TV

Everyone Watching ‘Normal People’ Has Already Fallen In Love With Sweet, Sexy Connell

Reviews are calling the Sally Rooney adaptation one of 2020's best shows, but they all ignore a critical fact: Connell is really hot.

Normal People: people are in love with Connell and actor Paul Mescal

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Reviews and first reactions for Normal People, the BBC’s 12-part adaptation of Sally Rooney’s hit 2018 novel, are extremely positive, celebrating its ability to translate the interior lives of its two protagonists onto the screen. But it’s the shy, class-conscious Connell who has really grabbed the hearts of viewers.

Normal People is a novel about Connell and Marianne, two high schoolers from the rural Ireland with an intense romantic connection that ebbs, flows and shifts altogether as they grow up and attend the same college.

Between it and debut Conversations With Friends, Rooney’s been celebrated as “the first great millennial novelist for her stories of love and late capitalism” — praise which probably forgets a fair few other millennial novelists, but you get the idea. In short, a Rooney paperback has (for good reason) become the Ottolenghi cookbook of novels: all sharehouses have multiple copies.

It’s a lot of pressure for the adaptation, but, as people churn through the 12-episodes, which dropped yesterday, it’s clearly hitting the spot. And sure, reviews might be highlighting how the show tackles the intensity of a first love and the class divide between the two in a profound, subtle way, but they miss a very important point: Connell is really hot.

Connell’s already a very lovable figure — a shy, smart and sweet boy who cares for Marianne deeply and is clearly uncomfortable with his sexist surroundings, even if he doesn’t always navigate the world perfectly. Add in the fact he’s played by the very handsome Paul Mescal, who has previously mostly done theatre work, and Connell is primed to be the fictional white internet boyfriend of the month.

The show itself is also quite horny: there’s a lot of sex, and even some frontal nudity from Mescal. For anyone feeling a distinct lack of touch during iso, it might make you burst.

Lads, we love to see it, but most of all, we love to see his silver chain around his neck.

If you’d like to join the Connell club (and have your heart shattered, pieced back together, and shattered again), Normal People is available to watch on Stan.