Heated Rivalry: I'll Believe in Anything

“How about you tell me everything that is on your mind, but in Russian?”

This episode made me emotionally compromised. There’s really no other way to describe it. Also, this review is even longer than the last one. Get snacks!

It still makes me emotionally compromised even after watching it 5+ times. When it first aired, it was the highest rated episode of television ever, and while I’m sure that it’s fallen down the rankings since then, just the fact that it was beating shows like Breaking Bad makes me emotional! It makes my heart full!

And it really starts from the first big scene with Shane and Rose in the restaurant. I just… it’s really difficult to put into words how comforting and gentle this scene was. The women in this show, as a whole, are amazing but Rose in particular is a queen among them.

First, I love the self-confidence that it takes to say “My boyfriend doesn’t enjoy sex with me, so he’s definitely gay instead of it being anything on my end.” I swear, that’s not as snarky as it might sound. There’s definitely a version of this where Rose felt insecure or hurt over Shane’s performance issues and lashed out, and I’m really glad that we didn’t get that. Instead, we got understanding and love.

Rose is a Michigan girl with three brothers, one of which made it to the minor leagues. She knows hockey. She knows that there aren’t any openly gay players. But she still uses that to try and create a comfortable space for Shane. Hockey is something that is easy for him to talk about. It’s a safer topic than just straight up asking him about his sexuality.

Which ends up being what she needs to do, of course. But even then, she doesn’t press. She doesn’t demand verbal answers. She just lets Shane know that it’s okay, that he’s safe, and that she still adores him. I feel like I’m being wrapped in a warm hug the entire time. The lighting goes a long way here. It’s golden and intimate, and it makes everything feel soft.

I’ve praised Connor Storrie a lot (and trust me, I’m going to do it more later in the review), but Hudson Williams is also doing some devastating work here. His stuff is less flashy, and I don’t want it to get buried or ignored. He does so much with his eyes. The confusion, the panic, the softness, the way his eyes get so glassy without letting tears actually fall. He speaks silent monologues with them, and every word is crystal clear. And the way that his voice wavers when he confirms that it was better with a guy? Oh, my heart.

The brief flashbacks to Ilya kill me too, because they’re different from the “real” version that we saw earlier. It’s subtle, but most noticeable in the third one. In Shane’s memory, Ilya is smiling more and pulling Shane with less hesitation than how it actually happened.

And I love that Shane and Rose continue to be friends. Actual, real friends, and that we see them continue to be friends. The chemistry between them wasn’t a lie. It simply wasn’t romantic.

Again, there is an almost immediate compare/contrast afterwards with Svetlana and Ilya. It’s definitely implied that she knows that Jane is Shane Hollander, if only because she directly calls Ilya out for denying that he’s gorgeous. But more than anything, I just love how comfortable they are together. We so rarely see Ilya be that playful, and I can visualize how they would have been when they were children.

All of this leads to the All-Star game, and for the first time, Shane and Ilya get to play on the same team. Which, yeah, there’s definitely something to be said thematically about how they’re only able to be honest and open with each other once they’re in a situation that doesn’t actively pit them against each other. They are, for the first time, literally on the same side. It’s not weird for them to sit at a bar together and talk, or for Ilya to rope Shane into the game at the pool.

Shane feels so much more centered, too. Getting a stylist and accepting that he’s gay is a very good look for him. His energy during the conversation at the bar is very different from any of their previous scenes together. Ilya’s, meanwhile, feels very similar to how it was during the Tuna Melt scene. He’s trying to figure out where exactly they stand. I think he asks Shane four different questions before he finally just asks about Rose outright.

I love the way that scene is shot. The camera holds focus on Shane and Ilya and lingers when they’re not talking instead of instantly cutting back and forth. It lets us see their reactions... and the fact that they blatantly look each other up and down the entire time.

All-Star Weekend culminates, of course, with the conversation in the hotel room. For once, they actually talk about the things that they have spent the last however many years avoiding. Ilya laughing at Shane’s confession that he’s gay is maybe not the best reaction, but I get it. It’s very much a “fork found in the kitchen” moment for him. It’s far more important for Shane, and the way that he almost aggressively marked a difference between being gay and being bisexual is crunchy in a way that I need to wrestle with a little longer before having any concrete thoughts about it.

