It's A Sin - General Discussion

[Hiyo]

Quote

Some people like it a little rough.

True, though there is a fine line between rough and violent...

Also worth remembering is that some people are just shy and introverts by nature. Not everyone can be as confident and self-assured as say, Ritchie, when it comes to dating and hook-ups.

 

[sistermagpie]

7 hours ago, sugarbaker design said:

Some people like it a little rough.

He was desperate to leave the house because he was lonely.  Then he meets this cute young guy with whom he finds himself instantly smitten.  Then he gets a chance not only to share an apartment with the object of his affections, but he also gets an instant posse of besties.

 

7 hours ago, Hiyo said:

Also worth remembering is that some people are just shy and introverts by nature. Not everyone can be as confident and self-assured as say, Ritchie, when it comes to dating and hook-ups.

 

Yeah, we know from his conversation with Henry that he wanted a relationship and whether or not he enjoyed the sex as much as he could have, there's nothing for him to enjoy in the relationship he had with that guy. The sex might actually have been the only good part there, even if it wasn't the kind of sex Colin himself would really choose. I didn't get the impression he'd started going out on Thursday nights, for instance, in order to avoid it.

[lasu]

On 2/28/2021 at 1:20 AM, iwantcookies said:

Them saying La to each other is what got to me.as they kept dying La became sadder and sadder as the group kept shrinking.

My nickname is La, and I certainly became sadder and sadder as the group kept shrinking.

I don't think Colin was raped, but I definitely don't think it was a great experience.  I'm sure that the landlady's son explicitly was clear what would happen if Colin ever said anything.  It wasn't a great situation at all, and I'm glad Colin found another place to go.  Even if he did enjoy the sex, it was still an overall hostile place for him to be, and I think he finally recognized that.

[greekmom]

Finally saw this. Binged all 5 episodes last night.

In regards to Colin, I agree that he was into the sex but I think eventually he wanted what Henry had.  A loving stable relationship.  His boss was super creepy and I also wonder what happened in the hotel room in NY.  I assume Colin refused to have sex with him so he got sacked.  Glad the boss was busted in the public men's rooms.

I loved Colin's mom, Jill's parents and the woman in the hospital who told off Ritchie's mom. 

Ritchie's attitude towards AIDS when he's giving his speech on how it's not a real disease gave me chills of people today believing that COVID isn't real, made up and masks are not necessaries.  Oh how we people like to believe what we like to believe. 

Jill was an interesting character. I wonder why they never expanded on her at least having a love interest for support and just being the hen mom of the group.  Just watching her watch her friends die was giving me all the feels.

George/Glady's was another sad story. Hiding so no one finds out to have his parents find out and then burn all his things after he died to erase him from existence. 

Would have liked at least the group watching tv on how Princess Di hugged or made AIDS her cause by visiting hospitals and sitting with AIDS patients.  The throw away line wasn't enough.

Roscoe was another great character. I am super shocked his dad did a 180 and accepted him in the end. 

Would have liked to see at least 1 scene in a jump forward to the 2000's (say 2016) on how Jill and the remaining guys were doing.

[Lillith]

I finally watched this and agree it was brilliant but "triggering". I am just a few years younger than the characters portrayed in the show. So I remember the music well (it was a high point) and I also remember the fear. And how it brought out the worst in a lot of people, just as portrayed. Poor sweet Colin, that was a gut punch. I didn't love Ritchie but I felt for him, he was a very "real" character to me. Flawed and conflicted and scared. Roscoe was probably my favorite. Ash was just sort of there, it was too bad. The actor was very good (they all were) but they did very little with his character. 

I get Jill because I've always been the girl who has lots of gay male friends and I often "mother" them. Though I've never been roommates, just close friends. 

The family portrayals were realistic I thought. Not aspirational, just realistic for that time and place. Hell, it's realisitic for this time sadly. Overall it brought a lot of the sadness of that time back for me. We had fun, lots of it, but there was that constant spectre looming close by. 

I noticed other posters mentioned the documentary "We Were Here" and the film "Longtime Companion". Please watch them if you haven't yet. Both are utterly brilliant and utterly devastating at the same time. 

And as for the wonderful character who gave Ritchie's Mum a good slap of reality; she was portrayed by Ruth Sheen who's often in Mike Leigh movies. That's where I knew her from. If you enjoyed (such as it was) the style of this and you're not familair with Mike Leigh, check out his movies. Especially from the late 80's into the mid 90s. You'll recognize actors like Timothy Spall, Jane Horrocks, and David Thewlis who all got worked with him. 

[biakbiak]

On 3/7/2021 at 6:11 AM, greekmom said:

I also wonder what happened in the hotel room in NY.  I assume Colin refused to have sex with him so he got sacked.

They show the boss seeing all the articles and information Colin had gathered about AlDs and quickly making up an excuse to leave before attempting anything. 

