The way non-book readers are engaging with Heated Rivalry proves how big of a crisis media literacy is in.
I’ve seen people say they don’t understand why Ilya was treating Shane the way he was in Russia and it’s not clear in the show why he’s being an asshole to him.
Is everyone watching the show with their eyes closed?
It’s made clear by Ilya’s mood in the rooftop at the end of episode 1 that he doesn’t enjoy being in Russia. We do not see him crack a smile even once the entire time he’s there in episode 2. His playful demeanor is completely gone. He dissociates in several scenes. He barely speaks. When he’s with his father, not only is his father berating him for Russia losing, he’s also displaying signs of rapidly declining cognition as he forgets that Ilya’s mother is not alive.
We feel the suffocating weight Ilya’s home country places on him, and how miserable he is when he’s there, but he still feels like he can’t leave it behind, because despite everything he still cares for his father and he feels too much like a foreigner in the US. The show hasn’t gone into much depth about his mother yet, but his ties to her surely keep him there as well.
In the scene with Sasha and Svetlana, we see him so disengaged from two people he’s previously been intimate with. With Svetlana, she’s savvy and gives him a great pep talk regarding why he should shift his focus to winning the cup, but he doesn’t seek emotional comfort from her, and she doesn’t offer it. Sasha, on the other hand, completely ignores Ilya’s obvious signs of disinterest and dissociation to try and get a fuck out of him, and insults Ilya for not being fun anymore when he gets rejected. Everyone in Russia is trying to get something out of him and reject him when he doesn’t do exactly what they want him to. He’s clearly not doing well mentally and the only person who even asks if he’s okay is Shane.
Shane, who Ilya has already fallen for but knows he can’t have, especially not in Russia where his bisexuality could pose a threat to his citizenship and livelihood, is showing concern for him outside of the parameters of their established sexual relationship, and Ilya is simply in no position to deal with the implications of that right now. Ilya can barely look at him in the scene and when he finally does, it’s to fire the final blow that gets Shane to give up and walk away, but when Shane does, Ilya can’t help but watch him go. Ilya doesn’t know how to deal with everything that’s happening inside of him and everything he’s feeling, so he pushes Shane away. He’s in pain because he wants to touch Shane and go to him, but he can’t because of where they are. There’s frustration there because in Shane’s mind he’s just a friend offering comfort to Ilya, but to Ilya it’s way more than that, because what if someone saw the way Ilya looks at Shane and immediately figured out everything?
The show trusts its audience to read into the characters through the actors’ performances and all of this is clear as crystal through Connor’s excellent performance. This show is a goldmine of characterization and romance if you pay attention.