Heated Rivalry season 1 episode 4 ending explained: Did Shane pick Rose over Ilya?

Heated Rivalry season 1 ends Episode 4, Rose, with a move that looks like “moving on” and feels like panic control. The six-episode romantic drama adapts Rachel Reid’s Game Changers novel Heated Rivalry for TV, created and directed by Jacob Tierney, and it streams on Crave in Canada and HBO Max in the U.S. Hudson Williams stars as Montreal scorer Shane Hollander opposite Connor Storrie as Boston rival Ilya Rozanov, with Sophie Nélisse joining this week as actress Rose Landry.

Time jumps across seasons show how their secret survives, until it doesn’t. Episode 4 ends with one brutal contrast: Shane goes home with Rose, Ilya goes home alone, and neither of them says what the look across the club actually means. The crosscut makes their silence feel loud.

Heated Rivalry season 1 episode 4 ending explained: Did Shane pick Rose over Ilya?

In Heated Rivalry season 1, Shane does not pick Rose because he is done with Ilya. He picks the narrative Rose offers because he just panicked when Ilya offered him something real. A 2014 to 2016 montage shows their rhythm: texts, schedule checks, and secret postgame meetups. That rhythm breaks when Shane goes to Ilya’s home and stays. After sex, Shane starts to leave, but Ilya stops him with insistence that lands as intimacy. Ilya said,

“I’m not done with you.”

Instead of slipping out, Shane gets hours of couch time and food, the kind of closeness that changes the rules. The conversation circles their favorite camouflage, women and “who else are you seeing.” Shane insists he likes girls, as if that seals the box shut again. Ilya says the part Shane refuses to name. Ilya stated,

“I like girls, but I also like you,”

And Shane’s reaction gives him away. The second it starts feeling like a commitment, Shane bolts. Shane said,

“I can’t do this.”

In Heated Rivalry season 1, that bolt is followed by a sprint toward something the public can read. Rose becomes that sprint. Their first real talk is not tabloid fluff. Rose asks about Shane’s childhood in hockey, and he answers with unusual honesty. Shane remarked,

“He hated me though, I have a western last name so it’s like the other kids kind of forgot to make fun of me."

The ending turns Shane’s new story into a collision with the old one. After another matchup, the usual postgame text never comes. They still end up in the same club. Shane is there with Rose and her friend Miles. Ilya is there trying to prove he can move on. They spot each other across the room and say nothing, but both start performing. Shane leaves with Rose. Ilya leaves alone. The crosscut is the answer. Shane chose cover and control, not Rose over Ilya, and Heated Rivalry season 1 treats the club as a cliffhanger, not closure.

Why Shane panics at Ilya’s place, and what “I should go” really means

Heated Rivalry season 1 keeps showing that Shane’s fear is not desire, it is consequences. Public attention and family expectations make “being seen” feel like a risk. In Rose, Ilya offers intimacy that continues after sex, and Shane cannot hold that without losing control. Shane reaches for the old rule the moment closeness starts to stick. Shane said,

"I should go,"

and it lands like a reflex. Leaving restores distance. Staying would mean admitting that Ilya knows him, and that Shane wants to be known.

The ending explained, the nightclub stare-down, and what it sets up next

In Heated Rivalry season 1, the last minutes of Episode 4 play like a breakup with no conversation. The missing text is the first sign the routine is broken. The club is where they test each other without speaking, then punish each other with performance. Shane chooses the visible exit with Rose. Ilya chooses to look unbothered, then cracks in private.

Rose is not the real opponent. Secrecy is. The episode sets up the next phase in Heated Rivalry season 1: they can keep using other people as armor, or they can finally risk naming what they are.

Stay tuned for more updates.