July 11, 2025 • 64 mins
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Thank you to Ashleigh for commissioning this episode!
This installment focuses on a character we decide to call G and their failed battle with AIDS which is kept secret by everyone who knows about it. Meanwhile, Roscoe is angry, Ritchie is dismissive, and Colin is fired.
Thanks so much to you all for listening, and I will see you soon with a new episode!
Wanna talk spoilers? Join the Discord! https://discord.gg/rEF2KfZxfV
Thank you to Ashleigh for commissioning this episode!
This installment focuses on a character we decide to call G and their failed battle with AIDS which is kept secret by everyone who knows about it. Meanwhile, Roscoe is angry, Ritchie is dismissive, and Colin is fired.
Thanks so much to you all for listening, and I will see you soon with a new episode!
Wanna talk spoilers? Join the Discord! https://discord.gg/rEF2KfZxfV
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
This is an unspoiled network podcast. This is spoil Me
covering It's a Sin Season one, episode two. In this episode,
we get a new character involved temporarily, and I feel
(00:27):
really bad for Colin. Guys, this sucks so much and
it's so infuriating. I welcome to spoil Me. Welcome to
(00:57):
the show everyone. I am Natasha. Thank you very much
to Ashley for commissioning this episode. Ashley is here in
the chat. Thank you, Ashley. Really appreciate you. Also, though,
why are you doing this to me?
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Ashley?
Speaker 1 (01:14):
Oh my god, y'all, this is going to break my
little heart. Are we getting like the death of a
character we've grown to like every episode? I feel like
it's gonna be right. It was, uh, Ashley says. Gregory
Slash Gloria was in there episode one two, but there
wasn't much focus on him. That's kind of what I
(01:36):
figured was that we probably got like a quick drive
by with him. I My antenna went up as soon
as we were zeroing in on him this episode. I
was just like, oh boy, this is he's gonna die.
This is gonna be a whole thing because it's and
(01:57):
forgive me for this comparison, because I have said in
the past that any time I bring up The Walking Dead,
it's usually going to be to talk shit, and it
is usually to talk shit about The Walking Dead. But
I'm not criticizing the show episode for this. I just
am making the comparison that in The Walking Dead there
was a sort of similar joke where if there was
(02:18):
a character that began out of nowhere to get like
a lot of screen time, it was almost a guarantee
they would be dead by the end of the episode
because the show didn't really know how to handle having
such a huge ensemble cast in a way that made
you care about everybody, whether or not they were the
main focus of an episode, you know. Like, so this show,
(02:40):
I feel like, because I am aware of what the
AIDS epidemic is going to grow to be, I am
not feeling about this storytelling choice the way that I
was about The Walking Dead, which always felt very cheap
to me, in this way that it wanted you to
care and kind of manipulated you into it. This show,
(03:02):
it feels like it's genuinely we're showing you what happened.
This is the story, you know, and that just it
feels different, And I always find it really really interesting
whenever there is something that's a trope in a way
and why there are times where I react with violent
(03:24):
hatred of that trope, and then there are other times
where that's that same trope clearly, and I'm just like, no, this,
this was fine, This worked, you know. And I think
a lot of it has to do with what your
goal is and what the effort was that you put
into it. So because the goal is to tell a
(03:48):
very real story and the effort establishing this person, and like,
you know, he the writing is good enough that he
feels like a full real person in the same way
that mister what was his name? I keep wanting to
call him mister Cabana, because there is something about his
(04:10):
name that is like ringing that bell for me. What
was the name of Colin's little short lived mentor there
who passed away played by Neil Patrick Harris. He like
both of these characters that die, we grow to really
like in a short space of time. It's not even
(04:34):
with with you know, Colin's friend, it's just Colin's life
that he's involved in. Whereas Grace slash Gregory or sorry,
Gloria slash Gregory, he's involved in everybody's lives, so we
get a little bit more time with him because of that,
even though the focus really is on Jill with him
this episode, Henry Coltrane, where am I getting Cabana? I
(04:58):
do not know. I'm I'm so sorry, So okay. I'm
trying to decide how I want to approach talking about
this one, because I feel like breaking it up into
characters is probably going to be the easiest. We'll start
off with Richie. Richie is a really compelling character. He's
(05:26):
somebody that I think audiences could love or hate, and
I'm in this camp where I really like him, but
he teeters on the verge of me wanting to slap him,
which is kind of the space that I think I
occupy for a lot of people. And I'm not trying
to even be funny. I genuinely can be very like Richie,
(05:52):
where I always have a glib response to things. I
am a little bit too smart for my own good
and can talk myself into or out of believing stuff.
I will monopolize a room and sort of like I
am an attention wore, and I will let that take
(06:14):
over at times where it's not appropriate. He is trying
to I think sort of channel that in his choice
of profession here, and I think that is for the best.