And of course, there is also a difference between being gay and being with Ilya specifically. His arch rival. I did appreciate that Shane apologized for freaking out. You don’t always see that, but Shane apologized twice. And it makes sense that Ilya is still a little gunshy. The whole afternoon that he organized with Shane blew up in his face. His attempt at more was shut down hard.

There is also the lingering specter of Russia. It’s still his home. His family. Even if they’re horrible, he doesn’t want to completely leave them. But he opened up about it all. He told Shane about his father, he mentioned his mother. And then he cried. It’s by far the most emotional he’s allowed himself to be in front of another person.

We don’t see any of the sex, either. Instead, we have the more “traditional” shorthand, like cuts to them being shirtless with the blankets pooled around their waist. It’s an interesting shift. On one hand, it frees up screentime, which the episode needs because a lot of things happen and I’d much rather have something like the Russian Monologue than a few minutes of phone sex.

But on the other hand, it marks a rather stark shift in their relationship. They actually have a relationship that goes beyond physical intimacy. That’s the important part right now. They’re talking to each other. They’re calling each other for reasons that have nothing to do with sex.

Shall we talk about Russia now? Let’s talk about Russia now.

Funeral first. This is the only time that we see Ilya and Alexei interact with each other in person. Alexei had no issues putting his hands on his little brother. Ilya is a professional hockey player who is known to be physical, arguably one of the last people you would ever want to get into a fight with, and there was still zero hesitation. It certainly implied that this wasn’t the first time that Alexei had done this and that he knew that he could get away with it.

And he did. Sure, Ilya pushed back verbally, but we’ve watched him do that all season while still ultimately doing what Alexei wanted. Raising his voice just made Alexei hush him and remind him that they were in public. He was very confident that he had complete control over the situation.

There is something very sad and yet very sweet that Ilya only meaningfully fought back once Alexei insulted Svetlana. I was surprised at the intensity of his anger. We’ve never seen that level of rage from Ilya before, and it triggered instantly. It cooled just as quickly too, or at least Ilya managed to wrestle it under control very quickly.

It wasn’t nearly as cathartic as I expected it to be the first time that I watched it. Ilya finally cutting off his abusive family didn’t give me any sense of relief. Nor did Svetlana’s conversation and reassurances that she loves Ilya and will always be there for him (a more explicit mirror to the Rose conversation at the start of the episode.) I did kick my feet a little at her explicitly referring to Jane as a guy, though.

No, the catharsis only came during the Monologue. Yes, the capitalization there is required. And yes, I also need to take a moment to remind everyone that Connor Storrie is not Russian, and did not know Russian prior to being cast. And yet he performs a four to five page emotional monologue, completely in Russian, without anyone else in the scene to react to or bounce off of. And he does it so incredibly well.

It’s catharsis and it makes me cry every time, and that’s before I consider what the scene is actually doing. It’s Ilya actually accepting Shane’s offer of help as opposed to just brushing it off or asking for sex instead. And it’s the way that he helps, too! He just gives Ilya space to vent, to say everything that is on his mind without any judgement because Shane won’t understand a word of it. He doesn’t need to censor himself or worry about how Shane will react.

It’s something that only Shane can give him. Both because he doesn’t know Russian, but also because Ilya trusts him enough to not have a translator app pulled up to secretly figure out what he’s saying. I also love how intently Shane listens. He doesn’t care that he can’t understand the words. He’s listening to the cadence and the emotion and that’s enough for him.

It’s nearly a decade of grief and frustration, because even if you know that your family is terrible, you still love them. Ilya loves his brother, even if Alexei hates him. He loves his father, even if his father never truly knew him. He was on the other side of the world earning money to support everyone, but he wasn’t home. He wasn’t there to physically take care of his father as he died.

