Tao Xu, a lanky British teen of Chinese descent portrayed by William Gao, makes this admission to his close friend Elle (Yasmin Finney) near the end of the penultimate episode of Heartstopper. The heartwarming new Netflix series, adapted from Alice Oseman’s massively popular webcomic, primarily follows two teenage boys, Charlie and Nick, as they discover their attraction to one another, but it also traces the ripple effects of that romance on their friends, Tao included. Taos’s gut-wrenching line about loneliness doubles as the emotional climax to a season spent navigating his shifting social circumstances.