I have a channel with a podcast which helps me
do that a lot less in everyday life, because I
am getting my desire for attention satisfied somewhere else. And
(06:35):
I think that's kind of key. But his whole attitude
of this whole thing is just fear mongering and bigotry.
And use logic and think about how none of the
things they are asserting about it make any sense. That
(06:57):
logic is sound, you know. And this is what I
found really really interesting about watching this unfold here. And
I assume a lot of what he is saying, and
a lot of the things that we see happening in
the bar especially, we are basing all of this stuff
on actual experiences that gay men had during this period.
(07:21):
And this was something that I always wondered about because
obviously homophobes are going to say that this is like
targeting gay men as a strike from God, that this
is some sort of vengeance for their sin, right, which
it's kind of the title of the show being it's
(07:42):
a sin. It's clearly a double edged It's well, that's
what people say about being gay, but really what's the
sin is the way people are treating them and the
way they handled this whole epidemic. So what I was
wondering about the response to the rise in this disease
in the gay community was like, what kind of information
(08:06):
were they even seeking out? How were so like, how
were they responding? Was there a real spread of fear?
Did people start to like kind of shut themselves off
in a way, Because it's a weird parallel and this
was this show came out in twenty twenty one, which
you know, I don't know if it was filmed before
(08:29):
the pandemic or if the filming took place as the
pandemic was happening. And then we get like, it's such
a physical show. People are kissing and like skin on
skin so often because sex is such a huge part
of it that if it were during the pandemic, I
imagined that everybody would have had to have been isolated
because they had to make sure that nobody was carrying
(08:50):
COVID before they left them on set, because it was
just everybody's in physical contact with everybody else. But it's
really impossible in the light of you know, coming at
in twenty twenty five, and looking at all of this,
I okay. Ashley says, they started filming in October twenty nineteen,
so it was before everything started to Really what I
(09:11):
find interesting is like, I am, of course going to
draw some parallels between the way that AIDS is being
talked about in this show versus the way that we
handled COVID, and they're you know, there's a very different
sort of slant to a lot of it because it's
(09:34):
social media isn't a thing, and so the way that
rumors or theories get bandied about is either face to
face people, just like gossiping articles in newspapers that are
like for the general public, and so those are probably
(09:54):
going to be heavily laced with homophobia. Articles that are
specifically targeted to the gate community, which are going to
have a completely different tone to them and maybe totally
different information as well. And how separated all of those
methods of communication are from one another, whereas today everything
(10:20):
is overlapping in this way that becomes even if you
don't agree with the line of thinking, you will become
aware of what is being said from all sides without
even looking.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
Into it too much.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
A lot of the time, because social media just winds
up permeating things, you know, and the way that he's
going through, like, oh, they say it's this, they say
it's this, and this is the episode. I think Ashley,
when you said last episode they even asked him if
he had sex with a monkey, I'm wondering if you
were responding to what happens this episode, because I really
(11:00):
don't remember that last episode. I may be wrong, but
he says they asked if he had out ofver had sex.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
With an animal.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
And the lack of knowledge of where this thing started
and the way that we focus on that part too.
I understand wanting to find like a patient zero, but
even if you do, and even if you get to work,
(11:29):
if it turns out, oh, this is the patient zero,
and if we find them, we can find some kind
of cure. Even if you can do that, people are
dying from this so quickly. You aren't really helping at
the moment. You are helping in the future, and we
need to manage what's going on now, and they just
(11:52):
don't have any information. And because the whole issue is
so tied up in homophobia, even the actual doctor that
Joe goes and talks to later, she asks if he
has any information and he says that literally does not
(12:13):
affect you. What do you mean? And she's like, well,
I have friends, and he says, no, I don't have
any information. Why would I You need to leave? Like
her asking a medical professional for medical advice is so
out of line because she's implying maybe your day by
(12:37):
simply asking for the information, which is insane, Like the
just the asking for it. That's what we were dealing
with was the information was not only inaccurate a lot
of the time, but what you could get you had
to fight to get because nobody really seemed to want
(12:57):
to like touch the story. And I mean this in
like a literal and figurative way and talking about like
the way that the gay community reacted. We see at
a certain point in this episode there is a bald,
older man who is trying to distribute pamphlets about AIDS
in the bar, and I really really loved how this
(13:20):
scene was played because you can see this man is uh,
oh sorry, Ashley is saying, yeah, sorry, I just come
back from my nail appointment, so I hadn't watched it
beforehand and got mixed up. It's totally fine, I knew
that was like a thing anyway, But this dude is
clearly trying to do what he feels is the right thing,
(13:40):
and he is concerned, Like you can just feel the
genuine worry coming off of him in that scene and
the way that he says to Richie, I'm not trying
to cause trouble. That line for me, really, like spoke
volumes the idea that I'm not attempting to like stir
(14:02):
shit up.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
Dude.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
This is purely because I believe something is going on
and people need to start being aware of it. And
Richie's reaction is this whole story is based on pure
homophobia from prudes and assholes, and you are falling for it,
(14:28):
you fucking rube. And honestly, I have I can't hold
him accountable for feeling this way. I can't blame him.
