The sweet ‘Love, Simon’ spinoff returns to Hulu this summer.
“Everyone thinks that coming out is easy these days. It's not.”
That line, which comes from dreamboat barista Benji (George Sear), in Love, Victor’s season 2 trailer, very much sums up the sweet Hulu YA drama, which will premiere June 11 on Hulu. As Benji’s now boyfriend, Victor Salazar (Michael Cimino), is finding out, coming out is not always as easy as Simon Spier (Nick Robinson), now a legend in Victor’s Creekwood High School, made it sound. “Screw you,” he’d told Simon (over DMs!) in the show’s very first episode. “Screw you for having the world’s most perfect, accepting parents, the world's most supportive friends. Because for some of us, it's not that easy.”
Love, Simon may serve as inspiration for this Hulu television series but as audiences found out in season 1, Victor’s story is decidedly different from Simon’s. Indeed, the very concept for a show focused on a mostly conservative Latinx family coming to terms with a teen like Victor proudly stating “I’m gay” came from the criticism levied at the glossy, rose-colored experience that the Robinson-led rom-com had imagined.
“There are a number of ways that a kid coming out can look," writer Isaac Aptaker told ET ahead of the show’s premiere in 2020. "Why not use the success of the movie to tell a very, very different version of a coming out story and increase representation for kids who don't have an experience all that similar to Simon?"
Even better, Love, Victor got to use an entire season to lead us up to that pivotal coming out scene and now gets to spend an entire season following the at times gleeful, at times stressful fallback that follows. Here are all the details on how to watch season 2.
When does Love, Victor season 2 premiere? Hulu is dropping all 10 episodes of season 2 of Love, Victor on June 11, just in time for Pride!
How to watch: Subscribe to Hulu to watch season 1 of Love, Victor on Hulu right now, and on June 11, dive into season 2! Plans start at $5.99 a month and have a free trial option for new subscribers.
What is Love, Victor about? When Victor Salazar and his family moved from Texas to Atlanta, he saw it as a chance to start anew. He could finally find the strength and the courage to live out his truth. As he navigated a new high school, a new set of friends, a new job, and even a new girlfriend (!), Victor slowly found himself wondering how much of what he was doing was in service of pleasing others ahead (and instead) of himself.
His journey of self-discovery, of coming to terms with his sexuality even as he kept getting disapproving messages from his parents (who, in turn, are trying to keep their marriage afloat), served as the cornerstone of season 1 of this Love, Simon spinoff. And, just like that box-office hit, this Hulu series is a sweet-natured teen/family drama designed to make you feel all the feels -- whether you’re tracking Victor and Benji’s will-they-or-won’t-they, the Salazars' marital troubles, or the many hormonal antics that take place at Creekwood High.
Who plays who? In addition to Cimino and Sear (oh, and Robinson, who offered voiceover narration in season 1 as Simon), Love, Victor features the kind of game ensemble that makes a sweet-hearted show like this one shine.
For instance, having One Day at a Time’s James Martinez and Ugly Betty’s Ana Ortiz playing Victor’s blue-collar parents (he an electrician, she a piano teacher) lends the show a welcome familiarity. After all, those two shows have written the template on how to craft touching coming out stories in Latinx households. Rounding out the Salazar fam are Isabella Ferreira as angsty emo Pilar and Mateo Fernandez as the ever-adorable Adrian, Victor's younger siblings.
But Victor’s family life, which yes, is definitely on the rocks, serves as backdrop to the show -- Love, Victor is, above all, a high school tween drama. And what is such a story without an awkward but well-meaning BFF? Slipping into those shoes is Anthony Turpel as next-door neighbor and all-around lovable oddball Felix. Opposite the two of them are Mia (Rachel Hilson), Victor’s now blindsided ex-girlfriend and her own best friend, Lake (Bebe Wood), who has some of the show’s funniest lines (“Come on, I know you wanna tap that Tex-Ass.”).
What can we expect from season 2? Those hoping for a “happily ever after” for Victor and Benji may have forgotten they’re watching a television show and not a rom-com film. As Aptaker and fellow writer Elizabeth Berger told ET shortly after season 1 dropped, there's nothing more boring than watching people be happy in a relationship on a TV show. "It feels like Simon and Bram are off to the races and are happily ever after -- no one wants to watch that anymore -- so, yes, season 2, we'll definitely test Victor and Benji," Aptaker said.
"One of the exciting parts of getting to tell a story about a character who knows who he is -- as opposed to a character who is figuring out who he is -- is that you get to tell stories about first relationships and first conflicts within relationships and first sexual experiences and first heartbreaks and all the things that you normally see in other teen romances and soaps, but you never get to see with a gay protagonist," executive producer Brian Tanen added. "I think it'll be really exciting to tell those stories in future seasons. Hopefully many, many seasons."
Cimino echoed those very desires, telling ET in 2020: “I really wanna see how the universe expands, and how much more the show grows and what other issues that we tackle with the show.”
And it looks like we’re getting precisely that this time around. Case in point: season 2 is diving headfirst into a very specific kind of storyline only a character like Victor could offer. “What is the perfect level of gay that will keep everyone happy?” Victor asks in the trailer. “I'm too gay to be in the locker rooms but I'm not gay enough for Benji and his friends.” From the sound of it, finding how to even answer that question may well drive the entirety of season 2!
But also, as the trailer outlines, Victor is not the only one dealing with what feels like insurmountable problems: Mia is adrift and feeling further alienated from those couples around her; Felix is anxious about his first time; and Pilar starts to see the turmoil at home begin to affect her.
For ET's exclusive content on all things Love, Victor, watch the video below.
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