Xavia

CW: infidelity, heteronormativity and compulsory heterosexuality, problem with no name, suicidal ideation, sexualized violence, assimilation

“Striking Vipers” is clearly a love story, but what’s less clear is whose love story it is: Theo and Danny? Danny and Karl? Roxette and Lance? All five together? The episode neatly wraps up the immediate question—how do the five of them move forward—without addressing the larger issues at play both before and after their lives collide. Most reviewers have noted how the scenario presented in the ep raises several provocative questions about digital sexuality (Mellor; Shaw-Williams), virtual gender (Handlen), Black masculinity (Grant, Young, and McKenzie; Paul), queer fantasy (Griffiths and Jeffery), and bromance (Lodge), among others, none of which are definitively resolved. But I think that’s actually one of the strengths of this episode: an understated approach allows for all these themes to remain complicated and holds space for the messiness of adult relationships. Furthermore, the indeterminacy is part of the point in the queer aesthetic permeating the show, however much it ostensibly is about heterosexuality. Because of the inescapable backdrop of straight suburbia, the contingent, playful approach they take towards navigating it together is satisfying and retains a resistant queerness.