I can't. The logic that he presents this episode about
all of the flawed assertions where it originated or what
(14:49):
caused it, who it's affecting, who it isn't affecting. Everything
that he is saying sounds bonkers, because it is bonkers,
because we we're letting our prejudices completely determine how we
decided to pursue or whether we pursued this as an
(15:09):
epidemic something for the public in general to be worried about,
and we decided the public didn't need to worry. It
was only gay people that needed to worry, and therefore
it's none of our business because gay people are an
aberration of humanity anyway, so just let them die. It's fine.
(15:30):
It's it never occurred to me that gay men would
see this information as a complete and total lie that
was just made up. I like, he is admitting. It's
sort of a weird line that Richie is straddling where
(15:53):
he knows. He even says at the beginning of this episode,
he starts to hook up with the guy who hears
that he's from London and immediately zips his fly up,
and Richie is like, no, it's American men that you
don't sleep with boys from London are fine.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
And the fact that.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
It's like, you know, we know that whatever it is
is likely contagious, but there is no line being drawn
to like, yeah, well, if you traveled to the US
and had sex and then come back, maybe that's a link.
You know, the fact that he is able to say
(16:32):
it's boys in America.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
That you need to worry about.
Speaker 1 (16:36):
It's acknowledging on the one hand that this is a
real thing happening somewhere, But it's not enough that he
believes it's happening here, or that it's like enough to
really warrant worrying about on the scale that people are
starting to worry about it. And I just think that
(16:59):
I if I am going to be faced with the
fear of a disease that is this virulent, that seems
to be like only affecting one community in particular, and
homophobia is such a thing, and I have just finally
(17:19):
found a place that I feel I've been long and
can fully be myself. I wouldn't want to acknowledge that
or think it was real either, you know. And I
think that COVID is a great example of the ways
in which we just decide not to believe things that
(17:40):
are inconvenient for us. We just decide it's probably nothing,
even though all evidence points to the contrary. If it's
going to hamper our lifestyle and the way that we
choose to go about our days, we can tell ourselves
an awful lot of stories to make it like whatever
(18:01):
we decide to keep doing without changing is fine, and
you see this like it's a combo of that and
just the fear of the stigma. In what happens to
Gregory slash Gloria, I want to acknowledge to the fact
that Gregory goes by Gloria because I'm not sure if
it's supposed to be that it's just that Gregory has
(18:23):
an alter ego in drag or if Gregory is meant
to be trans but transness wasn't so much a thing
at the time, so he couldn't fully be Gloria because
it was just not done. So I don't, like, I
don't want to keep calling him Gregory's slash Gloria because
(18:45):
it's kind of a mouthful. But I also don't want
to like just go with Gregory by default because he
presents his male because I feel like that's also just
kind of shitty. So maybe I was Colin g I'm
saying him though anyway, aren't I So like, I don't know,
maybe I should just say Glorious, and so I'm going, oh, oh, oh, sorry, Ashley. Uh.
(19:09):
The frustrating thing about this episode for me is that
I know if there was a new virus, like aids
targeting people in this way, I'd be in complete agreement
with Richie that it's just pure bigotry, right, Yeah, And
then she goes on to say, I'm not sure, but
they do also use she her pronouns during the episode.
I maybe should just go with they. I'll call them
(19:33):
G and say they. Right, that feels neutral enough, So
I'll try and remember that apologies ahead of time, because
i know I'm gonna suck it up, but I'm gonna
do my best. So we see as things begin to
unfold with G, Jill goes over. G has a little
(19:57):
bit more. It feels like of a relationship with Jill
specifically then with the other boys of the episode, and
I assume part of that is the fact that Jill
is like kind of the touchstone for everybody, but that
G is older than the others, and so, you know,
(20:20):
we see it later on when Jill is asking them
if they had slept with G, everybody just being like,
oh my god, no, they're like thirty five years old.
Absolutely not. So I think that it's just Jill doesn't
just hang out with people that she wants to sleep with,
(20:43):
because that's not the role that she plays in this
friend group, whereas you know, with the boys, they are
primarily hanging around with people their own age. And sorry,
Ashley says, Okay, I googled it and the actor themselves
hee him and they them, so probably they them is
the best way to go. Okay, cool cool cool they
(21:05):
of them. Honestly, it is just like the best way
to go anyway. But I do really think that we
are behind in our evolution not having a better gender
neutral pronoun because it can get confusing sometimes with they.
