Prime Video's Off Campus makes several major changes from Elle Kennedy's college hockey romance series.
Based primarily on The Deal, the first book in the wildly popular Off-Campus series, Season 1 of the TV adaptation gets rid of Hannah's (Ella Bright) diva duet partner Cass, turns Justin (Josh Heuston) from football player to brooding musician, and jump-starts Allie (Mika Abdalla) and Dean's (Stephen Kalyn) romance extra early. (As in, it starts two full seasons before I thought it would.)
These switch-ups from the source material have huge plot ramifications, but there's one smaller change in the finale that manages to right one of The Deal's most toxic wrongs. I'm talking about Garrett's (Belmont Cameli) "campus-wide hands-off law."
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In The Deal, Garrett's father Phil (Steve Howey) blackmails Hannah into breaking up with Garrett. (Thankfully, Off Campus cuts this cookie-cutter villainy entirely in favor of a breakup driven purely by Garrett and Hannah's own anxieties.) When Hannah does break up with Garrett in the book, she suggests that she needs to see other people. In response, he forbids any man at Briar University from dating or even interacting with her.
The move plays into a classic romance trope: that of the possessive boyfriend. According to The Deal, Graham is just doing this to protect Hannah. He knows that she doesn't really want to see anyone else but him, so why not accelerate the process and bring her back to him sooner?
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But what The Deal proposes as a romantic gesture is actually a wave of red flags. Garrett's "law" removes any of Hannah's agency following the forced breakup, where she already had so little agency in the first place. With this order, he cuts her off from a huge chunk of the people around her, essentially declaring her to be his property in the process. I don't care that he's meant to be the romantic hero here! Doing this is controlling and belittling, and it brings him closer to his abusive father than any one hockey fight ever could.
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Off Campus deftly navigates around this nasty minefield in its season finale, faking viewers out with Garrett's hands-off law before delivering a much sweeter, actually romantic sentiment.
The hands-off law storyline initially plays out on TV the same way it does in the book. The male population of Briar U runs at the first sight of Hannah, and when she finds out why, she storms into the locker room to give Garrett a piece of her mind. (Yes, just like in the book, there are many penises on display.) She rightfully calls him out on how misogynistic his decree is, only for him to reveal he doesn't know what she's talking about.
Turns out, the hands-off law was actually the result of a campus-wide game of telephone. Dean said he thought Garrett would lose his shit if Hannah dated someone else, which younger members of the team took to mean he'd beat up anyone who dated Hannah. The rumor mill did the rest.
"I would never tell anyone to stay away from you," Garrett tells Hannah once they sort out the miscommunication. "You should be with whoever you want to be with."
That statement is the polar opposite of book Garrett's actions, and refreshingly so. Here, he's respecting Hannah and her agency. Given that Off Campus is a show all about their romance, it's clear the person she wants to be with is Garrett. However, he's not railroading her into that journey back to him.
That Off Campus still keeps the mention of the hands-off law in the show actually proves to be a smart adaptation choice. It allows for the inclusion of the fan-favorite locker-room scene and gives Hannah a chance to rightfully stand up for herself. It also offers up a contrast between the kind of jerk Garrett could be and the kind of person he actually is.
Throughout the season, Garrett has been struggling with one big question: What kind of hockey player does he want to be? The kind who gets in fights and showboats for personal glory? Or the kind who works with and respects his team? The hands-off law is a move the first kind of hockey player would make. Respecting Hannah's boundaries is what the second would do. That Garrett chooses the latter option, eschewing toxic masculine stereotypes in the process, is a huge win for the TV adaptation.
All episodes of Off Campus are now streaming on Prime Video.