This article contains spoilers for Heartstopper season 2 episode 8, "Perfect".
Heartstopper season 2 has seen Nick's coming out journey reach its peak. Whilst he and Charlie are enjoying the fact that they can finally be out together in public, there are still some big hurdles in the way for them and their friends to face in the show's season finale.
Let's recap how prom went in Heartstopper season 2 episode 8 and whether or not all the couples in the Netflix show will make it through to season 3.
- Heartstopper season 2 episode 1 recap: Coming out is hard
- Heartstopper season 2 episode 2 recap: Family trouble
- Heartstopper season 2 episode 3 recap: Tao and Elle's first date
- Heartstopper season 2 episode 4 recap: Welcome to Paris
- Heartstopper season 2 episode 5 recap: Je t’aime, moi non plus
- Heartstopper season 2 episode 6 recap: Everybody's kissing
- Heartstopper season 2 episode 7 recap: The art of not caring
Prom is coming
To start this episode off on a good note, we find Nick waking up and immediately posting a picture of him and Charlie on Instagram with the caption “Boyfriends (I’m bi, actually)”. When he goes over to Charlie’s afterwards, he is greeted by a happy boyfriend who tells him he is the best. As they look at the comments under Nick’s post, they see there is a wave of support but also some negativity from people who question Nick’s sexuality, but the latter isn’t too bothered by the reactions and says it’s nothing they didn’t expect.
The boys wonder how prom will go and Nick asks Charlie if he really wants to attend, but Charlie says this is the best time of his life, that everything is perfect, and that he absolutely wants to show people how cute of a couple he and Nick make.
Meanwhile, Elle and Tao are hanging out and he finally asks her to be his girlfriend, to which Elle (of course) says yes. Over at the school, Tara and Sahar are setting things up for prom with other students and things are going poorly. Darcy is nowhere to be found and Tara worries both about her and the preparations for prom. Desperate, she asks the gang for help and everyone comes to her rescue. When they get there, the group has to admit the set up is a mess and they all get to it. While Nick and Charlie are working, some kids come to ask about the status of their relationship and after Nick explains once again that he is actually bisexual, he notices all this attention might be getting to Charlie.
A friendship has been brewing between Nick and Tao, and the former takes a break from prom decorating to talk to him about his concerns regarding Charlie. He points out that all the attention from his coming out and his Instagram post seem to be a lot for Charlie, and explains how he worries that everything Charlie has been through with being bullied the previous year is still weighing on his boyfriend.
Tao agrees that things we experience in the past still affect us in the present and compares Charlie’s situation to the fact that, for him, losing his father when he was 12 is a big part of his constant fear of losing his friends. Tao then mentions how bad the bullying was for Charlie and it turns out that neither him or Nick know the extent of it because Charlie won’t talk about it.
Summer of love
It’s time for prom and as Charlie and Nick marvel at each other’s handsomeness in a suit, Tao picks up Elle and is stunned by her beauty. The gang makes it to the “Summer of Love” themed prom and enjoy themselves taking pictures, dancing and spending time with their dates. Nick’s friends come up to him and apologize for making him feel like he could not tell them about his relationship with Charlie, before adding that they miss him. In the meantime, Elle and Tao dance and she tells him she wants to go to the Lambert School of Art, but Tao is far from surprised by the news.
Off to the library, Isaac picks up a book on asexuality that he starts reading immediately, while in the gym Mr. Ajayi invites Mr. Farouk on a date following their night together in Paris. As the party continues, Nick finds Charlie sitting alone at a table, and suggests they do something like dance or take pictures but Charlie asks if they can go home.
He realizes they’ve put a lot of expectations on how things would be after Nick came out when in fact all he wants is to just be able to have a fun night with his boyfriend and their friend, instead of putting on a show for other people. Since Nick’s mother and brother are out that evening, Nick suggests they all go to his place.
Things should be better nowadays
While setting things up for prom, Tara gets more and more worried about Darcy, who is MIA and doesn’t return her texts. When the gang arrives for prom, Tara brushes off Darcy's absence and pretends she is only late. As the evening goes on, she finally admits to Nick that she cannot find her and knows something is wrong. Encouraged by him to simply do her best to talk to Darcy, Tara decides to leave to go find her. However, Darcy finally arrives at prom while Tara is off to her house. When she gets there, she is greeted by Darcy’s unpleasant mother and understands her girlfriend took off after having a fight with her, during which she was told her outfit made her “look like a lesbian.” Not pushing the matter further, Tara is leaving when she gets a call from Nick telling her they found Darcy and to meet them at his place.
When they are finally reunited, Darcy and Tara have a long overdue heart-to-heart conversation during which Darcy explains that she might be a confident lesbian at school, but things are much different for her at home. She hasn’t come out to her parents and doubts she ever will, adding that she has to hide who she is at home and that her mother sometimes makes her hate herself. She then admits that the reason why she didn’t tell Tara she loved her back at first was because she was worried Tara didn’t know the real Darcy, being unaware of that aspect of her life. Tara reassures her that she loves all of her, and the two girls then share multiple “I love you”.
After the gang hangs out at Nick’s and they all have a good time, everyone leaves and Nick and Charlie find themselves alone. They chat a bit as Nick tries to get Charlie to open up about what happened to him. At first, Charlie doesn’t want to talk about it and Nick points out that although Charlie wants things to be perfect all the time, he knows they aren’t.
Eventually, Charlie explains how, after he was outed at school, he faced a level of homophobia he didn’t expect. He thought things would be better nowadays, yet he had people calling him disgusting to his face. It came to a point where he started to believe what people were saying, began to hate himself and even sometimes cut himself. Telling Nick he doesn’t want to feel like that anymore, his boyfriend hugs him and asks that he lets him know if things get bad again.
Charlie doesn’t want Nick to think he is “a broken mess to fix” but Nick assures him that all he wants is to be there for Charlie, just as he was there for him, and so Charlie promises. The two of them kiss, and Nick starts listing all the things he loves about Charlie, stopping short of saying “I love you” when they hear his mother and brother come home. As it is now time for Charlie to leave, the boys say goodbye and once outside, Charlie starts typing out a message to Nick that reads “I love you.”
Will Charlie hit send on that message? All we can do now is wait for Heartstopper season 3, which has already been ordered by Netflix, to come out so that we can find out.