I don't accept that as a reason not to use it,
as some people try to do, but I do understand,
(21:27):
having had conversations talking about these, that it gets a
bit tangled sometimes. So anyway, there goes this period where
we don't ce G for like two three days, and
Jill really seems to be the only one that's worried
(21:50):
about them. The others are just sort of, oh, yeah,
haven't seen them around. I you know, assume they're just
you know, doing whatever. Nobody really notices Gee's absence or
feels it in the way that Jill does. So eventually
Jill gets called out of class and it's g pretending
(22:13):
to be her brother and asking her to come over
with this very hushed, urgent voice, and of course I'm like, well,
we already knew why he wasn't showing up, why they
weren't showing us. See I'm doing it, why they weren't
showing up. So when Jill arrives, g opens the door
(22:34):
and immediately shoots to the other end of the corridor
and is like, come in, close the door, but keep
your distance. And it's such an awful moment because the
way that Jill, I think, has already got a worry
(22:56):
about what this is. I think the fact that ge
was gone for a few days and that Jill was
already a little bit more predisposed to actually take seriously
the threat of AIDS than Richie was. I think Jill
has a little bit of an inkling. But just of
course you want to be like, don't be ridiculous to yourself,
(23:19):
you know. But the way that it begins is that
she tells Jill, they said it was suberculosis. They gave
me this whole questionnaire. And then eventually Jill says, then
what is it? And g says what do you think
(23:40):
it is? And starts sobbing, And it's never actually said,
and they know so little about AIDS at this point
that G really believes I can shake it off like
the flu. Yeah, I got it, but I'm doing way
(24:04):
better after having this terrible chess cold. Now it's fine
and it's past and probably no big deal. And the
thing is that is so dangerous about this to me,
G doesn't want Jill to tell anybody about this, and
(24:27):
later on G comes out and is mingling with everybody
without telling them what they're actually going through. Now, I
want to emphasize AIDS isn't caught the way that COVID
is caught. COVID is so contagious, right, the way that
(24:49):
we were talking about. You have to sterilize all surfaces
you need to use, you know, to wash your hands
for at least thirty seconds and use hand sanitizer, and
not touch, not touch your face, not touch, you know,
any mucous membranes around your mouth or your eyes. All
of our worries about how COVID was transferred were valid.
(25:11):
That turned out to be exactly the truth about how
it was spread. But at this point, nobody knows how
AIDS is spread, and so Jill has the reaction one
would have finding out that a person just came into
your house with COVID and they aren't telling the people
around them. And again, I just think it's really interesting
(25:34):
to watch that scene through this lens, knowing that when
they filmed it, the like whole COVID thing hadn't even
happened yet, and also knowing how many people would walk
around sick in our present day with the information that
we had, would still put all kinds of folks at risk.
(25:55):
So I don't want to act as if G coming
out and mingling with everybody was actually putting them at risk,
because it isn't transferable on surfaces and whatnot that way.
But I do want to point out G doesn't know
that and is still willing to take this risk with
(26:18):
that completely unknown at this point, and that is what
I call really really selfish. And it's also the kind
of thing that I point to regarding the way people
just didn't want to alter the way they live their
lives with COVID, and they just wanted to keep having
parties and going to work and grocery shopping without a mask,
(26:41):
all of these things that it was like you were
being asked to do very little a lot of the time,
and they were still fucking unwilling to do it. And
it's partially with g It's like a different it's different stakes, right,
because for the most part, if you were a healthy,
(27:02):
able bodied person, you were able to get through COVID
unless there was some other complication. And that is not
to say that long COVID isn't a thing, because I
can say with firsthand experience, oh yes it is, and
it is fucking vile. But you didn't have to usually
worry that you were going to drop dead as soon
(27:23):
as you found out you had COVID. You had to
hunker down and wait for it to pass. In the
way g is treating AIDS in this episode, but knowing
now that untreated and advanced as it was, it's a
death sentence, deciding to go out into the world with
(27:47):
those steaks is really really upsetting to watch. When g
rolls into that fucking kitchen and Jill has to pretend
it's all fine. I felt my heart rate go up.
The anxiety that I felt at the fact that g
Is is not only lying to everybody, but asking Jill
(28:11):
to cover and go along with it as well. After
everything Jill had done for them, It just it felt
so so selfish, and I have to remember that built
into this is the knowledge that G had that a
(28:32):
lot of people who get this do die. And so
when you don't want to admit that you've got COVID,
and that you tell yourself, I just have to get
through it. It's just you potentially going out and spreading
COVID to other people because you don't want to be
(28:54):
slightly inconvenienced because we don't want to acknowledge it. But
with G, it's I want to go out into the
world because I think I might be about to die
and I can't just die alone in my apartment or
I can't face that this might be a life sentence.
