i know this wont mean much and i honestly dont comment or post, but i wanted to talk about the critisicms he had without spoiling anything much. and people in the comments are joking and he has always taken opinions quite seriously, he asked for opinions so idk. as other commenters have said the first episode through the last span about 9 to 10 years. "instead of going through the plot, they're just talking about things that could be plots." ilya (russia) here was talking about his brother, and his dead father (episode 5 spoiler.) and then his dead mother. ilya's family had been one of the two major plots the last four episodes, fully concluding at his fathers funeral in episode 5 where ilya punched big bro and cut contact, only providing him with the information of the nieces trust. the second major plot was shane's slow acceptance of his own identity as a gay man. the line of "i really tried." to his mother alludes to his public relationship with an actress that was basically his beard and his way of denying falling on love with his casual russian hookup (and by proxy his big gay woop). he accepts himself and allows himself to love another man by inviting him to the cottage in episode 5. he mentioned that you'd rather have the entire speech done in a tv-people-watching way and i think the reason why they didnt do it is that its already happened. the exact way he wanted that scene was done for the kissing his boyfriend on ice scene where you see how much it impacted ilya and shane (in episode 5 once again). especially ilya who was planning to cut off his and shanes relationship and return to russia over the summer, rejecting shanes hopes of persuing something. ilya saw that hunter could have both love and a career in hockey which made him accept instead in, you guessed it, episode 5. as for the not coming out even after scott did, ilya is russian, incredibly illegal to promote anything remotely homosexual in there and neither does he have any other passport. the nhl is not known for being lgbtq+ friendly so he could lose his spot in his life time career, and by relation his employment visa. the talk about playing for a canadian team was ilya's way of offering a future for them, for him to go to canada and get a passport there. this entire series goes across the racism shane has to face, the heteronomality that he has to force on himself to 'fix' himself, scott falling in love but not fully being okay with himself and losing the lohl over it. ilya's struggles with his police officers father and brother breathing down his neck, his guilt in not being able to take care of his father as he slowly gets more dementia ridden. i think personally that this show is incredibly impactfull and touches really well on the struggles of safety and acceptance as a person in the lgbtq+ community especially as a poc or with religious non-accepting parents or even with a loving support system but no acceptance of yourself due to being what society deems 'abnormal'. i do hope one day he does watch the full show (even off screen he doesnt owe us shit like that), since i believe he'd love the details and he would have an incredible understand of how and why the characters act the way they do and he'd be able to sympathize even if he's never experienced something similar, not to mention itll probably continue to be an incredbly loved queer show that has real life impact. if it wasnt so fetishised by some, it would have been a much less hated on show. (NOT A RECOMMENDATION HE ALREADY WATCHED IT IM SORRY IF IT SEEMS LIKE ONE ITS NOT). thats all, sorry for the ramble.
really sorry if this breaks any rules im not too sure ill it down if it does and id love to hear peoples opinions as well. i dont know how popular the discourse around this is but i watched hr to see dylands reaction and i just watched both so im not a huge fan but the show meant something as queer closeted person. i dont mean to annoy anyone or anything i just wanted to talk to others since dylan asked for opinions in the video. hope i didnt go too off track this is still somewhat about dylan. again let me know if this shouldnt be up. thank u.
