I have to say I wasn't the BIGGEST fan of how the mother was portrayed in the final episode - a touch of misogyny going on in the writing there tbqfh - and also Jill going in on her so hard in the final scenes felt really off. Her son had literally JUST died and it didn't feel warranted or cathartic or anything... also didn't feel like what Ritchie would have wanted so made Jill come across as selfish in one of her final scenes? I dunno. Again not sure about the writing. Felt like it was written by someone who is not a parent. Hmm.

...Scott she kind of did get that ‘slap’ in that he told her who he was, that there had been 100’s of men...the good, the bad and the ugly/type thing...and his words, something like ...’some of them right bastards but I enjoyed every moment...’...that was her ‘slap’, I felt...he was telling her who he was and even though it had led to him there and losing his life, he would not ever mor could ever change who he was...

....Richie’s mum was a product of her time and she wasn’t really a likeable person because sadly, a product of that time had much bigotry...for me, Keeley Hawes played her in as likeable and sympathetic way as she could, she was superb...:lovedup:...young men were dying, they were dying en masse and as was said...if these were heterosexual men...there would be screaming and rioting in every street and what is this goddamn disease...!!!!!!...but that’s not how it was, they were ‘silent deaths’ and ‘hidden deaths’ because of the bigotry of the time ...they were deaths from cancer or pneumonia or something else, anything else, but they weren’t AIDS...because AIDS would only bring judgement...


...Jill’s character was the ‘mother’ who knew him, who knew Richie and not the ideal or idea of Richie that his mother still lived in...to acknowledge and accept who someone is and to love who they are and not who you would like them to be, is the ‘greater love’ /..the more unconditional love, I feel....Jill became what families had rejected and she loved as a parent loves, she became that for many of the characters...but she was prevented from being with Richie, she was kept from him at his time of death and she was told in a very cold way...’oh he died..’ ...and that was that..?...and how she had to tell others who loved him as well, who had known him completely and loved him...even in his death and a mother/son love that she felt...his mother still couldn’t accept him as Richie, but only ‘her Richie’ and she kept him from the people who loved him and who desperately needed to say goodbye to him...just all very sad but yeah, so much of its time...

I actually curled up into a ball lmao... obviously Colin's death is heartbreaking in and of itself, but the way his mother was subject to abuse (the **** through the letterbox), the legal rigamarole, and just 100% supportive even when he was going senile and masturbating in the hospital bed (bye :skull: )... ugh my heart broke specifically for her, and so many other mums and sisters out there (and, dare I say, even the occasional dad or brother) who weren't judgmental, weren't burning their dead sons' possessions out of shame and disgust, or fear of contagion... weren't calling them dirty queers, but just... loved their sons.

Ugh... the AIDS crisis just absolutely breaks my heart whatever the manner of media I digest it through is. So, so many bright and talented and beautiful people just... gone, in their prime. I can't think about it for too long without crying but it's just so important to commemorate these people.

I was thinking "...that guy Colin's moved in with, bet they're gonna shag :hehe:" and then nothing happened... so to see that all play back was a moment of "I bloody knew it :oh:" at least :love:

LOVE Roscoe and Jill... loved Henry too, especially since I actually find Neil Patrick Harris a little insufferable, but he was fantastic in this even if only for a brief episode. Soundtrack is fantastic, naturally, but the acting is superb from pretty much everyone.

I knew it was coming because I'm an idiot who likes to read spoilers before I watch TV shows and films... but whew that was a heavy watch.

I am now in a predicament where I feel like if I ever saw Keeley Hawes I would smack her in the face :worry:

Episode four was done a little better IMO... the fifth had a lot of loose ends to tie up, whereas 4 was all about Ritchie going home, getting the diagnosis, finally owning up to his behaviour and shame, reliving his past and going through the stages of grief (that scene where he breaks down in that boy's car, and then gets out and performs some ballet moves in the headlights... absolutely stunning).

And then obviously the fifth episode was inevitable... I've already said in here about how heartbreaking and difficult it was for families of the deceased to come to terms with, but even small details like Ritchie's sister crying with Roscoe & Jill in the B&B just... really well done. And the final scenes with Jill just stopping in on lonely strangers because she never got to say goodbye to Ritchie... yeah that ruined me lol.

I need to read up on Jill herself... she was based on this woman (who makes a cameo herself, as 'Jill's mum' in the final two episodes): https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-55937944 She seems like an absolute hero.