(29:19):
And so if I go out and I'm around people
who are fine, I can trick myself into thinking I'm
also fine and that it's nothing or that it's over.
So it's you know, these comparisons to COVID, there's like
some of it holds up and some of it because
the stakes were so different and because the fear around
it was so much more acute and so much more
(29:40):
filled with unknown factors. I have to assume a lot
of people who had AIDS were doing this exact thing
where they just thought it'll it'll pass, and otherwise went
about their lives in the way they always had and
didn't want to face up to what it was that
(30:01):
could be happening to them. And I have again a
lot of difficulty blaming them for that. Like if I
had this acute issue with my chest and then it
seemed to go away, I would likely also think, maybe
(30:22):
it's fine now, you know, Like we saw the way
that it happened with Henry Coltrane, and he got sick
with this chest thing and it progressed pretty rapidly from
there and then he died and there was no like
regression back into seeming healthy. So if that's not happening
(30:42):
for you, it is understandable with the limited information you've
got that you would think, oh, look, I don't have
to worry.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
But again, it's.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
Because we didn't understand the way this disease worked, and
we just the whole The lack of reliable information from
reliable sources who actually took the research of it seriously
is infuriating to watch, and it makes me really sad
(31:15):
knowing that even when we have COVID and we do
have reliable sources of information, and we have the CDC
telling people to mask up and do X y Z
and avoid crowds and whatever. Even when we have that
reliable information from a reliable source, we find a way
to make it so that it doesn't matter and we
still do the thing anyway. So I want to point
(31:40):
to if they had the info that they needed, much
of this could be avoided. And that may be true.
But after COVID, a part of me wonders is that
or would we have done the thing that we seem
to do, which is ignore the problem until we die,
(32:00):
until we die from it, you know, Like I genuinely
don't know, like the way that so many people were
able to act as if it's all just a huge
conspiracy to sell drugs, to sell the vaccine. That same
theory is put forth in this episode by Roscoe. I
(32:22):
think that it's like the pharmaceutical companies created this so
that they could get a drug in you or sell
you something or whatever. The reaction to it. There's so
much of it that feels so similar that I am
(32:44):
not saying the homophobia that resulted in the lack of
real information isn't a factor, But I am saying that
my understanding of the way human beings react to this
kind of crisis has been fundamentally changed by living through
(33:04):
COVID and the seeing the very real way that the
Center for Disease Control that is meant to be the
final word on how we handle this was utterly ignored
and discredited. It just makes me worry a lot. Yeah, so.
Speaker 2 (33:30):
Let's see.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
I'm trying to see. Ashley says. It's also understandable to
a degree that g wanted to see their friends one
last time just in case that too, although they did
also say they were just going out for fresh air
and ran into the boys, so it maybe it was
just bad luck. I feel like it is not one
hundred percent definitive. I think that they went outside because
they were cooped up in the apartment and probably stuck
(33:53):
with their own thoughts about dying, and went to a
place that they knew they'd run into the boys. Because
we have we are creatures of habit, aren't we. So
you you leave your house and it's likely you're going
to head to somewhere that brings you comfort at a
time like this, and likely you are going to run
into the people who you know there.
Speaker 2 (34:16):
Sorry, I guess, Hey, babe, would you let Aria out. Sorry, guys,
I told him to bring Pippin in here. But Aria
is a she wants out, but she also does that.
Speaker 1 (34:31):
Thing where she hides and makes it impossible to get
her out, despite that being precisely what she wants. So okay,
I'm I'm going to finish up talking about G and
Jill and then I'm going to back up and talk
about Roscoe and Colin.
Speaker 2 (34:50):
So G.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
Eventually, when Jill goes over, there is laid out on
the couch and it seems either able to stand or
simply too exhausted to bother. And their dad and I
think sister are there not is that's not his that's
not their mother, right. I feel like we see their
(35:16):
mom later in the yard crying. And it's such a
bizarre scene, you guys, because like, Jill has been here
for G in a way literally nobody else has been.
And the way Gee's father is to her is so disgusting,
(35:40):
Like he says thanks at one point, like throws it
in in the midst of all of the other like
insults and rude, get the fucks out, and eventually gets
to the point by saying this happened because you encouraged
him his word, using him by the way, and I
(36:05):
had like it took a second for me to be
like what, And then I realized the dad believes that
Jill was enabling his son's homosexuality, and so is somehow
complicit in the fact that g is sick. But also
(36:28):
the dad obviously doesn't want to admit how dire this
situation is. The sister sees that Jill is wearing rubber
gloves and is instantly like, wait, wait, do we need
to be doing that? And the dad is getting angry
at her for even suggesting such a thing because he
is seeing as hysterics. And it's again, the idea of
(36:53):
somebody wanting to take fairly reasonable, innocuous precautions and another
person freaking out about them wanting to do that is
a very familiar thing these days. So they are coming
to take g back to Glasgow with them, and I
(37:17):
just thought it was interesting how many people, when they
get sick, the reaction is for us to gather up
that person and bring them back home with us, which,
you know, this makes sense when somebody is potentially dying.
