The second season of Heartstopper sees Nick trying to come out and Charlie supporting him to make it easier for him. The season is now streaming on Netflix.
Warning: This article contains heavy spoilers
Plot summary
Nick wants to come out and make his relationship with Charlie public, but coming out as bisexual is not as easy as he thought it would be. He is still not on speaking terms with his old friends, and things are not the same during rugby practice.
However, he has Charlie encouraging him and being there for him. Charlie wants to protect Nick so that he does not feel pressured, the way he himself did when he was outed. Charlie even joins the rugby team again to spend time with Nick.
This starts affecting Charlie’s performance at school. He is not able to focus on his schoolwork, so his mother bans him from seeing Nick until he finishes his schoolwork; she believes that Nick is distracting her son. Charlie does not listen and continues sneaking out to see Nick.
After struggling for quite some time, Nick tries to tell Imogen about his relationship with Charlie, but she figures it out on her own, as it is obvious to her. She is happy for Nick and Charlie. Nick later finds out that Imogen is now dating Ben, much to Nick’s displeasure.
When Elle flirts with Tao, he starts acting strange, which makes her think that he does not reciprocate her feelings. She decides to distance herself from him. She wants to go to the Lambert School of Art, and on the open day, she makes new friends, Naomi and Felix.
Elle making new friends bothers Tao. As he lost his father at a young age, he fears losing his friends. He keeps thinking that his friends will move on and forget about him one day.
Nick’s brother, David, comes home from college, and Nick does not want to tell him about his relationship just yet, as David is inconsiderate and does not care about Nick’s feelings.
However, David finds out about Nick and Charlie’s relationship when he invades Nick’s privacy. He makes a scene in front of Charlie. David’s biphobic comments do nothing but upset his brother.
Nick warns Imogen about Ben, but she does not listen. In fact, this creates problems between them. Meanwhile, some of Nick’s teammates apologize to him for not speaking up against Harry, and Nick thinks about coming out to them.
When Tao shares his fears of being stuck and left behind with his mother, she advises him to fight to stay by Elle’s side. Tao tells his friends that he has feelings for Elle. Later, he gets a haircut and asks Elle to go out on a date with him, and Elle agrees.
Tara tells Darcy that she loves her, but Darcy does not say it back. In fact, she refuses to discuss the incident whenever Tara brings it up. At the same time, Isaac grows close to James, who is also openly gay.
Elle and Tao’s date is awkward, to say the least. Elle believes that Tao is acting like a different person, and it does not end on a happy note. Tao blames himself for ruining everything, and Tao and Elle stop being close friends for some time.
When Charlie sees Nick struggling so much, he tells him to forget about coming out for a while. The two of them go back to keeping their relationship a secret. They, along with their friends, then go on a school trip to Paris.
There, things get better between Elle and Tao. Initially, they decide to be just friends, but that does not last long, as Elle kisses Tao, and the two of them get together. In Paris, Imogen breaks up with Ben, who clearly does not care about her, in front of everyone.
She realizes that Ben is obsessed with Charlie and that he only cares about showing everyone that he has a girlfriend. Ben also confesses to Nick that he wants to get back together with Charlie and that he was dealing with his own issues earlier.
Nick comes to know that Charlie suffers from an eating disorder because of everything that he has been through. Furthermore, Nick’s father lives in Paris. He does not spare Nick more than a few minutes when Nick goes to meet him with Charlie.
Isaac and James grow close, but when James kisses Isaac, he walks away, as he does not feel anything. Mr. Ajayi and Mr. Farouk, the two teachers who have accompanied the students to Paris, also start liking each other and kiss.
Finally, at Tara’s birthday party in Paris, Nick admits that he is dating Charlie and that they are not keeping their relationship a secret. After the party, Darcy, who has difficulty expressing her feelings, tells Tara that she loves her.
When the school trip ends and everyone returns home, Elle finds out that she has been accepted to Lambert, but she does not tell Tao about it, as she first wishes to be sure about what she wants.
