Hudson Williams spent Heated Rivalry kissing Connor Storrie. In the newest episode of his witchy mystery series Yaga, the man he kisses is Hudson Williams.
It’s a dim bedroom. Logan, shirtless, sits on the edge of the bed with a woman named Pam. A few feet away, Henry is watching in a crisp white cardigan, a silver chain on his bare chest, very much enjoying himself.
Then Logan looks up at him, and Henry leans in.
Both men are played by Hudson, which is why X spent Friday typing “Hudson Williams kissing Hudson Williams” over and over. The scene also puts a new spin on something his co-star, Schitt’s Creek‘s Noah Reid, said about him back in July. And Hudson has now explained how you actually film a kiss with yourself. He did not make it sound fun.
Wait, What Is Yaga?
If you know Hudson only as hockey star Shane Hollander, you may have missed this one. Yaga is an eight-episode horror mystery made for Canadian streamer Crave. In the US it streams on AMC+, where it premiered on October 23 with a new half-hour episode every Friday.
It’s based on a stage play by Kat Sandler, and the title comes from Baba Yaga, the witch of Slavic folklore who lives deep in the woods. The show moves her legend to a small coastal town called Whittock.
That’s where Henry Park, the rich young heir to a powerful fishing business, has gone missing. Noah plays Rapp, the private investigator who turns up to find him. Clark Backo plays Carson, the local detective who ends up working with him. And Carrie-Anne Moss, Trinity herself from The Matrix, plays Katherine, a charismatic professor “with a taste for younger men.”
Hudson is Henry. He’s also Logan Casey, Henry’s roommate and near-lookalike. Logan isn’t in the original play: as TV Insider pointed out, he was created for the series. For Logan, Hudson wears glasses, a prosthetic nose and fake teeth.
As far as the show has told us, they aren’t twins. Logan’s mother says her son was swept up by Henry’s charm and kept changing himself to be more like him. Episode 4 suggests the fixation ran both ways.
The Yaga Scene Everyone Keeps Rewinding
The kiss comes from “Dance with the Devil,” the fourth episode, which dropped on Friday, November 6.
By then, Logan was already gone. His body turned up in episode 3, and Carson and Rapp then found a hidden room behind his bookshelf, full of recording equipment and dated tapes. Logan seems to have been secretly recording Henry’s bedroom.
In episode 4, Carson brings in Pam, the woman on the latest tape, and her account plays out in flashback. Henry, she says, wanted Logan “to join in.” Her explanation: “The thing about Henry is he just can’t bear to be left out of anything.”
So Henry watches Logan with Pam, until watching isn’t enough. He kisses Logan and slips two fingers into his mouth. Over the top of it, Pam’s voice cuts in: “He knew I wanted Logan.”
It’s also our first real look at Henry, and he’s a piece of work. “I can practically smell the evil wafting off that pristine white sweater,” Whitney Evans wrote in her TV Fanatic review.
Hudson Says Kissing Himself Was “Awful”
Filming two characters kissing when one actor plays both takes some tricks. Hudson walked through them in a new clip from Canadian entertainment show etalk.
He had a double, a man named Chris. “I kissed Chris,” he said, and the response from his castmates was a heartfelt “Bless Chris.” Did Chris have to wear Logan’s teeth? Hudson was very clear that he did not.
For some shots there was no Chris at all. Hudson acted out the kissing noises he made on set and said it was “literally just that to the air.” etalk says he called the whole thing “awful.” Noah’s advice to everyone else: “You don’t wanna know how the sausage is made.”
Those teeth had come up before. In October, Hudson told etalk host Lainey Lui that Henry is the better kisser of his two characters, because kissing with Logan’s dental prosthetics was “like bumper cars or something.”
Noah Reid Basically Called It
At San Diego Comic-Con in July, when the show’s first teaser screened, Noah told the crowd that Hudson “cannot keep his hands off himself,” as Instinct reported. We quoted it when an early Yaga teaser paired the two. At the time it was a throwaway joke about a thirsty role. After episode 4 it’s closer to a plot summary.
Episode 4 isn’t the first time the show has turned up the heat. In episode 2, Hudson appeared in a horned pup mask at a party, demanding that his partner say his name, “Henry.” Except, as viewers found out, that wasn’t Henry. And according to Out, a heated scene between Hudson and Noah is still coming in a later episode.
Fans Are Struggling With It
The clip hit X in the early hours of Friday, and the first wave of reactions was mostly disbelief.
“Opened twitter and the first thing I see is Hudson Williams kissing himself. What is going on?” one fan asked. Another: “Hudson Williams kissing himself in #YAGA was not on my bingo card, but here we are.” Someone else decided the show “truly has it all.”
Once the shock wore off, people started praising the acting. “To me henry and logan are portrayed by two different people,” one viewer wrote. Others got hung up on the details, like “the way Logan wanted more from Henry, the way he was chasing that kiss.”
And plenty of viewers were watching Pam instead. Her face drops the moment she realizes Logan only has eyes for Henry.
How To Watch Yaga
Yaga streams on AMC+ in the US and Crave in Canada, with a new episode every Friday. Episode 5 arrives on November 13, and the season wraps with a two-episode finale on November 27.
Four episodes in, Henry is still missing and Logan is still dead, and nobody in Whittock seems to know who wanted either of them gone. The one thing that’s settled: the only person who can upstage Hudson Williams on this show is Hudson Williams.