I feel like the fact that they are being brought
home is a signal in itself how bad the situation is.
(37:40):
And it just made me wonder if I were really sick,
would my mother come to collect me, you know, like
I'm married, but I could see her like either moving
in here or being like you need to come home
with me. So Jill tells everybody and other than just
(38:03):
kind of being like oh wow, and they didn't even
say goodbye, nobody really seems to care. And then at
the end of the episode, we have Jill passing around
a Christmas card and Roscoe this whole time is very
salty in a way that feels like he is taking
(38:24):
it personally that G didn't say goodbye, that G is
leaving and is putting up this front of well who cares,
as like a form of protection. And when Roscoe gets
the card to sign, he even looks at her like
this is ridiculous and like it's a fucking Christmas card, Roscoe,
get a hold of yourself. But they send it. It arrives,
(38:48):
the sister instantly tears it in half, and then we
see all of the sympathy cards and we go into
the backyard and there is a pile of G's stuff
being burnt. Because I'm assuming everybody thought it was all
fucking infectious. And you can see that there's even baby
pictures mixed in there, which to me reads as we
(39:10):
are disowning him even though ge is dead. We are
going to pretend like we never had this child to
begin with, because the way that they died was so
shameful to us that we don't want anyone to know
at all. It's a really weird energy because nobody's crying
(39:33):
except the mother, who is very like obviously in grief crying,
and then there's the father, who is also teary eyed,
but like it was hard for me to tell if
it was more I can't believe my son was gay
and this happened, or if it's I really thought he
(39:55):
was gonna be okay. I never thought we'd be here,
and maybe a combo, but it just it really is
eerie to watch the existence of a person be reduced
to this pile of stuff in the yard, you know.
(40:15):
I it's a bizarre reaction that nowadays I can't wrap
my head around, you know. And I'm wondering when the
crew in London is going to find out, because it
(40:36):
doesn't seem like anybody gives a shit about informing anybody else.
So the only thing that's ever going to tip them
off is if there's like a notice in the newspaper,
like an obituary, which would our friends even be looking
for that. If they're this determined to pretend that Gene
(40:59):
never existed, would they put it in like as an obituary.
I'm assuming because they got sympathy cards. People do know.
But yeah, this whole thing is just like it's really
saddening to see G in denial, G getting help from
somebody who actually cares about them, and then as it
(41:23):
gets worse, being ganked by family who do not care
the same way or accept G the same way, and
that is who G has to spend their final moments with.
And then they are so ashamed that they decide to
like erase them. It's the most awful end of life
(41:44):
I can imagine, like, like in terms of an innocuous
sort of other than like torture, you know what I'm saying.
I'm not putting it down to that kind of thing.
I'm not comparing it to that, but it's just there's
something about the banality of it, combined with the hopelessness
and the ugh. It's just a lot you guys. So
(42:10):
Ashley says, yeah, it really feels like they're gonna try
and pretend they never existed. So g being memorialized in
this show for the rest of time is really something
I hope they would have been happy to see it. Yeah, yeah, same.
So all right, since I brought up Roscoe already, I'm
gonna start with Roscoe because we see him getting ready
(42:32):
in this morning suit and it turns out that his
sister's getting married and she's already five months pregnant. So
between Roscoe and his sister, they have been complete disappointments
to their parents.
Speaker 2 (42:51):
And you see a.
Speaker 1 (42:53):
Moment where Roscoe's in the car watching his father, who
is looking around clearly to see if Roscoe is going
to come, and in my opinion, seems very sad not
to spot Roscoe right away. And Roscoe's response to seeing
his dad is to put on more makeup, to lean
into the feminine look that he knows is going to
(43:16):
make his dad irritated. It's a very aggressive makeup application, guys,
and then we cut from there to him fucking somebody
that he doesn't know their name and then walking away
while that person's trying to just say goodbye, and Roscoe
(43:40):
won't engage, won't even turn, won't waive, nothing behaves as
if that person isn't even there. It's just so deeply
unhealthy and it is so distancing. It's Roscoe trying to
pretend he doesn't need anybody because his family let him
(44:00):
down so profoundly, and he feels so rejected that what
he's doing is rejecting first and now there's no rejection
happening to me anymore, because I don't give it a
chance to happen. And the very fact I think that
G left without saying goodbye, I think really hurt Roscoe
a lot more than they are willing to admit. And
(44:21):
so they're constant refrain of first of all, trying to
say that G just couldn't hack it in London, that
it's you know, it was just too tough for him.