That’s a lot of guilt to take on. It’s incredibly complicated and messy. It’s not just black and white. It’s interesting that Ilya doesn’t elaborate on why Alexei hates him. There are a few options, of course. Ilya’s sexuality, the fact that he’s a star hockey player, trauma involving their mother and how Ilya is the one that wears her cross, a combination of all of the above… The important part is that Ilya seems to have accepted whatever the reason is. It’s not new information to him.

My heart just breaks for him. I don't think that he intended on saying anything about Shane, either. His words just led him there, and he had to take a moment to reconsider if he was actually going to voice his emotions.

I love what the camera does in the moment where Ilya takes the phone away from his ear and looks off to the side. It’s a much wider shot, giving us far more distance from Ilya than what we’ve otherwise had so far during this scene. It also gives us the small detail of a cop car driving by while Ilya is debating professing his love. It’s blurry and not the focus of the moment at all, but it’s there.

The actual love confession is the highlight, of course. Because it’s not just that he is in love with Shane. It’s that he is desperately in love with Shane to the point where Shane is all that he thinks about. He wants nothing more than to be with Shane right now, and that is what kills him even more than everything else going on with his family.

Just… What else is there to say? It’s beautiful and heartbreaking and would be the absolute high water mark of the episode except for the fact that we still have the ending itself to get to.

The thing that utterly destroys me the most, though, is that we don’t see the end of the phone call. They’re still on the phone together as Ilya walks away. It’s so cute. I love little moments of intimacy like this.

I don’t love the use of Moonlight Sonata, though. It’s such a well-known piece of music that I found it to be very distracting. Kind of wish that they had used something from a Russian composer instead, or maybe just turned down the volume of the music, but that’s nitpicking.

It’s kind of amazing just how much they manage to pack into this episode. It doesn’t really give Shane or Ilya time to breathe or settle into their new dynamic before throwing something else at them, whether it’s a death in the family or a major injury.

If I have one complaint about the episode, it has to do with the hit itself. It makes sense that one of them would get seriously hurt at some point during their careers. Hockey is an incredibly physical game. I just hate how that happened. I know absolutely nothing about hockey, and even I know that you don’t look back over your shoulder while skating with the puck down the center of the ice. You watch where you’re going. I just can’t see Shane doing such a dumb thing. He takes hockey too seriously for that.

It was interesting that they really only showed us Ilya’s reaction through an outsider POV. We didn’t get to “be” with Ilya. We only got to watch his reaction through the broadcast feed, and even that was interpreted for us by the announcers. It’s easy to forget that they are rivals with a whole narrative that the world knows and believes. Anything that they publicly do is viewed through that lens.

It limits them in a very real way. Ilya can’t get an answer on whether or not Shane is okay. He’s physically pushed away and verbally dismissed. He’s not allowed to be worried for the man that he’s in love with.

I avoid talking about the books in these reviews because they’re two separate things, but there’s a key change in this scene that I find really interesting. In the books, Shane’s injury on the ice is told through his POV, and he thinks/potentially says, “They can see us, Ilya,” after he hears him freaking out. In the show, Shane says, “Tell him I’m fine.”

Those are two very different sentences. One is a warning, the other is a reassurance. It also shifts where the tension is in the scene. In the show, there isn’t really any concern that this specific moment is going to out them. We hear the announcers talk about Ilya’s reaction in the context of sportsmanship. No one is questioning or wondering why he’s so worried. Even when Shane does mutter Ilya’s name, the EMT immediately makes it clear that he didn’t hear what he said. The tension is on the fact that Shane is hurt, and that is it.

It also paints Shane as someone who is more worried about Ilya than he is about people finding out, which is a departure from how secrecy focused he’s been in the past.

Everything about the hospital itself was amazing. Shane was high as a kite, and had never looked or sounded more adorable. I’ve been muttering “Bet-ter” to myself for months now. Again, the lighting is very warm and soft, especially once Ilya does join Shane’s bedside. The way that Ilya gently traced Shane’s freckles was also cute as hell.

It also represents a large step forward in their relationship. Just the fact that Shane planned on asking Ilya to come to his cottage for the summer, regardless of what Ilya’s answer would be, signals a desire for more. For more than just the occasional hookup. To actually spend time with him like a normal person.

