Season 3 review crushthe hardest and most exciting of the Netflix series, which premiered this Thursday, October 3. Nick’s story (Kit Connor), Charlie (Joe Locke) reaches its most dramatic tone although always protected by this naive packaging which characterizes the fiction created by Alice Osman. Eight chapters that bring together volumes 4 and 5 of the graphic novels and explore the process of becoming an adult and what it really means to commit. “Love cannot cure mental illness”this sentence spoken in episode two would summarize much of the plot, based on the anorexia nervosa that Charlie suffers from. A very respectful and hopeful look at eating disorders that makes this third season of crush be the most heartbreaking and thrilling of all. A product that should be considered family and represents a hug and a safe place for any viewer.
The power of the “Hearstopper”
crush It burst onto Netflix almost without promotion (like a large majority of the platform’s products) and thanks to word of mouth, it became a phenomenon among young viewers. It is true that, in overall data, the first season did not do great things, so the renewal was uncertain. But when Red N company officials realized the cultural impact the series had had (and given the fact that it was a fairly inexpensive product), they decided to give the green light to two more episodes.
The key to crush It’s about approaching the LGTBIQ+ experience with innocence, beauty and respect. In a television ocean loaded with mainstream youth-oriented products in which storylines sexualize and exaggerate adolescence, Alice Oseman’s seemed like a beautiful and simple series but with much deeper psychological depth than it seems .
Of love and pain (warning: spoilers)
Until now, the story of Nick (Kit Connor), Charlie (Joe Locke) and their friends was based on how to integrate socially by belonging to the LGTBIQ+ collective but now, in this third season, the label is set aside (not ignored). ). weird emphasize intimacy. It’s time to analyze the characters without public accusation, to focus on the fears we all have.
As already noted at the end of season two, Charlie has an eating disorder (ED) and not because I want to lose weight. No, your illness is a sister illness to Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). He must control how and when he eats, lest his anticipated fears come true.
What’s good about crush is that, far from being a dramatic story about a young man suffering from mental health problems, it also deals with the role played by his environment, particularly his partner. Nick’s frustration with the hell his boyfriend is going through and the way he is learning to support without judging is one of the greatest depictions of emotional responsibility ever seen on television. Those who accuse the series of being too harsh and cloying should take a look at the fourth chapter of this new batch, to see if they still think the same thing.
You could say that the season is thematically divided into two parts. Until the fourth chapter, it is Charlie’s health that takes center stage, but from the fifth, it is sex as the maximum exponent of the transition to adulthood. Here, crush The intensity drops a bit but it’s heartening to see how 16 year olds are scared about their first time instead of having orgies, doing drugs and solving a murder. It’s not Elite either Euphoria. Maybe crush it may not be true, that its reflection of the world may be too optimistic, but, as consumers, we also need rays of light.
