Happy Hockidays
Um, Did Heated Rivalry Season 2 Just Confirm A Christmas Episode?
The next installment will also feature a couple from Rachel Reid’s book, Role Model.
Fans won’t be coming to the cottage for Heated Rivalry Season 2 until next year. But in the meantime, creator Jacob Tierney is dropping some enticing new details about the show’s next chapter, including one intense Christmas scene from the book series.
Tierney joined author Rachel Reid — who penned Heated Rivalry and the entire Game Changers series of books — during a recent panel at BookCon 2026, where the pair teased the new tone and stakes of Season 2.
“It really is different, and the challenge, from an adaptation standpoint, is you’re in much more serious territory,” Tierney shared on April 18 (per Entertainment Weekly). “There’s still lots of flirting, and there’s lots of sex, but it’s this kind of danger. This kind of ‘hotel room, adolescent sex’ stuff is largely gone.”
Indeed, The Long Game (the sequel to Shane and Ilya’s story in Heated Rivalry) follows the couple as they navigate a new stage of their relationship, exploring questions about mental health and outside influences on their once-private romance.
“What do you do after the rush of danger is gone and yet now you have to live in a relationship where you still aren’t communicating properly, much as you would like to?” Tierney teased about their dynamic. “You can say you love each other, but as adults know, there’s so much more than that to make a relationship successful. And that is what they’re learning.”
Tierney also shared that he “can’t wait” to adapt a key Christmas scene between Shane and Ilya. (After Season 1 became a viral sensation that fueled holiday-season viewing in 2025, it only makes sense.)
Of course, Season 2 won’t only focus on this core love story. Just as Season 1 weaved in Scott and Kip’s romance from Game Changers, the next installment will introduce Ilya’s new teammate, Troy, who falls for social media manager Harris in Role Model. As Tierney explained, the book lends itself to the “grumpy sunshine” trope, but there are heavier themes as well: “Troy is a really damaged guy,” he said. “And Troy is quite damaged on the show. I would say we’re digging into that even harder.”
So... when is this all happening? As Tierney previously shared on CBS Mornings, the team plans to start shooting Season 2 this summer to get “more Heated Rivalry on your TVs, truly, as soon as humanly possible.” Deadline has reported that the show is slated to air in spring 2027, specifically.
