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Love, Victor Season 1 Review

Love, Victor is a teen romantic television series. The first season premiered on Hulu in 2020 and it consists of ten episodes.

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“Screw you for having the world’s most accepting parents“

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First off, I adored ‘Love, Simon’ despite its overly happy approach at storytelling, but it was a refreshing happy ending, joyous gay teen movie, and hugely important as the first such mainstream flick. Love, Victor came two years afterward as a spin-off of the movie, and although it is clearly inferior to it, it’s still pretty good and enjoyable throughout.

The story includes Simon in Victor’s messaging him from time to time, and it was wonderful seeing Simon’s cameo in one awesome scene. As for Victor, he is Latin, but unfortunately the show did not explore the Latin experience in America all that much. It’s just surface-level, which is the problem this entire show faces as it’s very simplistic and not complex enough in its approach.

Victor is way too good-natured, even more so than Simon. Though it works in the context of the story, he still felt too unrealistic to me personally. Still, I continued to root for him, which is in no small part thanks to Michael Cimino’s charming, wonderful turn in the role. I really liked the rest of the Salazar family as well. Pilar is very cool and obviously hurting for everything that’s happening with her family, so her plight was difficult to watch. As for the parents, the acting performances are great while the show dealt so importantly with the danger of very long relationships that start in high school, cheating and the tragedy of eventual divorce.

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Mia also has a strong arc for herself, especially when it comes to her sexually intense interactions with very suave, confident Andrew. Her relationship with Victor took way too much screen time from this first season, but it was important to establish how hurtful this type of relationship can be to a young girl. As for her issue with her parents, it was overly emphasized in my opinion.

As for Felix and Lake, their toxic relationship was so well depicted, in particular him becoming more confident was a wonderful arc in this season. He is also probably too good in an unrealistic manner, but he’s a great friend to Victor and so sweet that it’s hard not to care for him. Lake herself is complicated and very realistic as this social-media obsessed, image-obsessed teenage girl who doesn’t appreciate her boyfriend enough.

Love, Victor is very dramatic, especially in its heavy finale. I found the coming out to parents ending ambiguous and quite suspenseful, but the show really dragged his coming out, and I wish the second season will deal with him being out and the show taking more risks. That’s the main problem with this series – it’s way too safe in execution.

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While it does deal with coming out, image issues, toxic relationships, the importance of confidence in teens so well, it also fails to deal with genuinely gay characters and stories. It’s thus only somewhat concerned with gay people, at least so far. Benji is a good character and I liked the two’s interactions, but not enough unfortunately as I found their romance rushed at the end of the day. With that being said, that episode where he experiences gay life in New York was sweet, though on-the-nose, but important to witness for struggling teens.

The first season of Love, Victor has its problems, in particular it felt too safe, overly dragging in the coming out process and it’s ultimately too much of an uneventful beginning. Still, the characters are so well developed, the acting is great and the show’s suitably emotional and dramatic with the finale being very memorable.

Worst Episodes: Welcome to Creekwood and Stoplight Party.

Best Episodes: Sweet Sixteen and Spring Fling.