by Megan Bailey, Staff Writer

In 2015, Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli came out. The book became incredibly popular and shot Becky Albertalli to semi-stardom (and unfortunately a lot of unfair criticism). But while this could really be “Book: The Movie: The Series”, I’m primarily going to focus on only the movie and the spin-off show. To that end, let’s start with Love, Simon, the film adaptation.

The book was adapted by Elizabeth Berger and Isaac Aptaker with Greg Berlanti directing. Reportedly the first teen-targeted major studio release about a gay romance, it focuses on the titular Simon (Nick Robinson) as he navigates his junior year at Creekwood High with his friends Leah (Katherine Langford), Abby (Alexandra Shipp), and Nick (Jorge Lendeborg Jr.). He sees a post on Creek Secrets, essentially a Tumblr-esque blog that posts anonymous submissions, about being closeted, written under the pen name Blue. After reading Blue’s post, Simon emails him through a burner account, and the two start to bond. Throughout the film, Simon imagines who Blue could be based on little clues in the emails: the hot lawn-maintenance guy when Simon doesn’t really know anything about Blue; Lyle, a guy at Waffle House he’d had a class with the previous year; Bram, a guy who plays on the soccer team with Nick and who he flirts with at a Halloween Party; and Cal from the school’s production of Cabaret.

Unfortunately, Martin (Logan Miller) discovers Simon’s emails, screenshots them, and blackmails Simon into getting Abby to like him. This goes poorly, and the emails are revealed. After his friends abandon him (I could write a whole different diatribe about how much his friends suck), Simon spirals for a bit. He ends up coming out to his family, and he posts on Creek Secrets under his own name, asking Blue to meet him at the winter carnival. As he rides the Ferris wheel and waits for Blue to show up, a crowd of his classmates form, cheering him on. Finally, when he’s almost out of ride tickets, Bram shows up. The two talk briefly and then kiss, and the crowd cheers again.

Love, Simon gets a bit of flack for being too cliche and sanitized. And while I can see why (that “I’m just like you” intro is a bit much), it’s still a movie I find a lot of joy in and relate to. In fact, I find much about its depiction of coming out to be spot-on for me: there’s coming out to someone in a car, being scared to come out to your parents even though you think they’ll probably be cool with it, and promising that someday you’ll get to live authentically, just not yet. So, while this is obviously not representative of everyone’s experience, I do think there’s value in telling it. And while, yes, the movie is primarily focused on coming out, a topic that is a primary plot point in quite a lot of queer media, I like that the film focuses on Simon being able to speak up for himself and find his voice. And not for nothing, apologetic and accepting parents are kind of my kryptonite. So, the scenes with his mother telling him that he can exhale and then his father apologizing for not realizing sooner, those bits are genuinely therapeutic to me.

Before I go into the show, let’s talk about the distribution. It was announced in 2019 that an original Love, Simon spinoff show (not based on the author’s follow-up novel, Leah on the Offbeat) would be released on Disney+. However, in April of 2020, Deadline announced that the series was moving to Hulu due to concerns about the show not being “family friendly” enough for what was, at the time, Disney’s strict adherence to only provide content that was appropriate for PG-13 audiences or younger. This also happened with the High Fidelity TV show right around this time, and both shows were focused on queer main characters. So this led to quite a stir-up about whether or not Disney was OK with having any queer content at all, since Love, Victor is relatively tame in its first season. And I’d argue that Hulu took the show in a more explicit direction come season two as a response to the Disney+ fiasco. Now that Disney has much darker shows in its repertoire (thanks in part to the rights of the Marvel Netflix series falling back to them), this is kind of a nonissue. Spoiler alert: season three was concurrently released on Disney+ and Hulu, so it seems all that hullabaloo was really for nothing in the end.

The show was developed by the same writers of the film, Berger and Aptaker. They’d previously worked on This Is Us and have gone on to develop the How I Met Your Father reboot. However, even with the same writers, I do find something missing in the show—namely that found family aspect. While Love, Simon does show us his family life, it’s not the main focus. But the show is hellbent on making sure that everyone, including parents, apologizes for every misdeed, so there’s no need to develop alternate support systems. The closest the show comes to that is when Victor goes to New York, and both Bram and Simon take him under their wing (a standout episode of season one). I do wonder how much of an influence Greg Berlanti had on the film. I imagine there were definitely some script changes during filming, and perhaps that’s where some of the magic of Love, Simon came from.