Her art is displayed at the Lambert School’s exhibition, which is attended by all her friends. There, Isaac meets a person who talks to him about their experience of being aromantic and asexual, which helps Isaac understand himself better. When Tao finds out about Elle’s admission, he tells her that all he wants is for her to be happy.
Ben, who has been pestering Charlie to talk to him, insists that Charlie listen to him. He apologizes for his behavior and tells him that he liked him. He wants to be like Nick and Charlie, but his parents would never accept him.
Charlie feels like Ben controlled him when they were together, took whatever he wanted, and then treated him like he was nothing. Due to that, even to this day, Charlie sometimes believes that he is worthless. He hopes that Ben can be a better person, but he is not going to forgive him.
Nick’s father is in town, and his mother suggests that Nick invite Charlie’s family to join them for dinner. Nick plans to come out to his father later that night, but he is forced to do it in front of everyone when David would not stop goading him.
Nick tells his father that Charlie is his boyfriend and also makes it clear that he does not care about his father’s opinion because his father has never cared about his children either. Nick does not even care about his brother bullying him.
Nick’s father wants to be better. He does not understand everything, but he does tell Nick that it was nice meeting his boyfriend. By standing up to David, Nick proves that he cares a lot about Charlie, which earns him Charlie’s mother’s approval.
Heartstopper season 2 ending explained in detail:
What happens at the school prom?
On the day of the prom, Nick comes out on social media and receives positive responses from people. Now everyone knows that he is bisexual, and Nick’s friends accept him. They also tell him that they missed him.
On the other hand, Tao asks Elle to be his girlfriend, and she agrees. At the prom, they dance and laugh together. Elle then tells him that she wants to go to Lambert, but Tao has already figured it out, and he does not try to stop her.
Isaac decides to read the book about asexuality and get to know himself better. Mr. Ajayi also calls Mr. Farouk to the prom, and the two of them agree to go out for dinner and drinks next time.
When Charlie and Nick realize that they were so preoccupied with coming out that they forgot why they wanted to do it in the first place, they decide to leave the prom and go to Nick’s house with their friends. They spend some quality time with their friends, and the night ends on a happy note for all of them.
Does Darcy confess her feelings?
A night before the prom, Darcy’s mother sees her in a suit that she had bought to wear to the prom. Her mother does not want her to wear that to school and argues with her. An upset Darcy storms out of her house and spends the night in a park.
The next day, she is nowhere to be found. Tara keeps contacting her, but she does not get a response. When Tara does not hear from her all day and when Darcy does not show up to the prom, she gets worried.
She leaves the prom and goes to Darcy’s house to look for her. There, she meets Darcy’s mother and finds out what happened the night before. She also comes to know that Darcy’s mother does not know that Darcy is a lesbian.
Darcy eventually comes to the prom, but Tara is no longer there. She then meets Tara at Nick’s house. Darcy confesses that she hides who she is from her parents and that she is not as confident as she seems to be.
It turns out that she had a hard time confessing her feelings because she does not believe that she can be loved, as Tara has not seen the other half of her life. When she realizes that Tara loves her even after seeing the other half of her life, she confesses her feelings to her.
Does Charlie open up to Nick?
Nick has been worried about Charlie’s eating habits. He cannot help but notice that Charlie does not eat as much as he should. He then discusses the possibility of Charlie still being upset about everything that happened to him last year with Tao.
Tao believes that Charlie is still carrying the burden of being bullied at school. Nick realizes that Charlie does not talk about how bad the bullying was with anyone, not even his best friend, Tao.
On the prom night, when all their friends leave, Nick makes Charlie stay back and talk to him about everything that happened to him, even when Charlie insists that he is fine. Charlie tells Nick about the time when he was outed before he was ready and how he was called disgusting by homophobic people at school.
At some point, he started believing everything that his bullies said to him and harming himself. Nick makes Charlie promise to tell him if things get that bad again, as he wants to be there for him like Charlie had been there for him.
Nick almost confesses his love for Charlie, but they are interrupted by Nick’s mother. When Charlie leaves Nick’s house, he types a message, saying that he loves him, but we never get to see if he sent the message or not.
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