YMMV / Love, Victor

• Adorkable: Felix is a goofy kid who loves doing funny voices and often trips over himself when dealing with girls he likes. And the fans LOVE him for it.
  • Victor has these moments once he accepts his sexuality and gets more comfortable in his relationship with Benji.
• Alternate Character Interpretation: Both Victor and Benji are subject to this when addressing their break-up in season 2.
  • Was Benji justified in not telling Victor about his sobriety after spending their relationship pushing Victor to be more open? Did he cross a huge line in his fight with Isabel and outing Victor to his little brother?
  • And did Victor have a right to confide his relationship problems to Rahim, even if it was born out of concern for Benji’s emotional state? Was he in the wrong for cutting Isabel so much slack for the times she was dismissive of Benji?
  • Isabel, especially in season 2. Is she a mom doing her best to unlearn a lifetime of homophobic lessons from her religious upbringing, or does her her treatment of Victor as if he has this shameful secret make her irredeemable?
• And You Thought It Would Fail: The series didn’t start off on the right foot distribution-wise; Disney+ had ordered the show for development, but then got cold feet over its “adult content” (mostly underaged drinking and references to sex) and dumped the completed series onto their affiliate Hulu. Despite that setback, “Love, Victor” smashed expectations by becoming one of Hulu’s most streamed shows in its first weekend, and finished 2020 as the service’s second-most-streamed original program behind Solar Opposites. It also gained a very dedicated fan base that guaranteed two more seasons produced exclusively by Hulu.
  • Season 2 garnered even more praise, with reviewers agreeing that Disney dropping it was for the best, as it allowed the characters and stories to mature in ways that Disney would be too scared to greenlight. In an ironic twist, Disney+ would ultimately air season 3 simultaneously with Hulu (as well as picking up the previous seasons in the process).
• Awesome Music: The show's theme song "Somebody to Tell Me", a catchy tune whose lyrics perfectly fit Victor's struggles.
• Base-Breaking Character: Isabel, especially in season 2. A lot of Fans are unable to forgive her treatment of Victor’s sexuality, especially when it plays a huge part in Venji’s break up. The fact that she had an affair and yet had some moral problems with her son being gay also turned people off from her. However, other fans praise her character for actually going on a journey to accept her son, and recognize that she is willing to change after her fight with Father Lawrence.
• Die for Our Ship:
  • When the season 2 trailer implied an attraction between Pilar and Felix, Lake/Felix shippers were anxious to say the least.
  • Some fans took their ship war between Rahim, Victor, and Benji too far and would leave some awful (and in some cases Islamphobic) comments on the show’s social media comments. Bebe Wood (Lake) had to take to Instagram to call this out.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Fans really love Felix for his quirky personality and just being such a great friend to Victor when he really needed it.
  • Lake gets a lot of love too for her Defrosting Ice Queen subplot, and hooking up with Felix made them a fan-favorite couple.
  • Rahim also garnered a lot of fans in Season 2, primarily for being a depiction of queerness not often seen in media. Having amazing chemistry with Victor doesn’t hurt either.
• Even Better Sequel: While Love, Simon has its fans and admirers, the show has received high praise for showing a more complicated coming-out story, and for focusing on different aspects of queer life for POC teens. It also works to address issues with the film, such as focusing on a protagonist who doesn’t have the same levels of privilege that Simon had.
• Fridge Brilliance: The theme song was shortened between seasons one and two, with the lyric “Waiting for the time/Waiting for the place”being cut. This makes sense when you remember that Victor is out in season 2; he doesn’t have to “wait” for the time to be himself anymore.
• Fridge Horror: After Dawn has a particularly bad mental health episode in front of Lake and Felix, resulting in some plates being smashed, Felix shrugs it off saying he’s been dealing with this for years and how this one wasn’t as bad. It makes you wonder how bad Dawn’s moods have gotten before, and you wonder how Felix handled them when he was much younger. He really is shouldering more than a sixteen-year-old boy should have to.
• Funny Moments:
  • Felix tries to fill the awkward silence between Victor and Rahim with a dissertation on the word "hey".
    Pilar: Stop talking.
    Felix: I'm trying. I can't.
  • Mia announces that she's throwing a party.
    Victor: Why? Did you lose a bet?
    Mia: What? No, I— It was my idea. I'm fun.
    [awkward reactions from Victor, Pilar, Felix, Rahim, Andrew, Lake, and Lucy]
    Mia: What? I'm fun!
  • After Pilar and Lucy make Felix and Lake hash out their unresolved issues, it occurs to them that they might have made a mistake.
    Pilar: What were we thinking, sending two exes into a bedroom for some "private time"?
    Lucy: We might be the dumbest people in the history of high school.
    Pilar: Nope. Earlier tonight, some kid snorted a line of kosher salt.
  • Isabel suggests, a little too soon, that Victor might meet a guy at church.
    Isabel: Well, ever since this Benji thing, he just lies in bed and watches Emily in Paris, and not even the good season.
  • Armando shares with Isabel his suspicion that something is going on between Pilar and Felix.
    Isabel: She has been acting kinda strange lately. Like...happy.
    Armando: Yes. Like the other day, she said, "I love you," and then didn't ask me for money after. I mean, what the hell?
    Isabel: Yeah, and she did just put mascara on just to go get the mail. [gasps] Pilar and Felix are messing around.
    Armando: I can't believe I didn't see this sooner. Oh, my god. I mean, today at breakfast...You know what she said to me? "Good morning."
    Isabel: We are such fools.
  • Nice burn from Pilar.
    Armando: Your mom and I, we were about your age when we got together. And I, I know that things are different now.
    Pilar: Yeah, women can vote.
• Growing the Beard: Season 2 has been seen as an improvement to the first season produced by Disney+. Now that Hulu is the sole producer, the characters have grown more and explore topics like sex and teenage alcoholism that Disney would never sign off on. It’s also been praised for exploring what happens after the coming-out story that is so prominent in media.
• Jerkass Woobie: Harold, Mia’s father, lets his ambition control his choices to the point that he emotionally neglects Mia in favor of advancing his already successful career. Breaking his promise to Mia about not moving was the final straw for her. That being said, it’s easy to sympathize with a man whose wife abandoned him to raise their daughter alone for almost twelve years, and Mia even acknowledges that he puts extra pressure on himself to succeed because there are so few black college presidents working in academia.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • After a season of conflict the previous year, Pilar and Isabel hardly interact at all in season 2.
  • While it was nice to hear from Rahim that he came out to his parents and they were very supportive, many viewers felt that it would’ve resonated more if we got to actually meet them properly first.
• The Woobie:
  • Seeing poor Victor struggle with his identity in season one can entice a lot of pity, especially when his first kiss with Benji inspires a fear-induced panic attack rather than giving him peace with who he is.
  • Before he and Victor become “besties”, Felix is a lonely kid who gets used as a punching bag by Andrew, is acting as his mentally ill mother’s caregiver, and has a girlfriend who, at first, doesn’t want to be seen in public with him.
  • Mia really goes through it on the show; her mom left her at an early age, her dad has always put his career above her emotional needs, and when she thinks she finds a soulmate in Victor, it blows up in her face when she catches him kissing Benji at the end of season one. It’s gotten to a point where fans are begging the writers on social media to give this girl a break.

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