🤐 SPOILER ALERT 🤐

When Joe Locke spoke to Netflix in June, he said a single moment was his favorite from Heartstopper Season 2: his character Charlie’s last scene with his boyfriend Nick (Kit Connor). “It’s also the scene I’m most proud of in the show,” he added. 

Now that Heartstopper Season 2 is streaming, it’s obvious why Locke was so passionate about the conversation. In the season’s closing scene, Nick — who publicly comes out as bisexual during Episode 6’s Paris trip — and Charlie share their deepest heart-to-heart yet. 

Following a euphoric prom and after-party with their closest friends, Nick asks Charlie about the homophobic bullying he experienced prior to their relationship. After two seasons of holding in so much more than Nick realized, Charlie reveals the severe pain the bullying actually caused. The experience was so detrimental, Charlie admits he would self-harm at times. The boys share a tearful embrace and Charlie promises he’ll let Nick know if he ever feels that “bad” again. 

“It is a really big, bomb-drop moment,” Heartstopper creator and executive producer Alice Oseman tells Tudum. “I wanted the viewers to feel like that hadn’t come out of nowhere and that we had felt that journey through the season.”   

Oseman put a lot of work into making this latest evolution in Nick and Charlie’s relationship feel “hard-won.” In Oseman’s Heartstopper comics, the delicate conversation arrives earlier in their relationship, before the Paris trip. “But we felt like it needed to be later [in the series], because we wanted to show the journey of Charlie slowly feeling like he can open up to Nick about this really serious thing that has happened to him,” they say.   

Throughout the season, Nick starts to feel “something” is holding Charlie back. But the boys also spend that time bonding and learning more about each other. By the last scene of the finale, Nick and Charlie have shared a “beautiful montage” of post-prom memories with their closest friends. 

“Charlie is in his safe place. He’s in Nick’s bedroom; he has just been with all of his friends,” Oseman says. “He’s really at his most peaceful in that moment and that’s when he’s able to share those feelings.”

The scene leaves Charlie and Nick feeling so connected, they both almost tell the other “I love you.” Nick is cut off by his mom Sarah (Olivia Colman) returning home; Charlie writes out a DM proclaiming his love for Nick, but Heartstopper Season 2 cuts to black before he can send it. Fans will likely be burning to find out what’s next for the couple — and what the finale means for the rest of Charlie and Nick’s chosen family. Keep reading to find out. 

Teddy Cavendish/Netflix

Are Tara and Darcy OK? 

Throughout Heartstopper Season 2, Tara (Corinna Brown) starts to realize she doesn’t know as much about her beloved girlfriend Darcy (Kizzy Edgell) as she initially assumed. Her concern comes to a head in Episode 8, when Darcy goes missing on prom night. Darcy materializes toward the end of the party and later explains to Tara that she slept at the park due to a fight with her mother. 

Although Tara once told Darcy she was much more comfortable with her place in the queer community than her, Darcy says her life isn’t that simple. Darcy still hasn’t come out to her parents, and her argument with her mother was about looking “like a lesbian” in her prom suit. Considering Darcy’s perceived chasm between who Tara thinks she is, and the reality of her identity, she was afraid her girlfriend couldn’t truly love her. But that’s not the case. The girls end the season trading passionate “I love you”s. 

“In the comics Tara and Darcy are the perfect couple,” says Oseman. “With the series, I really wanted to delve into their relationship and see what is going on, because things aren’t always perfect.” 

But, as the writer emphasizes, this is Heartstopper — these teens are ultimately going to be OK. “They just needed to go on that journey, learn more about each other, talk to each other and communicate,” says Oseman, who loves Tara and Darcy’s last moment in Season 2.  “It’s like many scenes we’ve had with Nick and Charlie, where it’s all about being honest and sharing your feelings. That is how you grow as a couple.”   

Will Elle go to Lambert? 

