“Heartstopper” creator Alice Oseman has always said the graphic novel series-turned Netflix show will have a happy ending.
From the animated orange and blue leaves that sweep in when character’s feel big emotions, to its uplifting, synth soundtrack, the show is a sentimental story of first love. And while Season 3, which dropped on Netflix Oct. 3, takes on a more intense tone, the new episodes are no exception.
For a refresher, the show’s first season ended with Nick and Charlie on a beach date discussing what’s next for the newly minted boyfriends.
Season 2, meanwhile, ended with Nick coming out as bisexual, the group celebrating prom night with a sweet house party montage scene set to Taylor Swift’s “Seven,” and Nick and Charlie almost exchanging, “I love you’s.”
So with the first season tackling how a crush becomes a relationship and the second, bringing that love public, the third season offers two key arcs, Kit Connor and Joe Locke tell TODAY.com.
“The season is sort of split,” Locke, who plays Charlie, says. “The first half is definitely more about overcoming adversity and dealing with your own issues in order to help your relationship.”
“And then the second half kind of goes into the progression of their relationship and them as people, like maturing and becoming young adults,” Connor adds.
At the end of prom night in Season 2, Episode 8, Nick asks Charlie if he’s OK after noticing him appear disengaged and not eating much. Charlie confides in his boyfriend that he has self-harmed in the past but insists he doesn’t anymore.
Season 3 promises to explore Charlie’s mental health struggles further. In the official trailer, Nick sits a seemingly withdrawn Charlie down and says, “I’m really worried about you.”
Here’s how Season 3 tackles mental health, taking relationships to the next step and what it means for Nick and Charlie’s future, according to Locke and Connor.
🚨Warning: This story contains spoilers for Season 3 of “Heartstopper.”
What happens at the end of ‘Heartstopper’ Season 3?
“Heartstopper” Season 3 consists of eight episodes and crosses some major emotional terrain. The first, “Love,” picks up right where Season 2 left off — Charlie itching to say, “I love you,” and Nick, desperate for Charlie to open up about his mental health.
By the end of the season, both are addressed.
Charlie’s mental health
By the midpoint of Season 3, Charlie has to come to terms with how his mental health struggles are affecting his life.
In Episode 4, he enters a clinic for in-patient treatment where he is diagnosed with anorexia nervosa and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Anorexia is an eating disorder that involves limiting or intensely controlling the amount or type of food one eats. OCD is a pattern of unwanted thoughts (obsessions) that lead to repetitive behaviors (compulsions) that cause distress and can interrupt daily life.
Locke tells TODAY.com that his goal was to portray someone experiencing anorexia and OCD as “authentically and respectfully as possible.”
“It’s such a hard issue to portray onscreen right, and you don’t want to upset people or trigger people in any way that you don’t mean to,” he says. “I talked to people I know, and I did a lot of my own research to make sure that I wasn’t going into any stereotypes unnecessarily.”
In the show, Charlie tells Nick about his diagnosis over the phone in one of his first calls from the clinic.
“I mean, I was a bit surprised by the OCD. But I have all these rules in my head about food, and if I don’t follow them, I feel like I’m gonna die,” Charlie says with a light chuckle. “Sorry, I have to laugh about it, or I’ll just cry.”
“Well, even if you do have anorexia and OCD, the word ‘sorry’ is still banned,” Nick responds.
Charlie returns home from treatment by the end of Episode 4, and the rest of the season follows him as he works with a therapist, adheres to an eating plan and works on how to communicate with his family.
Nick’s university prospects
The back of the season primarily follows Nick and Charlie as they navigate taking their relationship to the next level.
After an honest conversation about Charlie’s fears of taking his shirt off — “I don’t look like Jack Maddox or anything,” Charlie says (more on him later) — the couple decides to pursue having sex at the end of Episodes 7 and 8.
But the season finale’s title, “Apart,” hints at the obstacles they have yet to face, specifically when it comes to Nick’s impending graduation.
Nick, who is one year older than Charlie, is starting to look at universities, and the school that’s closest to home — and Charlie — might not be the school he wants to attend.
In Episode 8, Nick, along with Tara (Corinna Brown), Imogen (Rhea Norwood) and Elle (Yasmin Finney), go on a university tour trip. After getting in traffic on the way back, they almost miss a festival in which Charlie and his band are performing. But in true “Heartstopper” fashion, the show ends on sweet note, with the crew arriving in the nick of time.
A Jonathan Bailey cameo
On a lighter note, the back half of Season 3 also brings a highly anticipated celebrity cameo.
Jonathan Bailey appears in Episode 6 as Jack Maddox, a Classics scholar and Charlie’s celebrity crush. The couple attend one of his lectures and by the end, Nick is also left frazzled and speechless by Maddox.
Locke says he and Connor “learn a lot” from having people like Bailey on set.
“You learn a lot from people at the top of their game, and even just watching him and the way that he worked is really great,” Locke says.
As for any specific advice from Bailey?
“I don’t think he really had enough time to, unfortunately,” Connor says. “I’m sure if he were there for a bit longer, if we’d given him more to do, he might have had a bit more time to share some wisdom with us.
“But to be honest … he had some tricky, tricky lines, so I think he was trying to get them out, really, which I would not have been able to do as swiftly and smoothly as he did,” he adds.
What’s next for Nick and Charlie?
While “Heartstopper” has not yet been officially renewed for a fourth season, Connor says there’s “plenty” left to explore between Nick and Charlie.
“Seeing how their relationship fares with the new things that they might have to overcome, such as long distance maybe, or just more life and hormones,” Connor says.
Season 3 touches on content up to Volume 5 of Oseman’s “Heartstopper” graphic novel series, which published in December 2023 in the U.S.
Oseman has announced that the series will conclude with Volume 6, which she is actively working on. (Oseman told The Guardian in a September article, “I’m only 50 pages in, but I know what’s going to happen, what all the dialogue is going to be, and now I’m just sitting down and drawing it, which is my favourite bit.”)
If renewed, “Heartstopper” Season 4 would be based on content from Volume 6 and a novella called “Nick and Charlie,” Oseman revealed on her Patreon back in May. “Nick and Charlie” was first published in 2015 and is set before Nick leaves for university.
As for what Volume 6 may explore, Oseman said she wants the story to feel like an “epilogue” to the core of what “Heartstopper is all about: “the everyday progression of Nick and Charlie’s relationship and the ups and downs of their school days together.”
Oseman told Attitude Magazine in 2023 she’s “known for ages how ‘Heartstopper’ is going to end.”
