Heated Rivalry: Soundtrack as narrative

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Yes, I know I already wrote this other essay about Heated Rivalry but there's something else we need to talk about. The absolutely genius usage of Wolf Parade's "I'll Believe in Anything" as both soundtrack and plot device.

For the uninitiated (let's get into it!): Heated Rivalry is a queer sports romance following professional hockey players navigating the fact that there are no out gay professional hockey players... until there are. You may have heard it called hockey smut, and that's not entirely wrong, but what keeps me up at night aside from the obvious is what they did with that Wolf Parade song.

The first time it plays, Shane is sitting in a café during the Sochi Olympics - in Russia. His teammate says something offhand about how Shane's friend who is a figure skater is probably gay. And then, because it's Russia, that's probably a dangerous thing to be. As we zoom in on Shane's reaction, the dissonant synth intro of "I'll Believe in Anything" kicks in.

The second time the song plays, it's the same scene. The same café, the same moment, the same words spoken by the same teammate. But now we're in Hunter's POV at the start of Episode 3 where his storyline really begins. The song plays again, and this time it means something completely different. We're watching Hunter hear the same offhand comment, and the song is doing the work of telling us something the show isn't saying out loud yet. We don't know he's gay. Not officially. But I'll Believe in Anything knows, and it's letting us in on it.

This time the song keeps playing as Hunter finishes an angst filled morning run as we also hear a hockey podcast criticize his recent performance. We finally hear the first iteration of the lyrics "Give me your eyes / I need sunshine" as he heads into the smoothie shop where he meets Kip for the first time.

The third time, later that same episode, Kip's best friend Elena is dancing with Hunter, and she tells him that Kip deserves sunshine. That Hunter deserves sunshine. They deserve to be out and happy. The lyric isn't quoted directly, but it's obviously set there for us to remember.

The show threading the song's actual words into the spoken dialogue without making it on-the-nose. Just: here's the through-line. Here's what this song is about in this particular universe.

By the time the song is used for the fourth time, it's finally allowed to play out in its entirety. Episode Five, Hunter wins "The Cup," and as he realizes that he doesn't have family running onto the ice to celebrate with him, here comes Wolf Parade! As the song ramps up, he brings Kip onto the ice, the full song playing out in what is one of the most romantic scenes I have ever watched.

And if that's not enough, the song briefly cuts out so we can hear Ilya's "I'm coming to the cottage" then comes right back in with the words nobody knows you and nobody gives a damn.

::audience screaming::

I was dead. I died. Lucy was wondering why her human was crying about sports.

I feel like the show's creator, Jacob Tierney, watched the use of Linda Ronstadt's "Long Long Time" in The Last of Us and thought "hold my beer."

This kind of music supervision isn't common. It requires a kind of restraint most TV doesn't have, or at least a trust that the viewer will pick up on the subtleties, the lyrics, etc. You have to trust that a three-minute song can do more than thirty seconds of dialogue.

Heated Rivalry uses "I'll Believe in Anything" as a load-bearing wall. Remove the song and something about the structure collapses. It's just epic.

I can barely think of other examples that go this far, or that use a song as more than just a dramatic buffer. It creates a core memory with the song that isn't even my own, it belongs to the characters. But play me that intro any day of the week and suddenly I feel like the-one-that-got-away is holding up a boom box outside my window.

WELL DONE.

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