Editor's Note: The following article contains spoilers for the full Season 3 of Love, Victor.Hulu’s Love, Victor has recently come to an end with the series’ third season, effectively ending our time with Victor (Michael Cimino) and the other students at Creekwood. After that excruciating cliffhanger at the end of the second season, Season 3 picks up on the heels of that episode with Victor choosing Benji (George Sear) over Rahim (Anthony Keyvan). But, the drama is far from over for Victor and Benji, as their relationship ends just as quickly as their reunion, giving Victor a chance to explore other options — namely, Nick (Nico Greetham). While goodbyes are always hard, this one is particularly so, as the relationship between Victor and Benji felt so brutally disrespected during this final season. After Victor chooses Benji, he discovers — along with the audience — that Benji is struggling with his alcoholism again. It’s a rude awakening when Victor learns this while sitting in the passenger seat of the car, stopped at a sobriety checkpoint, and the two switch seats, so Benji doesn’t get charged for driving under the influence.
To make matters worse, and more heartbreaking, Victor also learns that Benji hasn’t actually been sober for a long time. He didn’t stop drinking, and has been drinking throughout their entire relationship. This is tied back to the night that nearly broke them up for good, when Victor’s mother Isabel (Ana Ortiz) walked in on them having sex. This night is when Benji starts fighting back with Isabel after months of mistreatment because she couldn’t accept Victor’s sexuality, making Victor uncomfortable and putting him in a terrible position. It turns out Benji was drunk that night (which actually explains a lot about his seemingly out-of-character reaction to the situation), and he’s been drinking fairly regularly.
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Following the fiasco at the sobriety checkpoint, Victor and Benji don’t actually get back together. Instead, they break up again, but this time so Benji can focus on getting help and his recovery. For the rest of the final season, Victor and Benji are broken up. Not just broken up, but not speaking to one another. Because, Benji looks at Victor as a trigger, while Victor feels like he is one, after a one-on-one conversation with Benji’s father where Victor is essentially told he’s a trigger and to stay away. It’s a terrible position for both young men to be in. So, in the final season, Victor and Benji are apart, interacting possibly even less than they ever have. It isn’t until the final moments of the series finale when — on the ferris wheel at the winter carnival where Love, Simon ended and Love, Victor began — Victor and Benji decide to give their relationship another chance. It’s a fresh start, for real this time, because Benji confronts his parents, confessing they are the biggest trigger for his drinking. His trigger isn’t Victor. Then, the series fades to black, and the story on-screen is over. What a disappointment.
Over the seasons, even though Benji is Victor’s primary love interest, we see very little of their romantic relationship and how they work as a couple. More time is spent building their romance in the first season than on any aspect of their relationship. They begin the second season happy and in love, but it’s so short-lived. Such a deep rift grows between them over their seemingly irreconcilable differences — like their very different relationships with their families and what is expected from those relationships — and the fights they keep having, over and over again. Such intense issues are created between these two young men, and the writers do little to nothing to explore these fundamental differences between them that helped to tear them apart alongside outside forces.
Plus, the writers rewriting history in the final season and wiping away Benji’s sobriety, changing the context of many scenes throughout the series, is devastating. This revision means other moments in the early part of their relationship — when things were still good — are also tainted by the knowledge that Benji was drinking again. It feels like too much of what we’ve come to love about these characters and this relationship is somewhat a lie, and it’s impossible to tell what comes next for Victor and Benji because practically everything about Benji is left a question mark. He’s hardly developed in the final season, as other characters are sharing the spotlight with Victor.
Victor and Benji reuniting on the Ferris wheel is cute, sure. But, as a fan of the show and especially of the couple, it’s disappointing that the moment didn’t feel earned. It felt like a sloppy, rushed ending for the couple, which is kind of infuriating considering the writers knew beforehand that this would be the final season. It’s something that happens all too often with LGBTQ+ characters and couples on TV — for example, Kat and Adena have a similar ending on The Bold Type — because, for some reason, it’s unthinkable to have these couples together for the majority of the show. Throwing them back together without putting their relationship back together and working on the issues that broke them up isn’t an ending. It’s something that should be done well before the end, so we can see the characters get a real happily ever after. It’s hard to accept that Love, Victor is over for many reasons, but this lazy ending for Victor and Benji is a major one. The writers tore apart this relationship in Season 2, as Victor dealt with being pulled between Benji and his mother. Then, in the final season they went even further and rewrote their history, so now Benji’s scenes throughout the first two seasons cannot be taken at face value.
Why do LGBTQ+ couples rarely get to be together, as a couple, on-screen? Why was this necessary when having Benji relapse around the time of the blow-up with Isabel would have more than sufficed? It’s sad to be ending Love, Victor on such a bittersweet note. Victor and Benji’s relationship will always be beloved, but the writers definitely didn’t do it justice. We deserved to see Victor and Benji working through their issues, making up after their fights, and relying on one another, as couples do. A halfhearted reunion in the final moments after spending less than one-third of the show as a couple does not constitute a truly happy ending or a win.