There is absolutely a lot of nailing

I thought the dates were not what I expected sometimes but I did not pay close enough attention to that (while reading or watching) to suss out why that might be. The only change I noticed and am not sure of is that they went to Shane's actual house (apartment? whatever) in Montreal and book!Ilya imagining what it was like and asking Shane about it was nifty

The Scott/Kip stuff in ep3 is happening much earlier in the show than it did in the books, which means there must be other adjustments to make later events line up the way they need to.

Oh, yeah, that's true. You know, while I was reading I kept flipping back and forth between chapters trying to keep the timeline straight in my head but I just let that all fly out the window for the show. They could be very mean about how that plays out, I suppose, I hope that doesn't happen

Was the first book in the series not also the first in chronological order? I thought Francois Arnaud's character was a main character of the first book.

The second book spans a period of time before the first book as well

The series is chronological except for the 2 Shane/Ilya books, which together cover the entire timeline of the series. So Game Changers (Scott/Kip) the book takes place over a period of about 6 months inside the timeline of Heated Rivalry. (And the show has those events about 3 years earlier than they happen in the book.)

OK, I don’t know if I can make a case based on the show, but I’m taking all the Scott/Kip in episode 3 as a magical flash-forward within the otherwise linear progression of the timeline. It wouldn’t have worked to push all that into this episode somehow but him staying closeted for 3 years or whatever *and* finishing every season badly until now without the turnaround being that he met Kip is not to be borne

I’ll probably do a rewatching binge next week, will look for clues I can hand wave into support

I find the timeline hard to grasp.

Yeah, I realize there is one but I don't, like, feel it