I mean, come on, and then later on just like, well,
why should I care what's going on with them? They're gone,
aren't they. It's almost giving what GE's family is giving,
(44:44):
which is I'm just going to pretend that G never existed.
And it was just really heartbreaking to watch because I
can so understand where G's rage is coming from, and
it's valid, but the way he's not Jee's rage, sorry,
(45:04):
Roscoe's rage is coming from, but the way Roscoe is
choosing to handle it is ultimately going to make him lonelier.
And then eventually his sister comes to visit months later
with the baby and he finds out that his father
(45:28):
is going back to where is. It starts with an
l I already forgot, I'm sorry guys without their mom.
Their mom is staying and her sisters are moving in
with her, and lagos, thank you, Ashley, and Roscoe is
just like, why the fuck would he do that? It's
(45:50):
awful out there, and his sister says, because he was
too heartbroken by us to handle being here anymore.
Speaker 2 (46:00):
Which is.
Speaker 1 (46:02):
The most up your own ass thing I've ever heard.
And this is like a major part, you guys, of
why I didn't want to have children, is I have
seen the way that many parents have their entire identity
like wrapped up in how their kids turn out, and
I understand how that could happen, and I didn't want
(46:26):
to put that burden on anyone. I don't feel like
I have my own life figured out. I don't need
to be bringing a kid into this world and putting
a bunch of expectations on them, And I can be
unreasonable and controlling, and I know that. So it was
just like, there's a lot about my own personality that
I was just like a kid would not do well
(46:47):
or I wouldn't do well, you know, either way it
would be a downgrade. So the fact that he is
so grief stricken that his beautiful, healthy daughter had sex
before marriage. She's got a gorgeous child, but he can't
(47:09):
even let himself enjoy this because of the shame. He's
got a vibrant, ambitious son, but the son's gay, so
it's just like he doesn't exist either. The way that
people decide to cut themselves off from their own joy
(47:32):
and then act like they are victims of something is remarkable,
and I won't pretend I don't also do this too
to some extent, but like not in this sort of way.
So we eventually have Roscoe running to the apartment and
dropping a bunch of money through the slot because I
think he feels more at ease with his mother than
(47:55):
his father, and also is aware that like she's probably
going to be in a bad way, and he wants
to help and I'm hoping that maybe now that his
dad is gone, he will be able to rebuild a
little bit of the relationship, you know, maybe because one
of his aunts, I don't know, she seemed like she
(48:15):
might be all right, I don't know. He might not
want to, and that's totally fine if he doesn't. It
did feel like he was reaching out a little bit,
but he also literally sprints away so as not to
be seen. Ah, I don't know, I don't know, I
don't know. We'll have to see. There's a kind of
(48:35):
like I talked about Richie a lot, because so much
of this episode deals in his disdain for the explanations
of what's going on. But I will also mention that
there is a acting like I keep wanting to call
it like screen actors Guild, but it's not. But basically
(48:59):
what it is you do enough gigs and prove that
and you wind up being accepted into a community of
working actors that gives your resume some legitimacy. And so
him and Jill are performing and they keep getting like
(49:19):
signed off by the person who owns the place, which
later on it turns out that when Richie was like
interviewing with a guy he did imply are you just
friends with the person who owns the pub? And like,
is this real? And he is, of course very indignant,
even though that is not untrue or yeah wait that
(49:43):
is yeah, okay, sorry, I get myself tangled up with
the double negatives sometimes. But in the end, both he
and Jill wind up getting accepted a union. Thank you, Ashley.
So that's like the one bright spot in the midst
(50:04):
of this. It feels like, is them beginning to move
forward with their own goals now Colin. So Colin is
being sent by his job to New York City and
it's all very exciting until the receptionist I don't know
(50:26):
what to call her, says, you will have to do
whatever your boss tells you. And we all knew exactly
where this was heading. And so his boss does indeed
come to his room and try to corner him, and
it is unbelievably uncomfortable. Like the way they did this scene.
(50:52):
This is the kind of thing that I would love
to play for anybody who wants to know how somebody
could submit to sexual assault. Why wouldn't they fight back?
Why when you are alone in a room with somebody,
it changes the whole dynamic and it makes you feel
(51:13):
so vulnerable, and this is also his job on the line,
and potentially if he upset the guy enough, it might
be that, like he leaves you there, who knows, you know.
I don't know if she has a name in the show,
but the boss is mister Hart, Thank you, Ashley.
Speaker 2 (51:33):
So he.