While not a straight (heh) sequel, the series seems like a no-brainer. There’s endless room to play in the Creekwood High sandbox. Love, Victor follows the titular Victor (Michael Cimino), a new student there. On his first day, Victor hears about the dramatic Ferris wheel ending from the movie and reaches out via instagram, tearing into Simon about how his situation is different. Simon replies at the end of the episode to give him some insight and support. It seems that, from the get-go, this show was interested in showing messier, more complicated versions of the coming-out story. Good! Additionally, it has the room to go deeper, beyond the coming out followed by a kiss. The first season, yes, is focused on coming out, and season two is focused on the fall-out: how Victor’s family reacts to the news, how his classmates treat him differently, how his relationship with Benji (George Sear) changes, and so on. And season three is… a bit messier in theme, but we’ll get to that!

Because it’s a TV show with three seasons, we have more time to focus on the rest of the cast, including Victor’s family. We see his parents, Isabel (Ana Ortiz, iconic mother to a gay son in Ugly Betty) and Armando (James Martinez), deal with the aftermath of her affair with Armando’s boss, which is the reason they moved the family to Georgia, as well as Victor’s coming out. In season two, Armando attends PFLAG meetings led by Simon’s father (the sweetest cameo by Josh Duhamel), while Isabel has a much harder time with it. There’s also Victor’s siblings, Pilar (Isabella Ferreira) and Adrian (Mateo Fernandez). Victor’s friends round out the rest of the cast: Mia (Rachel Hilson), Lake (Bebe Wood), Felix (Anthony Turpel), Benji, and later, Andrew (Mason Gooding). Mia and Andrew have a romantic history, but initially, Lake likes him. Felix has a crush on Lake. Victor dates Mia for about half of season one, before realizing he really likes Benji, who has a boyfriend for most of the season. So, we’re working with quite a few love triangles/squares here.

The relationship dynamics are much more complicated here than in its predecessor, and they usually have some time to develop and reconfigure as the seasons go on. Unfortunately, the show falls into the trap of setting up more and more love interests for each character, and by the time season three comes around, everyone is on at least their second or third relationship. The cast expands quite a bit in each season, giving less and less time to tell a cohesive storyline with the core cast. In addition, we meet almost all of the teens’ parents, which also balloons out the storytelling. There’s a fine line between having a teen show with no parental involvement and having a teen show with too much parental involvement, and I think season three definitely trends toward the latter.

In season two, we’re introduced to Rahim, who writes a message to Victor similar to Victor’s original message to Simon in the first season. Slowly, they become friends and bond over their family and home lives. I love this addition, as it feels very much like passing the baton from Simon to Victor, now that Victor’s more comfortable with himself and his sexuality. Unfortunately, that bond goes away, and we’re left with Rahim in a love triangle with Victor and Benji, which culminates in the season two finale cliffhanger: Does Victor want to be with Benji or Rahim? In that same finale, Victor also tells Simon that he’s ready to go through life without Simon’s help, and though Simon tells him not to be a stranger, we never hear from Simon again.

Ultimately, season three is even messier, in terms of plot and theme. I think we’re supposed to interpret the end as Victor happy, having found himself in the process of helping all his friends’ relationships, but I’m not quite sure it’s earned. And it does end with a callback to the movie, with Victor and Benji in the Ferris wheel, deciding to get back together and kissing. But what I’d hoped for the show, to go beyond the kiss on the Ferris wheel, develop deeper storylines, and depict queer found family, hasn’t really come together. There’s so much will-they-won’t-they and so many break-ups and reunions, it’s all just sort of a mess. Likewise, by the end of season three, I’m not sure we’ve gone a single episode without at least one apology. Everyone’s apologizing for everything the minute they say or do anything wrong. And while that’s healthy (and probably “good representation”), this means there’s no time for conflict to develop organically. It’s all small slights and short, apologetic conversations. I would have liked something a little meatier, to give conflict some time to grow into bigger issues, as it does in real life.

I would argue that Love, Simon did demonstrable good for queer media, as its box office success, if nothing else, showed that mainstream movies about (to be specific: cis, mostly white) queer teens can sell. And Love, Victor, despite not really sticking its landing, is another demonstration that LGBT+ stories are worth showing on screen. With three seasons, the show has given more representation beyond the coming-out narrative, which is a net positive. I will be ready, Ferris wheel ticket in hand, for whatever queer media comes next.