Hiding Without Hiding: On Set Design in Heated Rivalry
I recently saw a video about set designing, which mentioned Heated Rivalry in it. The point of the video itself was completely different, and one that I very much agree with.
However, what it did do was make me go down a rabbit hole into how each of the three main apartments in the first season seems to reflect the personality of the person who lives there, almost like a second layer of characterization that the show never draws attention to.
We first start with Ilya's house, which is the most sparingly decorated out of everybody's.
The actual structure from the exterior is very geometric, with a lot of sharp edges, straight lines, squares and rectangles, a blocky architecture with very little softness or flow.
And that feels right for who Ilya is at the start of the story: a person with a lot of walls around him, very little visible softness, someone who has spent a long time constructing a particular image of himself.
His interiors are very black and white, everywhere, almost. Even the art we see in the shot where he takes his call in EP5 has a lot of black and white, maybe a little bit of gold, but not much else in terms of colour.
Which feels very interesting given how exuberant and vibrant Ilya pretends to be, a party boy, a playboy, this asshole chirper who isn’t afraid of anything or anything?! But his actual house doesn't have that much color in it.
I reiterate that it’s also the most sparingly decorated: a couple of paintings, a couple of lamps.
I will say though, that it doesn’t feel like a hotel room. Instead, the decorations feel intentional almost. There is a personality there being shown for sure. Now, this could be Ilya indulging and letting a little of himself show, it could also honestly just be that the man is a fan of art and lamps.
The reason I’m bringing up intention is because while I did say that most of his house is lacking colour, the living room, however, does have splashes of blues, red and yellows.
Which in turn makes me think once more of how this is Ilya trying to show just enough of a personality where people don’t look too closely or ask uncomfortable questions, but at the same time, doesn’t really give any actual insight into him as a person.
There is also the excessive use of glass in his house, with many being full floor to ceiling glass windows, letting in a lot of light.
That coupled with the excessive space, further enhanced by the sparse decorations, create a lot of empty space. Nothing is hidden as such in such a house then. Everything can be seen easily.
The overall effect this creates is of someone hiding without hiding. On the surface, Ilya is really hiding himself. Whether it be his brash, menace-like personality, his ostentatious nature, or even in a way his bisexuality, which is known by Shane, and Svetlana.
However, he does seem ashamed of other things: his family, his softness, the parts of himself that came from his mother. He wants to hide his soft parts without hiding.
So technically, Ilya is exactly who he says he is. But what this does, is not make someone take a second, or closer look. The ‘hiding without hiding’ here is reflected by his house, aesthetically pleasing, with just a little bit of personality, but if you really sit down and look into it, you're not getting much about who Ilya actually is.
Which is sort of the point: Ilya lures you into thinking you know him. The glass walls, the spaciousness, you think, oh yes, open book, we know who Ilya is. But the more you look, the more you realize you don't really know him at all.
And in a way, that openness is a facade. It has an almost cage-like quality to it.
One thought that just occurred to me, the number of lamps in his house. It could be an indication that Ilya wants light in his life, wants sunshine to combat all the darkness he feels surrounding him, especially from his father, his brother, and Russia as a whole.
Or maybe I'm just reading too much into it, just an English literature student seeing depression in a blue curtain when it's just a blue curtain. Maybe he just really likes lamps.
But even if I'm reading too much into it, the image of a person filling a room with light in a house that otherwise has very little warmth feels like it's saying something about loneliness, and about a quiet internal wish for things to be different.
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Now, Shane's Montreal apartment has a little bit of warmth to it, in comparison to Ilya’s. That could be because of the warm relationships in his life, Hayden, Jackie, his parents.
There's a little bit of lived-in-ness there that isn't present in Ilya's house. There is a lot of yellow and warm lighting, and unlike Ilya's place there are not a lot of glass walls, instead it's a bit covered, private. But there's still warmth in that coverage.
This is where the difference between Ilya and Shane’s houses lie. Because where Ilya’s house has personality but lacks warmth, Shane’s is the opposite, where it doesn’t have a whole lot of personality but there is warmth there.
Now, we know that Shane used an interior decorator for his Montreal flat, however, I do think his mother also had a hand in it. She obviously knows her son on some level and likely directed the interior decorator toward things Shane would actually like.
There's a softness there: the yellow lighting, the covertness, the sheer number of pillows on his bed. That fire, whether it's real or one of those LED screen types, again, the inclusion of warmth.
Even with that warmth though, Shane’s house is very: considered, put-together, controlled. There is a slight, detached quality to how put-together it really is.
Which makes sense, because that's exactly what Shane projects to the world. He is the golden boy, the best player in the NHL, a man whose life appears entirely in order.
His flat is doing the same work his public persona does, it doesn't give you a reason to ask questions, because everything looks so well-arranged that questioning him feels almost rude. You feel like you know him. You feel settled by him. And that's exactly the point.
You're lured with Ilya by the illusion of an open book; you're lured with Shane by the illusion of having it all together. Neither one actually lets someone in.
I also just had a thought about how the stairs are also indicative to Shane’s real personality? Because while there is warmth in his house, Shane himself is not a very… warm person? Like he is, but at the same time, he isn’t someone who is very easy to approach or build connections with.
I don't think this was placed intentionally by the set designers, it's just the structure they chose. But I can’t help but think how they do give insight into how closed-off Shane really is, and if you really want to get to know him, you have to put in that time and effort. If you really want to get to know Shane, you have to be willing to climb those stairs.
This also is just jarring me right now, when I think, that at least in the show, only two people have done that climbing and reached the inner sanctity of his bedroom: Ilya and Rose.
