The very minute the first season of Love, Victor ended I was on Google trying to find out the status of Season 2. I really didn’t want to wait another year or more for another season of the show and at the time there was a lot of unknowns in the entertainment industry due to the pandemic at the time but thankfully one year one, Season 2 is here.
For the uninitiated among you who may be reading this, Love, Victor is TV spin-off / sequel to the much beloved 2018 film, Love, Simon starring Nick Robinson. Love, Victor begins a year or so later at the same high school with Victor Salazar moving to town with his family for a fresh start. Victor, like Simon before him, is attempting to navigate the world as he slowly begins uncovering the truth about his sexuality and soon enough strikes up pen pal style friendship with Simon.
Picking up where we left off, the first episode of the season deals with the immediate aftermath of Victor coming out to his parents. However, straight afterwards there’s a time jump of several weeks and that really annoyed me to be honest. I was so disappointed by the fact they failed to capitalise on those days following Victor and his family as they adjust to the news of his coming out as well as the bombshell dropped right before that that his parents were getting separated.
If the first season of Love, Victor was about Victor coming to terms with the truth about his sexuality, then Season 2 is about the rest of his family coming to terms with it. Victor’s mother struggles to balance her love for her son with her religion while his father tries to be as understanding as possible by attending meetings for likeminded parents in a similar situation.
While I’m definitely not the target audience for this show, Love, Victor does a good job at making me feel like I belong in the world it sets up and not only does Season 2 really hit the ground running from the very first episode, it does distance itself a little from Love, Simon with their interactions cut to a bare minimum allowing the show to breath and develop it’s own personality in order to survive on its own merit.
Granted, I’ve not actually watched Season 1 since I first saw it but I do feel that Season 2 is an improvement in almost every way. The characters feel more defined this time around and the show begins to feel more like an ensemble piece with most of the supporting cast getting their own story and development this time around as well.
Aside from the aforementioned time jump, the only other issue I have with the show is that I just feel not enough people watch it because not enough people are even aware of it. Despite being on Disney Plus here in the UK, I have seen no advertising for this show all and even to find Season 1 on the platform I have to do some digging around. Luckily, thanks to the wonder of VPN I managed to catch the full season on Hulu instead of waiting for the weekly rollout we’re getting in the UK starting on June 18th.
For me this show is up there with the likes of Cobra Kai or The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers for one of the best shows on TV right now. Love, Victor is a wonderful feel good show with the perfect balance of comedy and drama. I don’t care if you’re gay, straight, bisexual or whatever else, it doesn’t matter. Love, Victor is a story about love, family and acceptance. It’s about standing up for what you believe in and being proud of who you are. It’s about being true to yourself and that is a message that I’m sure we can all get behind,
by Edward Laing
