect the chemistry to be good between them and like their chemistry. Insane, like insane. I I don't know the last time I saw two people where you genuinely feel like I should not be watching, like this is really happening, and I should not be watching. Like even like the the one scene that like stopped me my tracks when they're in the in episode two, when they're in the stairwell, obviously we're jumping ahead that we really liked it, but when they're in the stairwell after hooking up at Shane's apartment and he like kisses, leans in and kisses him. I was like, Hello, is this really like a real in-love couple? I don't know. So yeah, their chemistry blew me away. I was I thought it wasn't crazy.
SPEAKER_00:Chemistry was crazy. I okay, other thoughts. We're just kind of jumping all over the place, but I'm assuming that if people are listening to this, that they look. This is our broad thoughts, yeah. But um, okay, other things I was I was impressed, or not impressed, I was surprised by the like strong role that Scott Hunter played.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I'm so interested. He was in it a lot. So I'm like, oh, this episode is supposed to be his episode, um, episode three.
SPEAKER_00:So like they're setting something up for sure. Um there was a little bit of a change in the timeline from the book to the show. So in the first episode, I think it's the first episode, they they make it appear as though Shane and Ilya have not met up and have only Ilya's just been like texting Shane and like reaching out to him, trying to get him to meet up, but they haven't been meeting up for like years, which isn't true to the book. In the book, but I actually liked that change. So me too. They made it seem like they had all these time jumps. It would be like four months later or whatever, and then it would be like Shane's getting a text from Ilya and he's like not responding, or he's telling him to leave him alone, and they're making it seem like years have gone by since they've last hooked up.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And that was different, that was a different choice from the book.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I like that as well. I feel like it, I don't know, it was like the yearning, even more so, because it's like, how did all these years pass? And then when they get together, they still have this like insane connection, and the texting, like you can tell it's like building this intimacy between them where they almost have this sort of like weird friendship going on, which I feel like comes but later in the book. So I like that that's kind of starting earlier. And I saw someone say, and I feel like this is true, like, this works because it's such an internal book. The book is like so much in their heads and like not super plot-driven, like it's very much them thinking about stuff a lot, and I feel like this works to convey that, you know, because it's really hard to show that on the screen, and you know, if they're just hooking up all the time, that kind of like takes away from it. But if you build this like tension between them, I feel like it works a little better.
SPEAKER_00:I thought the first two episodes did a good job of building the tension between them and also outlining the stakes because unlike a lot of other books that are similar, something my friends and I were talking about last night, the stakes in it for these two characters are really, really high. Ilya in his own country being gay is illegal. Yeah. Shane has all of these huge brand deals, like these very like traditional brands like Rolex, sneaker brands, and like a lot of money is on the line. There's no out at this point, there's no out and if NHL players, or as they called it in the show, NLH.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, major what is it? Major League Hockey. Yeah. Um fair. And in Rilla, if there are no out NHL players ever in history, so it's uh a parallel there. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So um, so yeah, it's uh they did a great job of building the the tension, yeah. And they don't like I was just I mean, we have to talk about it. The first sex scene in this show, there was no backing track, it was so long. We saw so much, but and we were so close to seeing so much else. It was long and detailed, and there was like you could not run away. I was shocked, and then I was like, no wonder Hulu didn't pick it up.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, this feels like it unfortunately did have to be on HBO, yeah, for sure. Yeah, uh definitely found its right home. Um, but yeah, it was like even the scene, like I can't I I also did not expect those scenes to be as like I don't know, like not only graphic, right? Okay, whatever, but also like so well shot and directed and staged where it's like it's not just like even I was thinking of the scene in the showers at in the first um oh my god scene in the showers, like like you're not they're not saying anything, they're not like talking to each other at all, but the body language and they're not really even showing anything, right? Like they're not actually just having this interaction.
SPEAKER_00:You can understand through context what's going on, and then Shane just goes, not here.
SPEAKER_01:Not here, like just crazy. Uh so yeah, I just feel like every scene starting with that, it's like it served a per. I think that was the other thing too. Like it, if you had added more of the book hookups, um, even as like a montage or something, I feel like it would have taken away a little bit from the scenes that they did decide to show and how like the character development, which isn't a thing in the books, like all each time they hook up, it kind of advances the relationship in some way, but that's really hard to show on screen, again, if you're not seeing their like internal thought process and their monologues. But the actors and the like director, the staging of those scenes in the show did such a good job. Like the little facial expressions, like just the the little moments between them. It's just so good. I don't know. I feel like I feel like yeah, it doesn't just feel like of course it's like fun to watch and it's like interesting and titillating or whatever, but it doesn't feel like it's just that. It feels like it's character development and there's purpose, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Like, for instance, like Shane always folds his clothes. Yeah, that's something I noticed. Like that got me and leaves his socks on. I know it's so uh oh my god, and talk about a gutting moment at the end of episode two when he gets on the elevator and walk away and he and he's like showing they're showing what he's typing out to Ilya, but he won't send. No, and he's like, we didn't even kiss. No. Oh no.
