Feb 7, 2026

"Samuel": French middle school boys are all in love with the same girl. With queerbaiting, drag, Freudian dreams, and some n*de twinks

**Link to the n*de photos**

When I was growing up in Rock Island, there were no gay characters in children's media -- and they were vanishingly rare in adult media. In grade school my friend Bill and I vowed to be "best men" forever, and in junior high I swooned over Dan, who had blond hair and warm hands, but parents, teachers, and peers insisted that we were tepid, inconsequential "buddies." Soon, very soon, I would "discover" girls, and drop my boy friends, instantly and without hesitation, to devote my life to what really mattered, finding and winning The Girl.

I scoured through tv shows, comic books, and the books in the Denkmann School library, searching for evidence that same-sex loves could endure for a lifetime: Will and Jack fighting aliens together in The White Mountains, Tony and Doug declaring that "I won't leave without you!" on Time Tunnel, even Rich and Sean smiling at each other in The Secret of Boyne Castle.

A show about a boy who actually experiences a real, undeniable same-sex romance would have been a godsend.

The animated Samuel (2026), by French cartoonist Émilie Tronche, just dropped on Netflix. It features a ten-year old boy whose diary entries are depicted in line drawings on a minimal canvas, similar to the Diary of a Wimpy Kid. The blurb tells us that he's going to face "first loves, complicated friendships, and the start of middle school," with an illustration that undeniably shows him kissing a boy. Dude is going to come out!

I can't wait to review Samuel.

Episode 1, Scene 1: Samuel writes in his diary that he's in love with a girl.

Say what? I'm confused.

The boy he is kissing is shown on the blurb for Episode 5, so I'll review that one instead.

Episode 5: At choir practice, a rumor goes around that Dmitri asked Julie to go out with him. Everyone laughs and makes fun of the two. Dmitri is the boy he is shown kissing.

The teacher comes in and asks if everyone has learned the solo part. Dmitri claims that he has.

The full choir:

Why do people in love always seem to be the same?
They carry, as they walk by, the same look in their eye
One single flame -- they are the happy ones

Dmitri's solo. Is he going to sing to Samuel?

I barely know you, but to drift away with you, like they do
We could make enough room, you and me
For both of us, with no fuss

You have to let me know it won't be in vain

Whatever the stakes, I want to be a happy man

Suddenly Samuel finds himself in church, about to be married to a boy? No, to Julie, but Dmitri rushes in at the last minute, a la The Graduate, and takes her away.

Later, Samuel sees Julie and Dmitri in the schoolyard, and they confirm that they are in love. This depresses Samuel, as he is in love with Julie, too. Say what? When are he and Dmitri going to kiss?

Ok, episodes are only 3-4 minutes long. I'm going through all of them on fast forward, looking for the development of the Samuel-Dmitri romance.

Episode 6: Dmitri does not appear. Samuel has a best friend, Benjamin.

Episode 7: On the field trip to the museum, Dmitri and Julie sit together, upsetting Samuel.

Episode 8: Samuel's friend Benjamin returns from his grandmother's funeral. They discuss his grief, but when he starts crying, Samuel is too macho to hug him. Instead, he says "Your hair is really greasy." Jerk!

Episode 9: Dmitri tells Samuel, "You look pretty," but they're rehearsing a play, and Dmitri is a fox planning to eat crow Samuel, so it might not be his real-life sentiments.

Episode 10: Samuel tells his diary, "Last night something happened. I don't know how to describe it." Finally, the kiss! On the way home after the play, they stop at a stop light, and Samuel sees a girl, maybe Julie, in the next car. She waves at him. "That's what happened." A wave?

Episode 11: During summer vacation, Samuel runs into his enemy Dmitri crying on the sidewalk. Is he upset because he is in love with Samuel? He explains that he is sad because school is over, and he's lonely. He asks to hang out with Samuel's friend group next fall, when they're in middle school. So are they going to fall in love over the summer?

Episode 12: Samuel's babysitters, Bryan and Jonah, invite him to a party with adults. They usually go to clubs; maybe they're a gay couple? Nope: when the dancing starts, they're mesmerized by two girls who give them "come hither" finger gestures, and ditch Samuel. Ugh! "You will abandon your same-sex loves, instantly and without hesitation, to devote your life to the only thing that matters, finding and winning The Girl."

More after the break

Episode 13: At the beach, a kid tries to get close to Samuel. He tries to ignore him and swim away, but the boy keeps following him. Finally they sit together on a rock, and Samuel explains that he's in love with a girl. So he thinks the boy wants to date him? No, he's just making small talk. The other boy's small talk: nobody at school likes him. They call him "prey."

