The first time I saw Hope stare at her own reflection in the club mirror, I felt the show was daring me to read between the lines. Was the “bound” in Bound By Her Heart talking about a kink contract, or about the invisible string tying her to every woman who ever told her to smile prettier?
I went down a rabbit-hole, re-watching with rainbow-coloured glasses. This article is my personal field report. Lol. I rock.
- Part 1: The Plot of Bound By Her Heart – Through a Sapphic Lens
- Part 2: Meet the Women of Bound By Her Heart – A Queer Viewer’s Character Crushes
- Part 3: Overall Thoughts – Was I Queerbaited or Invited to the Party?
- Part 4: Coolest Episode – Number 13, The Family Showdown
Part 1: The Plot of Bound By Her Heart – Through a Sapphic Lens
I always start a new drama the same way: blanket, green tea, and the lowest possible expectations so the writers can surprise me. Bound By Her Heart whacked me across the face in episode one when Hope walks into Leather & Lace and whispers her safe-word like a prayer she’s terrified to finish.
From that moment the story is technically an age-gap awakening: leave Daniel, serve Olivia, learn the ropes, yada yada.
But the camera keeps lingering on the spaces between women; Hope and the bartender squeezing her hand, Hope and the flashback shots of her sorority roommate, Hope and Olivia glaring at each other with an anger so hot it could melt steel.
I love a great queer love story, and I’ve learned to survive on crumbs. So trust me when I say I wasn’t looking for a full-blown romance. I just wanted the kind of charged energy that lets me dream. The drama delivered, but not where I expected.
Daniel, the male husband, is written like a supportive big brother who’s always just off-screen; he never once overshadows Hope’s emotional centre. Instead, the narrative keeps circling back to female bodies and female choices: who gets to kneel, who gets to safe-word, who inherits the club, who saves whom.
The first time I texted my group-chat “okay this feels gay,” was episode 5, when Olivia seemed a little too excessively invested. I mean you can hate someone’s ex but is it really that deep? Why not frame the scene like a lover’s goodbye—soft wind, tears, a forehead touch?
Is it canon? Nope. Does it feed the part of me that fell in love with love ages ago? Absolutely.
Part 2: Meet the Women of Bound By Her Heart – A Queer Viewer’s Character Crushes
Hope is the easy place to start. Post-marriage, she has the pallor of someone who has seen the other side, but her eyes burn like she’s still fighting death by boredom on behalf of two people. I kept thinking, “This is the kind of woman who would remember your coffee order and the name of your childhood pet after meeting you once.”
She’s soft but never fragile, and the show lets her cry without making the tears feel like weakness. My crush was instant.
Then there’s her sorority roommate, alive only in flashbacks. She has the bolder fashion sense and the laugh that shatters glass in the best way. The drama uses her sparingly, like a secret weapon, and every time she appears I feel the ache of alternate universes where both girls survive college heteronormativity.
Olivia, the club owner, is written to be ice-cold, yet the actress gives her these micro-smirks that scream repressed chaos. I couldn’t help imagining a redemption arc where she and Hope team up against the patriarchy and then make out in the ruins of the champagne room.
Again, not textual, but the chemistry of mutual obsession is there.
The surprise entry is Hope’s dead mother-in-law, who we meet only through Daniel’s rant. Even in stillness she feels like the original rebel who trusted the wrong son and paid with her life’s peace. I found myself pausing the screen to stare at Hope.
None of these characters identify as queer on-screen. Still, the actresses play them with the kind of intimacy I recognize; long hugs that last two seconds too long, fingers brushing when nobody’s looking, the shared cigarette lit from both ends.
I’m not claiming representation that isn’t there; I’m simply mapping the terrain of a wishful heart onto theirs. It’s a survival tactic older than fandom itself.
The plot, on paper, is hetero awakening. Through my eyes, it is a woman literally carrying another woman’s collar, refusing to let the story end until every female wound is avenged.
If that’s not lesbian-coded, I don’t know what is. But then, age-gap? Lol. Relax, it’s not that deep. Enjoy and thank your lucky stars it’s not censored.
In a media landscape that still treats lesbian viewers as niche, maybe it was intentional because the open-ended space noticed was like an invitation to keep dreaming rather than a door slammed shut.
The moments don’t give me on-screen kisses, but they give me something rarer: the feeling that a greater love cannot exist than the love of a woman who teaches you to safe-word.
Part 3: Overall Thoughts – Was I Queerbaited or Invited to the Party?
Here’s the brutal truth: Bound By Her Heart never promises a lesbian storyline. The marketing posters show Hope in a lying-down pose with Olivia leaning over her, and I blame the angle and the make-up: Olivia looks way too pretty. I went in expecting another hetero awakening fantasy with a side of male saviour.
What I got was more complicated and, weirdly, more respectful of my intelligence.
The show lets the relationships carry the emotional weight. Daniel funds nothing, but Hope does the emotional labour, and the camera stays glued to her face while she does it. That choice creates space for queer viewers to project our own narratives without the writers mocking us later.
There’s no “haha, gotcha, they were straight all along” twist. There’s also no kiss (or maybe I missed those). I left the finale feeling like someone had handed me a beautifully wrapped box that rattled when I shook it, but refused to open.
Is that queerbaiting? I don’t think so. Baiting implies intentional tease with zero payoff. This felt more like the writers themselves hadn’t realized how loudly the sub-text was screaming.
They wrote a woman who literally carries another woman’s collar; of course some are going to read that as romantic but the slap is the mentor-student dynamic. Settle down, that reel on Facebook was deceiving. The show neither confirms nor denies; it simply lets the metaphor breathe.
I walked away grateful rather than angry. Grateful for some hallucinations, for Olivia’s hate-tinged stares, for the scene where Hope handles her emotion with firmness while staring at a photo of her twin, all heavy breathing and tears.
Part 4: Coolest Episode – Number 13, The Family Showdown
Episode 13 is the one I re-watch when I need to believe that families-of-choice can defeat blood-ties built on misogyny. Hope strides into the divorce party looking expensive in a bright blazer and pleated skirt that screams “I’m here to return from the dead and ruin your dividend day.”
Olivia is beside her, but honestly, she could have stayed in the car and the scene would still detonate. The real electricity comes from the women: Hope, Daniel who quietly slides next to her, and even Molly, forced to watch her own plans unravel.
There’s a moment when Hope’s estranged father tries the old “you owe me your life” speech. Hope responds by digging up past grudges she’d been suppressing. “I owe my life to a woman you threw away,” she basically says, voice shaking but loud enough to echo off the glass walls.
I screamed. Literally screamed and scared my cat off the windowsill.
What makes this episode radical in my lesbian reading is that Hope isn’t fighting for romantic love; she’s fighting for matriarchal legacy. Lola’s presence looms behind the chairman’s seat like a patron saint of wronged wives.
When Hope reveals that her mother was the original majority shareholder, every woman in the room, even the extras, straighten their spines. It’s the closest network television has come to letting me witness a takeover dressed as an engagement party.
No, nobody kisses. But the energy is indistinguishable from the first time I confronted my bully in public and dared anyone to say something. Power, risk, the thrill of choosing your own clan… Episode 13 bottles that feeling and lets it explode under fluorescent lights.
I replay Hope’s reveal whenever I need courage. Her heart is bound by leather; mine is bound by her audacity. Same difference.