[Jessa]

On 3/1/2021 at 1:33 AM, ruby24 said:

Was he enjoying it in every scene though? I got the impression that he liked it at first, but then the guy was becoming violent. And he was clearly desperate to then leave that house and he didn't sleep with anyone else or even try to, so something must have gone badly enough for him to close himself off afterwards.

I do think he did enjoy it. The last bit in the last scene is Colin moaning “yeah!” I more got the impression that football shirt was having trouble accepting his own sexuality, and hated himself for enjoying sex with men. He wanted the room dark, and kept his clothes on, and called Colin a “bender,” as if he wasn’t gay himself. I do think he was rough, but I don’t think I would use the word violent for what was shown on screen. Colin seemed to really want a boyfriend, and football shirt was not going to be that for him. Also, the rules of the house were strict including doors locked at 10pm. No wonder Colin wanted to move! 

Colin really seemed to be hung up on Ritchie, so maybe he didn’t want casual sex with other people once he had met the one person he wanted to be his boyfriend, even though it was not reciprocated. 

Edited March 17, 2021 by Jessa

[sugarbaker design]

15 hours ago, Jessa said:

Colin really seemed to be hung up on Ritchie, so maybe he didn’t want casual sex with other people once he had met the one person he wanted to be his boyfriend, even though it was not reciprocated. 

Exactly.  Imagine having a huge crush on someone and seeing them walk to the bathroom every morning in various states of undress!

[JustHereForFood]

I finally watched this and what a rollercoaster of emotions! I agree that it was very tough to watch, but at the same time didn't feel too depressing. I liked all those little moments of victory, such as Roscoe getting to piss in the former PM's coffee.

I understand that this was filmed pre-covid, but God were those unintended parallels painful to watch! How Richie was so dismissive of the whole situation at the beginning and then later trying all those desparate things to keep the disease from progressing. With the obvious difference that back then there just wasn't information available, even when people wanted it. When Jill's doctor refused to tell her anything, that was just horrible.

Jill's parents and Colin's mother were great, but the rest of the parents we saw were just garbage. Starting with Roscoe's father being ready to take him to Nigeria to have him killed there and the rest of his family (save for his sister) just uselessly sitting and going along with it. To all those parents who decided to control their adult children's lives and keeping them away from their friends and partners, even keeping those away from funerals. And I'm sure they got to keep all the inheritance as well. I know this is what was a reality for a lot of families and seriously, fuck all of those parents.

Ultimately I felt sorry for Richie. I was often feeling quite frustrated with him, especially as he kept having unprotected sex knowing he was infected (which is a crime), but I liked how Jill pointed out in the last conversation with his mother that it was a result of his upbringing and the shame he was feeling as a result of that. So sad to see. I hoped Jill would be a lot more harsh with her, after she and her husband treated her like crap, but Jill must have been much better person than I am and I guess it was important for her to keep it cool or something like that.

The music was A++.

 

[JustHereForFood]

I don't think this was mentioned previously, this article goes a bit into details of the Doctor Who cameo. Apparently they were inspired by an actor that RTD knew, who appeared in a Doctor Who episode and sadly also later died of AIDS.

https://www.digitalspy.com/tv/a35347177/its-a-sin-doctor-who-crossover-scene/

[Hiyo]

Nice Easter Egg of sorts.

[AngieBee1]

I absolutely loved IT'S A SIN - if one can love something that is about an extremely painful era.  While I loved it I knew it wasn't going to get any awards love but thankfully The Critics Choice Awards have recognized the production.

OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN MOVIES, MINISERIES OR SPECIALS
“Bo Burnham: Inside” – Netflix
“The Good Lord Bird” – Showtime
“I May Destroy You” – HBO
“It’s a Sin” – HBO Max
“Mare of Easttown” – HBO
“The Queen’s Gambit” – Netflix
“The Underground Railroad” – Amazon
“WandaVision” – Disney+

[Hiyo]

I do wish it got some love from the Emmy awards, but oh well.

[Hiyo]

It’s a Sin leads the way in 2022 TV Bafta nominations.

The show’s 11 nominations, comprising five in the craft categories and six in the television awards categories, include nods for Davies in the writer drama category, as well as a leading actor nomination for singer Olly Alexander for his role as Ritchie Tozer.

His co-star Lydia West has been nominated in the leading actress category.

[heckkitty]

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They did a good job at showing how gradually AIDS creeped into the gay community and then mainstream society and how long it took for people to really understand what AIDS was and how it was spreading, and the issues surrounding it.

Yeah I worked in a hospital in 1983-84, near a gay neighborhood in Chicago. I was very young and very, very ignorant. I just remember all these men coming in for lots and lots of tests and everyone being pretty confused about what was going on (I wasn't doing healthcare; I would check them in for their visits). I think back on that time sometimes, and especially while watching this, and I get so sad that probably none of those young men survived. 