And of course, it’s a callback to the previous episode when Shane said that he didn’t want to spend his only two weeks of vacation a year with someone he didn’t know. He wants to spend that time with Ilya.

Ilya’s “Maybe” is interesting because it’s not just an obvious “No”, it’s a “We can’t.” Like how he told Shane that they can’t be anything more, it’s less a refusal than it is an attempt to cling to survivability. Ilya is in love with Shane. We know this. He knows this. And yet he doesn’t take the chance to go to the cottage when it is first offered.

What were his summer plans? Svetlana reminds him to pack something for his niece during the Cup Finals, so was he going to go back to Russia? Even though he gave up his apartment and clearly cut ties with his brother? Clearly, they weren’t anything too critical given the final line of the episode.

By the time this episode came out, I was aware of how Scott and Kip’s story ended. I knew that there was going to be a kiss on the ice. But, oh, that still did not prepare me for the way my heart leapt to my throat once “I’ll Believe in Anything” started up.

The lyrics are perfect with the direct callback to needing sunshine, and the way that it builds to a crescendo is just… the music in this show is just so, so good. It’s so well chosen.

It’s really hard to write about this scene without feeling like I’m just flailing wildly and gesturing towards it with a nearly subsonic screech that sounds like a dying whale, but I just love everything about it!

I love how the camera whirls around Scott and Kip as they kiss and how that motion continues when we cut to Shane and Ilya, like they’re just as swept up in what is happening as Scott and Kip are.

I love how clearly we can track Scott’s thought process down to the very moment where he first gets the idea to invite Kip down. I love how he echoes their first date with the head nod, then the more overt wave to get Kips’ attention. I love how after Kip starts walking down, Scott has a moment of “I can’t believe I’m doing this” as he glances behind him.

I love how Kip tells Scott that he doesn’t have to do this, and I love how Scott reaffirms that he does.

I love how excited the announcers are, that we get confirmation that the crowd is supporting him. I love that the moment is met with cheers and love and excitement. I love that it is met with love.

I love that seeing it happen is what gave Ilya the confidence to immediately call Shane. I love that it gave him the confidence to want and ask for something more. I love how representation can turn a “We can’t” into a “Yes.” I love how this is a story about queer joy instead of trauma and grief.

And I especially love that the next episode is called “The Cottage.” We all get to go.

Random Thoughts

So, the three year time gap between “Hunter” and the kiss is a production mistake. It was supposed to only be a couple of months, and the mistake wasn’t caught until it was too late to fix it, and a few months is a far more reasonable amount of time to kiss your ex in front of the entire world without any prior contact. Therefore, I choose to believe that Scott and Kip quietly got back together after Kip finished grad school with Scott coming out to a small circle of people, including Kip’s father.

The beach scene where Shane and Ilya stare at the sunset was shot on a soundstage, not on an actual beach. Arguably one of my favorite shots of the episode. It’s so pretty.

Ilya is amazing with kids. He would be a great dad.

I love that Shane actively gets dressed and heads out the door while texting Ilya that he isn’t going to go to his room because they have a game that day.

Shane’s heartbeat goes down to 81 when Ilya visits him in the hospital. 81, of course, is Ilya’s jersey number.

The phone call with Rose initially caught me off guard since it seemed like a rather private conversation to have in front of a makeup artist, but on rewatch, they don’t say anything about Shane’s sexuality.

Also, I love how Rose is clearly Mystique in the X-Squad movies. They didn’t even try to hide it.

Stopping here before I write 4,000 words about how Ilya uses clothing to make himself into an object of desire, the gender stereotypes of active looker vs. passive looked-at-ness, and how that’s contrasted with how he presents himself in Russia. And how that compares to Shane and the clothing that he chooses for himself versus the clothing that advertisers put him in. I swear, I’m totally normal about this show and these characters. Totally normal.

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An Honest Fangirl loves video games, horror movies, and superheroes, and occasionally manages to put words together in a coherent and pleasing manner.

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