[Ammi]

...Richie’s mum...

Spoiler:

...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......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...