L-R: Joe Locke, Alice Oseman and Jenny Walser (Photo by Netflix/Sama Kai)

Season 3 of Heartstopper debuted Oct. 3, quickly claiming a spot on Netflix’s top 10 and racking up exceedingly positive reviews. The beloved teen romance, starring Kit Connor and Joe Locke as boyfriends Nick and Charlie, is being praised for its handling of deeper themes including mental health, gender identity, sex and intimacy. 
 
“It was quite scary for us to put it out there because it is an evolution of Heartstopper,” series creator Alice Oseman tells ABC Audio of the new episodes. “It’s doing a lot of new things that the previous seasons didn’t do before and we didn’t really know how the fans would react to that. But the response seems to have been really positive, and everyone’s been so excited and happy with the story.”
 
Thursday, Oct. 17, is Spirit Day, an anti-bullying movement for LGBTQ youth, and Heartstopper deals with the trauma of bullying in Charlie’s mental health journey this season. The first half focuses on Charlie seeking treatment, while the second half follows Nick and Charlie as they grow closer than ever. Oseman says she wanted to focus on the “very relatable anxieties” teenagers have around having sex for the first time, as well as the importance of communication and consent.

While season 4 has yet to be greenlit by Netflix, Oseman says she feels hopeful about the prospect and that there are lots of people in the process “working really hard to try and make it happen.”
 
In the meantime, there’s still more story to tell when it comes to the graphic novels on which the series is based. Oseman is hard at work on Volume 6 of the series, with new pages posted online on the 1st, 11th and 21st of each month.
 
“Volume 6 is going to be very focused on Nick and Charlie thinking about the future and the fact that Nick is about to go to university and their school life together is coming to an end, and they’re both really, really scared about that,” she says. “Everything’s going to massively change for them.”
 
“There’s a lot more to come and I’m very excited,” Oseman says.

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