Love, Victor was a lighthouse on a winter night
My husband and I loved Love, Simon. Love, Victor let us sit longer with a boy who was still figuring it out, and gay teens still need that kind of light. My own coming out was nothing like Creekwood, just guilt from a pew colliding with what I already knew was true.
Todd Ruffner-Schoenfeld
Editor in chief. A knack for the fine print, and likes it.
Love, Victor is another Hulu original I keep going back to watch. It lives in the same town as the movie, and rather than remaking it, the series just lets the story breathe, with room a two-hour film never has. That is the gift of a series.
Simon’s story ends when the letter reaches the right boy. Victor’s starts later, when he moves to Atlanta, walks into Creekwood after Simon has already changed the air, and still has to do the work himself: his family right there in the house, a faith he does not want to give up, a crush he can no longer pretend is not real. He DMs the older boy for advice, and that DM is the part that stays with me, a kid who is already through it talking to one who is not.
Hulu gave it three seasons and twenty-eight episodes, then closed the book in 2022. Michael Cimino carried the worry in his face the way a real fifteen-year-old does. Mostly he just looked tired. That is why it worked for me. Coming of age here is a boy holding two things at once that do not fit together yet.
What I hoped they would keep making
I wanted Disney and Hulu to keep it going, one more kid who needed a show like this. They have not announced one. Collider was still calling Victor underrated this spring, which is a polite way of saying the algorithm moved on. I have not.
Gay teens often do not have good role models close enough to touch. A show is no substitute for a safe grown-up at home. But on a bad night it can be a light to steer by. You catch the light and remember the shore is still there, even when the water is not calm.
My own coming out was traumatic. I had started dating, and the guilt was heavy. I grew up in the church, and everything it taught me pushed against what I already knew about myself. I was still young, and it felt like being honest was breaking something holy. It was not. I was only trying to live as one whole person.
Shows like Simon and Victor do not fix that collision. They name it in public, so a teenager watching alone does not feel like the only one who ever felt it. Back then, that would have meant a lot to me.
If you are that kid: the guilt is loud because someone taught it to be loud. Knowing who you are does not betray the people who love you. It is where the truth starts, even with people who are not ready to hear it. Find a real person if you can. If you cannot yet, a show helps more than you would think.
Why the comma still matters
Love, Simon was a studio film that treated a gay kid as the center of a rom-com without turning him into a lesson plan. Love, Victor used the extra hours to let his family and his church and his friends all pull at him, and that pull is the coming-of-age, the ordinary kitchen-table kind.
I would still like another name after the comma, a girl maybe, or a kid in a small town with no Creekwood, in a story that does not tie up in one season because the real ones rarely do. Until a studio funds that, the two we have are still on Hulu, and they are still a lighthouse. My husband and I will watch them again, and I will think of the boy I was, sitting with a guilt that did not belong to him, glad somebody put a light on the water.
- Hulu series page: Love, Victor, three seasons and 28 episodes, set in the world of the 2018 film Love, Simon.
- Series history (Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, 2022): developed for Disney+, moved to Hulu, ended after season three in 2022 with Michael Cimino as Victor. No further Love, series announced as of September 2026.
- Collider, April 2026: the show’s afterlife as an underrated Hulu original.
