Millennials were jamming to the needle drop in this week’s ‘Heated Rivalry’
Heated Rivalry is…well, heating up. The HBO Max series is not only everyone’s new weekly obsession but HBO Max just announced that it is getting a season 2! And right after a pretty amazing fourth episode for season 1.
Shane (Hudson Williams) and Ilya (Connor Storrie) spent years together in secret. Meeting up when they can, hiding their relationship in the comfort of their homes, and episode 4 showed us just how deep their feelings ran. But that doesn’t mean it ended with a happy little kiss between the two rival hockey stars. Instead, it ended with a needle drop that will have the millennials singing along.
After Shane seemingly ends things with Ilya, he starts seeing an actress named Rose (Sophie Nélisse). The two are out at a club after a game against Boston and they’re dancing together when Ilya sees them, choosing to dance with a woman himself. And all of this is set to the t.A.T.u. song “All The Things She Said.”
The song was released in 2002 and tells the story of two women realizing they have feelings for each other. It is relatable to the story of Ilya and Shane in the sense that it is about a romance that these two women are hiding from but it is wild when you get into the history of t.A.T.u. and how neither of the band’s singers, Lena Katina and Julia Volkova, at the time, identified as queer.
Thinking about the infamy of “All the Things She Said” mixed with what is happening in the scene with Shane and Ilya is kind of fascinating though.
This is one of those moments where, as a millennial who remembers how this song had a chokehold on us all, it is wild to hear it in a show in 2025. Even if the song was out for 10+ years when Ilya and Shane were supposed to be in the club.
(featured image: Sabrina Lantos/HBO Max)
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