They play for three hours, but then Samuel has to leave. They say goodbye. He stops at the drug store to get a postcard to send to...Julie. Ugh. "But do not mourn the loss of your boyhood chums. It means that you are growing up, abandoning childish things for the hard, noble work of adulthood. It is the fate men were born for."

Wait -- a postcard? What year is this?

Samuel tells Julie that he is writing because of his new friend Prey. To tell her that he's not interested in her anymore? No, Prey suggested that he confess his love, in case she feels the same way.

"Or your chums will be come co-conspirators, helping you evaluate the attractiveness of actresses on tv or girls in your class, devising clever ways to meet, impress, or win them."

Episode 14: Samuel tells us that Julie never responded to his postcard. He's now in middle school, with new classes -- maybe he'll take French. Wait -- I thought this was France. The series was produced by Les Valseurs, and funded by the Centre national du cinéma et de l'image animée.

Samuel has a bully who spits on him, and two new friends, Steven (funny) and Noah (mature). Could they be a gay couple, finally? He's also got a female friend named Maybell (Mabel in the IMDB), who looks like a boy. She explains that she was given a boy's haircut by some mean girls at summer camp. That doesn't explain why you wear boys' clothes, girlfriend. Are you nonbinary or trans?

Wait -- Maybell looks exactly like Dmitri. Could she be the one who Samuel kisses? But she's not even introduced until Episode 14, so everyone will go into the show thinking that Samuel kisses Dmitri! Queerbaiting at its most blatant!

I'm going to keep going, in case it's a misdirection, and Samuel ends up kissing Dmitri after all.

Episode 15: Samuel has a weird dream about a lady with grasshopper legs chasing him. He tells his friends when they hang out in Noah's back yard to talk about personal stuff. His friends include the new guys, Noah and Steven, Benjamin from elementary school, and his former enemy Dmitri.

As they're having heart-to-hearts, Steven asks: "Is there a girl at school who makes your heart race?" I heard this all the time in high school, but it wasn't a question. Obviously I was in love with a girl, like every other boy who ever lived. They just wanted to know her name: "What girl do you like? What girl do you like? What girl? What girl? What girl?"

Dmitri: "Of course! Julie, the Girl of My Dreams."

Samuel: "Of course! Julie is the Girl of My Dreams, too."

Steven: "Mine, too!"

Noah: "And mine!"

This is awkward -- your male colleagues are supposed to help you win her, not compete for her! Hey, maybe they could ask Julie who the Boy of Her Dreams is. The others would experience the agony of lost love, of course, but at least they would someday be able to love again.

Whoops, she won't tell them. Back to square one.

Episode 16: Samuel and his girl friend Maybell skip school and hang out. They spend the day together, and hold hands, but Maybell doesn't like it because his hand is all sweaty.

Episode 17: The tall lady with grasshopper legs has appeared on campus, and is looking for Samuel. He hides in a shed, and finds Julie reading his diary -- where he writes about being in love with her. But before she gets to that part, Grasshopper Lady bursts in, and they have to run. I think this is a dream sequence filled with Freudian symbolism. Maybe Grasshopper Lady represents his heterosexual destiny?

Episode 18: Samuel sits with Julie on the bus. It is the best day of his life. Hey, what about the whole day you spent with Maybell? Is this a 1980s teen nerd movie, where the nerd is so wrapped up in the It-Girl that he ignores the girl-next-door who has supported him all along?

Episode 19: The guys hang out at Steven's house. He looks out onto the street and exclaims: "Check out the ladies." Ugh, just when I think there's hope, it comes crashing down with "girls! girls! girls!"

They invite the girls -- Maybell and her two friends -- to hang out with them, and "slow dance," but the three girls are dancing together, and there are two boy-boy couples, Steven-Noah and Samuel-Benjamin (his friend from grade school). I have never heard of straight boys slow-dancing before.

Benjamin puckers up for a kiss, and then grins playfully. So you're into Samuel?

They dress in drag and continue to dance. How are there so many girls' dresses their size in Steven's apartment?

A lot of gay stuff here, but three of the four dancing boys, and Dmitri, who lies on the couch, have been identified as straight.

On the walk home, Samuel kisses Maybell. There it is, back to heteronormativity.

Though nothing can bring back the hour

Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower

We will grieve not, rather find

Strength in what remains behind.

Episode 20: He deals with the fallout of the kiss. The end.

Beefcake: These are line drawings of 10-year olds.

Heterosexism: Incessant.

Gay Characters: This picture comes from an online review: Benjamin tries to hug an angry Samuel, while an unidentified girl dances and Julie looks on ( couldn't find the scene in the series). Plus Benjamin tries to kiss Samuel at the party, and he's the only male character who isn't in love with Julie. There's a gay subtext, but I doubt that he's canonical.

My grade: Points off for the queerbaiting Maybell-Dmitri. C.