SPEAKER_01:Honestly, I'm so happy though, because everybody likes to hate on Shane. I feel like a lot of book readers don't like Shane. You haven't read the long game, but he gets a lot of hate in the long game. I will not abide for that. Maybe not hate is the right word, but people are like so up in arms for Ilya and like, oh, he deserves better, whatever. And I feel like, sorry, I have my mic. I feel like that's happening the opposite here, where people are like, Ilya's so cold to him, and he's so like yearning. And I'm glad, like, justice for Shane, he deserves it. People will understand Ilya, the who are only watching the show. They'll get him in in good time. But I'm happy that like Shane is being portrayed in his like appropriate yearning, like neurotic, like lover voice.
SPEAKER_00:He's just he's panicking. Like the actor is doing a great job of portraying the knife's edge between like panic and like falling in love. He's like, I I panic, so I just bought this whole condo.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I like I don't want to.
SPEAKER_01:Like I'm saying, like, I bought the place, like, okay, that's obviously a little change from the book where he does buy the entire building, but even just keeping that in, like, I bought the place next door, and he's trying to play it off, like, yeah, like I might rent it out for extra money. And it's like, no, he's just like worried about being caught, so he bought the place next door in the off chance that you guys might hook up again one day in his apartment. Like, that's crazy, but I it's so like he just softens your heart because yeah, it's exactly what you're saying. Like, from when he's when the show starts, he's what, like 18, 19 years old, um, has never like had a relationship with a guy before, and has these feelings for this person who's supposed to be his rival, and watching him like yeah, the panic and also falling in love is such a hard thing to balance, and somehow they're doing it without hitting you over the head and him being like, Oh, I'm really scared, and I'm also falling in love with you.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and the moment where um Ilya wins Stanley Cup and Shane is watching the TV, and he's like, There's the the that was a great performance. Like, in my opinion, I mean he was like looking and being like, I want to be able to congratulate you, but I can't. I want to be able to show how proud I am of you, but I can't. I'm also jealous, yeah. I'm envious of the fact that you won. Like, it's just so complicated.
SPEAKER_01:I know, and it's so good. I'm so, yes. I am uh I'm down. I'm down for this show. I love it so much.
SPEAKER_00:Um four more episodes.
SPEAKER_01:Four more doesn't feel like enough. It doesn't feel like enough. I know there's so much that still has to happen. I know. Um, yeah. I also really like the change of Shane's mom being like a little more of a momager. Uh-huh. I think that works really well. Um, because like she's kind of insane in the book.
SPEAKER_00:In the book, she's kind of portrayed as this old lady. I don't know. His parents in the book seemed much older, which to me, which doesn't really make sense because he's like 20. He's really young, yeah. So of course, yeah, they would be like in their 40s, but in maybe in the book, it's just because yeah, that's just what your mind filled in. They just made him, they made them seem like these old, like kooky retired people.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. And they're so cool.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Yeah. And then juxtaposing that with Ilya's father and his family, and like, you know, they really that was another change. They really built up his experiences um in Russia. Yeah. And his experiences with his brother, his dad, Svetlana, and the coach's son, who is his first like boy love. Yeah. Um, that was all built up and scaffolded from the original book. So that was really interesting, and I I was so impressed that like where's that actor from again? Like Texas. He's from Plano, Texas. He's from Texas, and he did. I mean, that it was really like people on the internet who speak Russian are like, oh, it's really like he's like 90% there.
SPEAKER_01:And he had like a I think he said he had like a couple weeks to work with a dialect coach on his accent and his like understanding of the Russian language. Like, that's insane. I I was watching this, like, I can't believe he's not really Russian. And I did not expect, I thought maybe they would do the thing where like they act like he's speaking Russian, but they like switch to English really quick, and like him and everyone else are just talking in like really heavy accents. But there's like multiple scenes where long scenes where he's only long conversations in Russian.
SPEAKER_00:It's great, it's still acting, and then like Shane did a few, he had a few things in French too, uh-huh. Uh, which is true to his character, but yeah, it's just so impressive.
