"Never in life have I blushed. Russians do not do this."

It's Heated Rivalry, episode 2. Let's get sexy.

The other day, I was recommending this show to a friend, and it turned out she’d seen the first two episodes already and was ambivalent. I suggested she stick it out, because the back half of the season COOKS, and then you can’t help restarting the whole thing just to spend more time with then and suddenly you appreciate the first batch so much more. She called me later to say, “I didn’t believe you BUT I SHOULD HAVE. I LOVE THEM.” Which is not to say these first two episodes are bad, at all. But for me, as much juicy stuff as there is in here, they are least successful in terms of bringing the inner monologues from the book on-screen. And that can be fine — too often, we want to know and understand EVERYTHING as it happens rather than letting things simmer and develop — but there is a very fine line between that and the audience having to do too much work. It’s also where Hudson Williams playing Shane as autistic, and people maybe not realizing that until they’ve consumed all the Hea…