Ilya, as someone who is one of the very, very few people, and in one case the only one to know, who Shane really is.
And Rose, the person who ultimately had him accept that he's a gay man, the one who actually got inside. She was willing to put in that work, and that gave her an insight into him that he doesn't allow anyone else to have.
Shane is not a very approachable character. He gives a lot of assurance, but there's a level of intimidation there too. You have to be able to put in the work.
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Now, the third one, which is Scott's apartment, is the most lived-in of the three, and it is almost like a combination of Shane and Ilya's spaces. The living room has large glass walls, is very spacious, very nicely designed, with a lot of light streaming in, similar energy to Ilya's common areas.
The common area says: yes, you know him, he seems like an open book. And he is, in a way, his life story is something the NHL probably uses a lot, the orphaned kid with hockey in his DNA who climbed the ranks and is among the most renowned players in the league.
He is not afraid to be known in the common areas of his life.
There is also a lot of usage of yellow lighting in Scott’s flat, especially in the common room.
Both times Scott and Kip come home together, after the gala during their first time and then during the breakup, they're in the common area, with that very warm yellow lighting.
It is also indicative of Scott’s personality as well. That even if he is hiding secrets, it doesn’t change that at his core, Scott is a very warm and big-hearted person.
So, there is a lived-in quality to Scott’s house. Much more than either Shane or Ilya’s. It’s not that lived-in, there is still a level of conscious aestheticness to his house, which makes sense considering he is a popular hockey player, who not only must have cleaning services to keep his house in shape, but also doesn’t really spend all that much time at home.
But still, there is a level of cozy quality to his house not present with the others.
But his bedroom is very covered, very curtained, almost small in a way you wouldn't expect for a luxury apartment. Lots of shadows, shrouded from the outside world.
His bedroom is where he's his truest self, and that is something the world is not allowed to see.
And his bedroom is blue. He is warm and open in the space he presents to the world, but because he is still in the closet, his bedroom, which should be his safe space, his freest space, is blue. That is the part of him he is hiding.
It's almost the opposite of Shane, whose bedroom is very yellow. Shane's bedroom is a place where he can be open about who he is. Scott's bedroom is where he is freest and truest, but also the place he can't take out into the world.
That freedom only exists within those four walls.
Now, this very bedroom was maybe warm at one point. And we do see it warm in one instance, the moment right after his first time with Kip, when he asks him to stay.
So, that warmth is there. But by the time we reach him in Heated Rivalry, it feels like that's reaching a point of saturation, a tipping point, where the old safe, warm yellow has now turned blue.
The bedroom is no longer just a private refuge; it's starting to feel like a cage. Where this is the only place he can be himself, but THIS is the ONLY place he can be himself.
And so, Scott is almost at a cross-road now, where he has to make a decision.
Whether he wants to sit in the cold, blue of his bedroom, never coming out, or does he want to let that warmth of the common room to spill inside, to merge the two sections and be himself without those walls or distinctions.
It almost feels like a call from Scott to Scott: let that warmth you express to the outside world be expressed to your own self.
Basically, it’s almost like Scott telling Scott to be kind to yourself. Be free everywhere, in your bedroom and outside of it. You deserve that warmth too. You deserve to feel that freedom. You deserve it. You are worth it.
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Now, on the flip side, there is a contrast shown between the living spaces of these three and that of Shane’s and Kip’s parents’ house.
Starting with Kip's family home, which has a lot of life to it. Of course, we don't see the whole house because of budget constraints, but the TV room and a bit of the dining room show a space with a lot of whimsy where not everything matches and it doesn’t feel like it was decorated by a third party trying to project power or put up a facade.
The dining table looks like people actually eat at it. The natural light coming in isn't doing symbolic work, it's just light. It feels very normal, very lived-in.
And the second is Shane's parents' house which is bursting with life.
It is cramped, cluttered, full of pictures and evidence of decades of actual living. Two people who have lived almost their entire lives there, carried out a family, had jobs, gone through things.
There are photos of Shane, of Yuna and David, of the family. There's warmth but from actual sunlight, without any facade attached to it. It just feels warm.
It feels like a place where there's a lot of love and comfort and clutter and not everything matches, and that's exactly right.
I would like to mention that even Hayden's place is warmer than Shane's Montreal apartment but not as lived-in as Yuna and David's, which makes sense, he's a young active player, probably not home much, and they were also hosting a party when we see it, so they'd have cleaned up.
I would also like to add as a bonus that Shane's cottage is the best way to see the real Shane.
When he says it's his most favorite place, that's completely believable. It seems to perfectly encapsulate Shane’s personality. There's a lot of life there.
The pieces feel intentional in a different way, like these are things Shane himself chose, like he had a real voice in how the place was decorated.
There's a lot of glass here too, floor-to-ceiling windows, a lot of spaciousness, but unlike his Montreal apartment, this doesn't feel like a performance of openness.
This is a place where he genuinely has nothing to hide, where he doesn't feel any reason to hide himself.
The contrast with his Montreal apartment is striking, all those curtains and shade and darkness there compared to how open and lived-in the cottage is.
This is the one place in the world where he probably doesn't feel he needs to perform at all. There's a little bit of aesthetics and a little bit of lived-in-ness together, which makes sense for the place he actually loves the most.
I'm not sure I have a neat conclusion to any of this. I'm probably over-reading some of it, not every lamp means something, not every staircase is a metaphor.
But I do think the show, whether deliberately or accidentally, used the architecture and interior design of these spaces to say things about the people in them that the script never had to spell out. And that feels worth noticing.