Elle (Yasmin Finney) and Tao (Will Gao) finally get together in Heartstopper Season 2. As Finney told Netflix in June, “Elle and Tao, they’re just perfect together. They are so perfectly imperfect that it’s just a joy to watch.” By the finale, Tao asks Elle to be his girlfriend and she happily accepts. 

“Tao and Elle’s romance is a huge part of this season and it’s quite a big part of Volume 3 [which inspires this season] as well,” Oseman says. “But I got to show it in the series in so much more detail.”  

With more attention comes a wrench for this fairy-tale love story. Elle is accepted at Lambert, an art school with a thriving queer community… that happens to be much further from home (and Tao) than they’re all used to. “It’s hard because you're in the academic system and you’re thrust into this world of choosing your path. Elle knows what she wants to do, but it’s at the expense of other things,” Finney said. “I think she’s overwhelmed.”  

At prom, Elle shares her final decision: She wants to go to Lambert. Tao, seemingly finally at peace with his relationship, accepts the news quickly and easily. 

Still, we don’t see Elle pack her bags and head to Lambert in Season 2. So you’ll have to come back to find out what’s next for Elle and her art school dreams. 

Teddy Cavendish/Netflix

What’s going on with Mr. Farouk and Mr. Ajayi? 

Toward the end of Episode 6, Darcy vomits on Mr. Nathan Ajayi’s (Fisayo Akinade) bed due to “food poisoning” (or, at least, that’s what everyone will tell their parents). This unsexy problem leads to a very romantic moment for Charlie’s favorite teacher and Mr. Youssef Farouk (Nima Taleghani), who are sharing a hotel room during the Paris trip. Over wine and loaded glances, Youssef invites Nathan to share his bed. The men kiss and, it’s suggested, the evening only gets steamier from there. 

In the finale, Nathan gets Youssef to join him as a chaperone at prom. Although they agree their school trip dalliance was professionally risky, there’s a silver lining. “Next time,” they tell each other, they’ll do dinner and drinks. The future is officially wide open — and bright — for these two. 

What does Isaac’s  revelation mean?  

The friend group’s resident introvert, Isaac (Tobie Donovan), gets a would-be love interest in Season 2. Fellow Truham student James (Bradley Riches) pursues Isaac throughout the season, and they kiss in Paris. But in Episode 7, Isaac has to break the truth to James — he’s not interested and can’t even imagine the feeling of having a crush on someone. 

James tells Isaac he probably hasn’t “found the right person yet.” But later in the episode, Isaac realizes that might not be true. At the Lambert art show, he finds an installation celebrating asexuality and aromantic people. Isaac is thrilled. “It’s this big moment of like, ‘Oh my God, what is this?’” Donovan told Tudum while onset in November 2022. Then, in the finale, Isaac is seen reading Summer Bird Blue by Akemi Dawn Bowman — a novel in which the protagonist explores the asexual spectrum — and he picks up Angela Chen’s Ace, a nonfiction book about asexuality, in the Truham library. 

“Isaac goes on this journey of exploring his own sexuality and where he fits on the queer identity spectrum. He’s coming to terms with his asexuality,” Donovan continued.

Although the Lambert art piece is pivotal to Isaac’s journey, Donovan noted that his character had many more before it. “There’s also loads of little moments where he’s just clocking other people making out at a party, or clocking his friends holding hands,” he said. “And those little moments were equally as important in the discovery and in the finding of himself.” 

Samuel Dore/Netflix

Is Ben really gone?  

Yes, he is. In Episode 7, Ben (Sebastian Croft) shows up to the Lambert art show to apologize to Charlie and reveal he’s leaving Truham. As Oseman confirmed to Tudum, the scene will be Ben’s last in Heartstopper. Click here to read the writer’s response to Ben’s farewell, along with Croft’s. 

Is Charlie going to press “send” on that DM? 

“I don’t want to spoil [anything]. I can’t,” Oseman swears. So you’re going to have to tune in to Heartstopper’s already confirmed Season 3 to find out! 

Additional reporting by Tara Bitran. 

Kit Connor & Joe Locke of 'Heartstopper' Answer Fan Questions