SPEAKER_01:I was just really impressive. Yeah, I'm so blown away by the acting in this that I was just not expecting to hit this hard. And I know it's like a small thing, but it's like, yeah, that's they could have cast someone who actually is Russian, but they like found this person who is so capable of portraying the character, and it's just amazing. So I was very blown away by the scenes in Russia, and um, I'm interested to see like what role Svetlana will play since in the book she didn't know all that about Ilya, and like it seems like she's more aware of his, you know, yeah, they're building up bisexual history, and um I'm interested to see how she was a very minor character in the book, but they're it seems like they're building her out, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And um there I feel like also Shane's um ethnic identity, his racial identity is plays more of a role like in the pressure he feels, not just being a hockey player and being the captain of the Montreal Metros, but being um like the first Asian. I think in this in the show in the book, he's like the first Asian uh hockey player, Canadian, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, there aren't many in real life either. So that tracks, and I think I saw an interview with Rachel Reed where she said she kind of regrets not playing that up more. So I think that makes sense to include in the series, and um it it yeah, it adds to his like very like you said, sending the stakes of like this is a very natural thing to be panicked about to there's a lot on your shoulders, yeah. And it's not just wearing a lot, like I don't want to spoil something from the long game, but I would say like vaguely there are also like legitimate concerns if you're if I if someone from my hockey team was dating someone from a rival hockey team, I would not like that. I'd be like, well, are you gonna let them win? Like, are you are you sharing like secrets of injuries? Like, there's there's so much that can be weird about that. So I feel like it's not just it's obviously being there are no out MLH, what is it? Yeah, MLH players, also being Asian Canadian and being one of the first, also all the brand deals, like you said, his mom, the pressure she puts on him, but also like the the fans, like being a very competitive person and seeing like, yeah, I'm not ever gonna let him win just because we have this relationship, but maybe people might not believe that or you know, might see it differently, and like that would be hard as a person who's very competitive.
SPEAKER_00:I mean, we've talked about on the podcast too, but the culture of homosexuality of um sorry, homophobia in in most sports, most men's sports, men's sports, it's heavy on men's sports because there's a lot of sort of the opposite for women's sports, but like in in um Premier League soccer, in other professional spot soccer leagues, in um NBA, MLB, NHL, and all of them.
SPEAKER_01:Any major men's sports, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Women. I mean, I went to a WMBA game here in LA last summer, and I had freshly gotten an undercut too. Like that day. I was like, oh my god. I belong. I belong here.
SPEAKER_01:Exactly.
SPEAKER_00:The vibes are very the fan base, the play the whole thing. I was like, oh, this is a very gay environment.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. Versus yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So it's tough. I did want to take a second and talk about we've touched on this a little bit in the past, but this came up with my group last night about um women being fans and loving male male romance and like why we think that is. Like, there's so many AO3 authors, but there's like 80% of AO3 authors are women, yeah, and a ton of the content on AO3 is MM romance, right? A lot of the hockey romances are MM romance. There are there are some straight um hockey romances, but most hockey romances are MM. And we were talking about like why that is, and why even like because if if you want to divorce like the gender dynamics between a man and a woman as two main characters in a book, then why aren't there more women-women uh books? And like why are more women authors writing um male-male books than women-women books or other combinations in between? And um, we had some really good ideas about that, but I wanted to pitch it so before I share that, I just want to pitch it to you and see what you think.
SPEAKER_01:We have talked about this a lot. I feel like it's number, like, you can't divorce it from misogyny and like just people not the market for women like led romance is smaller because of misogyny. I think like whether yeah, and so I feel like that's that you can't separate it from that. I feel like also like you you touched on like the gender roles and the dynamics can be weird in straight romances, and so this is like a fantasy world where like you know, none of that exists because there are no women involved. But I also think like genuinely, as someone who is attracted to men, like probably a lot of women, like there's just in queer male romances, I feel like there's like a softening to men, and it's almost like another fantasy to read about because they're not like it's like men who love and who yearn and like are softer, yeah, and obviously that's like a big stereotyping thing here, but it's like also enjoyable to read because it's like I don't want my like you know, like the shadow daddies, I guess, are cool, you know. But I also like a man who's like soft and yearning and like tender, and I feel like that just comes more naturally when like they are queer, and so those are my initial thoughts. Yeah. What did you guys talk about?