[PurpleTentacle]

This was heart wrenching, but a great story and true. I can't lie, my cheecks were wet at the end. I had hoped that maybe Ritchie would make it, like he said he would in the penultimate episode. Especially since starting in 91 slowly but surely the good drugs were coming to market. But I guess that wouldn't have been true to this story.

I'm a bit late to the party and really only here because NPH said in an interview for the Doctor Who specials that he and RTD met when making this show. Then it was even free in the ZDF Mediathek and I thought "might as well". Never would I have thought that this would be so great.

I think I'll need a while to decompress after this.

[PurpleTentacle]

On 2/22/2021 at 7:10 PM, sistermagpie said:

I wondered that as well. I got the impression it was consensual, that that was what was meant by him saying how he'd always be home on Thursdays when the parents were out. But that it was also bound up with shame, which is why he was with a guy who was treating him that way--

That one hit very close to home. I never felt any shame about what I did in the bedroom, for whatever reason, but the first guy I had sex with sure did and that does a number on you. It's weird you are intimate with a guy, but at the same time he keeps you at arms length, having to control the situation, being cold, etc. I tried to talk to a therapist about it once and she literally didn't understand. It was like trying to explain the difference between green and red to somebody who is colour blind.

I think I still carry a bit of that with me after more than 20 years and it probably was one of the reasons why I never had a very active sex life. So I really see a lot of Colin in me and vice versa.

I sometimes wish I could go back and tell myself that it's not okay to be treated like that and that I should demand to be treated better or shut the whole thing down. I wish I would have been stronger back then, but I just had been relentlessly bullied for two years and my self confidence was in the toilet.

Well, that was tmi. But I couldn't not tell my story. That's kind of the point that you have to learn to talk about it and not let it lie in shame and darkness, isn't it? Well it's not like anybody is going to see it in such an old thread anyway...

On 2/22/2021 at 9:24 PM, tennisgurl said:

I feel sorry for any parent losing a child, but I cant feel all that much sympathy for Ritchie's mother. Taking Ritchie out of the hospital and not allowing his friends to see him, apparently out of petty bitterness, was just so horrible its hard to feel bad for her. She even let Ritchie die thinking that his friends never even bothered to come see him as he was dying, its just such a terrible thing to do. She basically made his death all about her and how upset she was that he had a whole life that she didn't know about, not about Ritchie and what was best for him. It seemed at first like maybe his dad was the biggest asshole in their family, but I think mom pulled it out for the victory in the end. She was just as bad, if not worse than the dad, just in a different way. 

That was an interesting reversal at the end there. You could tell that Ritchie's dad actually loved him. He couldn't show it until the end and probably too late, but even when he was nagging, he showed interest in Ritchie's career and after the initial shock, seemed to be suportive.

His mother on the other hand, always acted nice and supportive, but at the end it became clear that she didn't really care about who her son was, only about her fantasy of her perfect little boy.

On 2/22/2021 at 9:24 PM, tennisgurl said:

and of course they got a lot of mileage out of the 80s soundtrack.

Watching from the end of 2023, it's interesting how this show used Kate Bush's Running up that Hill a year and a half before stranger things, but it became a hit again only after that show used it...

On 2/24/2021 at 8:11 PM, lasu said:

I agree with a most of the praise and criticisms shared above.  This was truly a lovely series, and having adjacently through the AIDS crisis (I was in middle school in NC at its height, so pretty much 0% chance I needed to be worried about it, but believe me when I say EVERYONE worried about it.  It was so easy for me to get angry watching this at the way people would treat AIDS patients, but I had to remind myself, there truly was a time when no one knew anything and that's what it was like then.  It wasn't fair of me, with all my 2021 knowledge, to judge.  It was a scary time.  How awful to have died like that, alone and shamed.

True, but at the same time, no one knew, because not enough resources were put into it and that was because mostly gay men were dying of it. I mean look at COVID. We knew almost immediatly what it was and how it worked. After a year we had vaccines.

Sure part of that is scientific progress. But part of it is also that nobody gave a fuck about gay men dying.

On 2/25/2021 at 3:30 AM, DearEvette said:

Regards his actual sexual encounter we saw, I too had a hard time reading that scene.  It really felt uncomfortably non-consensual the way it was presented in some ways.  On the one hand I got the sense that Colin was sexually turned on by the guy but on the other hand, I got such a rapey vibe from the guy himself.

Guess I should play the next therapist that scene, because that ambiguity is about what I experienced. It's not non-consensual, but it's also not nice or healthy.

On 6/15/2021 at 12:06 AM, JustHereForFood said:

Jill's parents and Colin's mother were great, but the rest of the parents we saw were just garbage. Starting with Roscoe's father being ready to take him to Nigeria to have him killed there and the rest of his family (save for his sister) just uselessly sitting and going along with it.

I don't think his father wanted to take him there to get him killed. He thought the traditional values there could fix his son or something like that. He clearly didn't understand how deep the hatred of gay people, and other people they considered somehow unclean, ran there, until he visited himself and saw how they were treating people who had AIDS.