Love, Victor Review: Welcome to Creekwood (Season 1 Episodes 1-2)

A new love story is brewing in Creekwood. 

Love, Victor Season 1 Episode 1 and 2, “Welcome to Creekwood,” and “Stoplight,” utilize the show’s source material wisely — bridging connections from one generation to another, while also making room for new stories and fresh perspectives. 

Everything about Love, Victor feels like home. The setting and cinematography are instantly recognizable, as are the teachers (shoutout to Vice Principal Albright!), and the score of off-beat indie tunes sets an all too familiar tone. 

If that’s not enough to get you comfortable, the spin-off wastes no time recreating some of Love, Simon‘s most iconic scenes. After Victor’s first day of school, he’s already preparing for the winter carnival and quickly learns the charming tale of Simon Spier and his great, big, romantic gesture. 

Love, Victor uses those nostalgic beats to its advantage — allowing you to settle in and get cozily reacquainted with a world you once fell in love with. At the same time, however, it’s also sure to send a clear message: Victor isn’t Simon, and this is a brand new story. 

For one, Victor is Latino and where Simon’s parents are “so liberal, they have their own set of sneakers for protesting,” Victor exists in a family who lives by a different set of values. Catholicism, to be exact. 

Not historically the most open-minded group when it comes to sexuality. 

Where Simon’s story was more about an inner struggle with himself, Victor is faced with a new set of challenges. He has to figure out what he wants too, but accepting his sexuality is only the first of many obstacles.

How does he live openly and honestly, when he feels his loved ones may never accept him? 

It’s an interesting twist on the original narrative, and course corrects on some of the criticism from the original film — coming out is not always as easy as Love, Simon makes it look, and every person is on their own, specific journey. 

This concept is most strongly cemented through Victor’s surprisingly visceral reaction to learning Simon’s history. Victor reaches out in anger and frustration over Simon’s legendary (and romanticized) coming out story. It’s a clever and unexpected maneuver, and also continentally allows Nick Robinson to reprise his role as Simon. 

Simon is there, but he isn’t there too much. Now an omnipresent voice, his sporadic involvement helps keep Love, Victor about Victor, and Victor alone. 

Working as a sounding board to Victor’s honest thoughts, Simon weaves in and out of the narrative when needed; a tool that allows the show to understand Victor’s motivations. Without Simon as an outlet, the audience would be as clueless as the rest of the characters, and the dramatic irony helps form an instant bond with Victor as a protagonist.

In a lot of ways, we are Simon. We root for Victor from a distance, and we hope he figures it out on his own. 

This story isn’t just about Victor though, and the show wastes no time introducing a floodgate of new characters — all of which have their own, unique personalities completely devoid of Simon’s group of comrades. 

Mostly, these friends help build a more colorful world around Victor. His sister Pilar, especially, is immediately introduced as a fully fleshed out, complex female character who will face her own set of complications. Both as the new girl at Creekside High, and the girl who desperately clinging to her old life back in Texas. 

The same can’t quite be said for Victor’s friends, who for the most part, borderline on archetypical.

Felix, while charming and fun, slips right into the “quirky best friend” role and isn’t given much else to do. Anthony Turpel has plenty of talent to give, and the first two episodes don’t exactly do him justice.

The character of Lake has similar, if not worse, issues. She reads as not much more than the “dumb blonde” BFF to female lead Mia, and in 2020, female characters — even secondary ones — probably need to progress beyond social-climbing ditz who, half the time have no idea what’s happening around them. 

Then there’s bully Andrew, who clearly is threatened by new guy Victor and true love interest Benji, who doesn’t get much screen time in the first hour but promises to be more focally showcased later on down the line.

Both boys, once again slip into high school stereotype territory, but at least in Benji’s case, his chemistry with Victor is off the charts and their few shared scenes are so electrically charged, even frothed milk starts to look sexy. 

While these cookie-cutter characters could present as problematic down the line, two episodes in means plenty of room to grow. Perhaps Love, Victor simply wants to make sure its protagonist is fully developed before it moves on with other characters.

In a world where shows constantly spread themselves too thin too quickly, that’s absolutely fine with me. 

What did you think of this episode of Love, Victor? Share your thoughts in the comments below, and keep an eye out for my review on the rest of the episodes, coming soon!

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Season One of Love, Victor is now available for streaming on Hulu. 

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