SPEAKER_00:I mean, it's yes, all that plus like you're removing this undercurrent of sexual violence, um, and also like more straight women are writing books about like as a like a straight woman who didn't want to write if it's okay, if a straight woman didn't want to write a male-female romance, right? A straight woman might be more inclined to write a male-male romance because she's attracted to men. Right. So, like, so she would like she wants to write about men being in love because she's attracted to men. Or um we also talked about um just yeah, you're removing all of the gender context, like there's not something that women experience. You're so you're removing like the oppressive baggage that any woman brings into a relationship with a man, a non-binary person, or a woman. Because regardless of your sexuality, you're still bringing in the cultural context and the gender norms of being a woman into a relationship. So it's almost like this fantasy of like removing yourself entirely and just experiencing like totally equal footing. Yeah. Um, and it was like the same reasons that we think there's um like a spike in paranormal romance and fantasy and like monster, and like Omega Verse, like publish Omega Verse, because in those universes, the rules around society are so different. Yeah, you're not even humans. It's like, oh, it's a vampire and a werewolf, like in mate. Or like, you know, it's like, oh, yeah, the societal rules are different, the economy is different. There's like there is zero context here. Yeah. The in Omega Verse, like, there's like Mpreg stuff. Like, yeah, you know, it's gender means pretty much nothing.
SPEAKER_01:Right.
SPEAKER_00:Omega verse writers on the internet have completely shape-shifted the rules of society and created a new set of rules and laws that guide like attraction and romantic relationships. So it's just really interesting like thinking about how um people who are not men are like creating in a way that frees them from oppressive gender norms and like misogyny. Totally. And I think, yeah, and I think this is part of it. And I think it's cool when done right, yeah. Right. And like you don't want to extract and borrow too much from a different community, but if you're writing something in partnership with them or like honoring or like creating alongside um gay people, I think that is the way maybe to do it right.
SPEAKER_01:Totally. And I think it's also I mean, I think it's a really interesting conversation and kind of a weird one at times because I think about authors like Alison Cochran or Casey McQuiston, who are either female or non-binary, who are queer and are later in life to coming out, and who started writing, and that both of them specifically started writing MM romance as like a way to get into the queer community without outing themselves because it is more accepted. And so I feel like and even Rachel Reed, she has And it's extracted from them their identities, right? Right. Yeah, like it's not them, but it's also like kind of them, and I feel like, yeah, I was saying Rachel Reed hasn't said like she's queer or anything, but she has said for personal reasons writing about queer stories is important to her, so whatever that means. And I feel like it's like let's chill on. I mean, I feel Like, like you said, there's ways to do it right. There's ways to do it where it's like fetishizing and weird. Yeah. And like you're not chill. And but also, like, we don't need to be hounding straight women or straight presenting women authors to like tell us about their sexuality. And so I think more and same with actors, like, we don't need to be harassing the actors in this show about their sexualities. And so I think it's yeah, like if you feel like the content is weird, don't engage with it or like criticize the content. But also, I feel like it's yeah, it's a fine line of being like, well, straight women shouldn't be writing these stories because also no one can really say what that looks like or what that means. So that's my that's my overall thoughts.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So and thank you. Thank you for Rachel Reed and Jacob Tierney, the director, um, and writer of the series, who is an out gay man, for bringing this to our show because this is so good. And my closing thoughts, if you don't have any more, you can share them after I'm done talking. No, you're good. If we're getting ready to close, I do want to say, like, this is the dream for all book adaptations for me. It's a TV series. Like, I've been I feel like everybody wants a TV series. We don't want movies, you know? Like, we want a series. It's the series. It's like BC26. Yes, my god, that's the other dream.
SPEAKER_00:Like, let it build out, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, like actors and writers and directors who care about the source material, who are like have care for it and like are invested in it and believe in it. Yeah. And I mean, this is crazy. Like, Crave Canada produced this and paid for it up front without it ever being guaranteed to be picked up anywhere else. And like they believed in it. And so I just feel like this is like whether this is your cup of tea or not, this is something worth supporting a little if you are interested in seeing other, especially romance books adapted in this way. Because um, like this is the dream, like, truly, it is the dream. So I hope for season two. That's all I can hope for.
SPEAKER_00:Yay! Well, this has been our mini episode. So much fun. Do you have any more thoughts? No. I mean, we're gonna we're recording another episode soon. Super soon.
SPEAKER_01:And we'll catch up on if you guys blow this episode up, we'll do recaps of every single episode.
SPEAKER_00:So mini episodes. I have the time until Abigail finds a new job. We will be here. And who knows when that will be, you know?
SPEAKER_01:Blow this up, please. So maybe watch the space. Watch the space. We'll see. But thanks for joining us. All right, keep watching. Bye. Bye.