Netflix: “Heartstopper,” Season 2

High school sure has changed since the early 1970s. Even the suggestion that you were somehow “different” from the others (especially if you were a guy who was not particularly athletic) might doom you a lot of dateless Saturday nights. As Lily Tomlin once quipped, “You weren’t gay back then. You were just…quiet.”

At Truham High school in suburban London, the setting for “Heartstopper” (Netflix), coming out as LGBTQ seems to be far less perilous than it once was. But as we see in Season 2, it has its challenges, and the show’s main characters are still figuring themselves out.

Nick (Kit Connor), a popular and handsome rugby player, is still crazy about bushy-haired skinny musician Charlie (Joe Locke) but is reluctant to come out publicly about their relationship. Charlie for his part is still suffering residual issues from being bullied after his sexuality is accidentally revealed years earlier.

Two young lesbians, Tara (Corinna Brown) and Darcy (Kizzy Edgel) are out among their friends but there’s a stumbling block: Darcy is afraid to come out to her conservative parents. Tao (William Gao), the Chinese-British brainiac, and Elle (Yasmin Finney), a beautiful trans, wonder if they can spin their platonic friendship into a romantic one.

So where does a series go when the subject is love? To Paris, bien sur, where our high schoolers spend a week visiting the Louvre, climbing the Eiffel Tour, and falling more deeply in love. Nick takes the opportunity to meet his Parisian father (Thibaud de Montalembert), a Frenchman long divorced from his mother (Olivia Colman) but he is reluctant to tell his father that he’s bi. There’s even a wild birthday party in a hotel room. You know, typical teenage stuff (as a sheltered, highly untypical teen, I can only guess at this ).

Season 2 represents a nice evolution for “Heartstopper,” focusing on the anguish of young people struggling to define themselves sexually. Happily, it’s done with sensitivity, taste, and humor. Plus, their solidarity as a group make the process so much easier.

If you are not one of the fans of “Heartstopper,” now viewed in 54 countries and counting, perhaps it’s time to become one. Even if you’re straight. Not, if I may add judiciously, that there’s anything wrong with that.