Listen and subscribe: Apple | Spotify | Wherever You ListenSign up to receive our weekly cultural-recommendations newsletter. “Heated Rivalry,” a low-budget Canadian series that began streaming on HBO Max late last year, quickly made the leap from unexpected word-of-mouth success to full-blown cultural phenomenon. commissioner to Zohran Mamdani; its two young leads, Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie, just served as Olympic torch-bearers. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz unpack “Heated Rivalry” ’s appeal, considering its embrace of earnestness and its place in a broader lineage of stories about gay love. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.