Speaker 1 (51:37):
Tries to do the thing about being clean again. It's
really taking this angle is so it's such a choice,
but it's obvious that mister Hart is closeted. And eventually,
(52:03):
when Colin gets home, because mister Hurt spots all of
the newspapers and magazines about the AIDS epidemic on one
of his night stands, that immediately shuts mister Heart down
and has him high tailing it at the door. I
was like wondering, does he think Colin is infected? Or
(52:27):
is it just the confirmation that that Colin is gay,
even though having that material shouldn't be a confirmation that
he's gay. Well, I guess they are like gay men's
magazines and newspapers and stuff, so maybe it is regardless.
This is a man that is wanting to fuck a
(52:47):
man and then firing him for being gay or for
suspecting that he is AIDS positive, which it's just the
internal logic here is it's a lot of twisting and
(53:10):
turning you have to do to make this make any
sort of sense. And all it comes down to for
me is if he really does think that Colin is infected,
he wants to hire somebody that isn't because he plans
on whoever he hires he will fuck them, And so
(53:31):
I have to, like, I have to get this boy
out of here, just by virtue of the fact that
I was only hiring him with this intent to start
off with, and now that he's no longer an option,
what good is it to me? You know? It could
be also the confirmation that he's gay, because even though
this dude was obviously putting the moves on Colin, he
(53:52):
is telling himself a whole other weirdo story inside his head.
So maybe it is as simple as that, but it's
awful to see that scene where Colin gets fired. The
receptionist is doing that thing where you use bright peppi
(54:15):
tones along with very coded HR language to make it
seem like this awful, humiliating, discriminatory thing that's happening to
you isn't really happening to you. It's this incredible method
of gaslighting that works pretty well, honestly a lot of
the time. And it's not just that she's doing it
(54:38):
with that tone and everything. It is that mister Hart
and the new assistant are also in the room pretending
that they don't hear. It's so humiliating. Like I've been
fired before, but never in in front of everybody else.
(55:03):
It's always been I need to talk to you in
my office, that kind of thing. The way that it's
done out here where everybody's witnessing it, it just adds
this certain layer to it all, you know. And Colin,
of course is devastated because he loves this job. Now
(55:25):
I am devastated for Colin because he loves it, but
I also feel, you got out of there without winding
up being assaulted by this man, so probably this is
for the best. Colin. I can't help but feel relief
that he no longer has to deal with mister Hart.
I get why he didn't want to leave, and I
(55:47):
know finding a new job is not easy, YadA YadA. Nevertheless,
I just feel this is ultimately for the good. And
later on we see Colin printing out a pamphlet for
an aid's Christmas fundraiser, which is really interesting because you know,
(56:14):
Colin had his first hand encounter with Henry Coltrane and
as far as I know, hasn't brought it up with
any of his friends that he lives with, And I
think that's sort of it does kind of work with
his character. Colin is such a he is so introverted
(56:37):
and shy that I could see with a personality as
forceful as Richie's, who is just so openly contemptuous of
the whole idea, I could definitely see a person like
Colin just deciding it's better not to say anything like
that actually tracks to me. But I do think it's
(56:58):
just interesting to note that he hasn't mentioned it to
anybody yet. When he goes to New York and he
gets all of this information together and comes back, now
he's doing this fundraiser, he is obviously taking this more
seriously now and he brings all of this info back
(57:19):
for Jill, and Jill, oh my god, you guys, the
scene where she has to break that coffee cup up.
It was watching it. It's just because like, we know,
that's not fucking how it works, you know, but she
literally is so terrified that just washing it as hard
(57:43):
as she did isn't enough. Just taking it out of
circulation entirely and putting it in the trash isn't enough.
If somebody were to open the trash and see it
sitting there and was like, this perfectly good mug is
in the trash. Why we can't risk that. So she
literally wraps it up in a towel and uses a
(58:03):
hammer to break it into pieces before she throws it away.
It's just such a great little, you know, microcosm of
what's being done to everybody's property. But anyway, we have
at the end of the episode this sort of moment
(58:24):
where everybody is at the bar, and you know, they're
all chilling in their little groups, but we see Jill
come and give Richie a kiss and then move on.
She doesn't sit down with them, and we see her
go and sit with the bald guy who had been
(58:46):
trying to hand the pamphlets out earlier, and oh my god,
what is his name? The guy with the long hair,
he is sitting there as well, and it just seems
to be like there is this huge gap that's happening
between the people who believe that this is real. And
(59:11):
oh my god, y'all, I'm so sorry I didn't even see.
I don't know how I miss this. I'm scrubbing through
the episode. Ash thank you, ashy Oh, Ashley's over here.
It made me really uncomfortable to realize I am, in
fact a Colin. I left my job because I got
recruited to another one to replace another girl who was
about to leave. Then her circumstances changed, so they brought
(59:32):
me in and told me the next day was going
to be my last day. And when I came in
the next day to work and fulfill my obligations, and
it was made clear very quickly they weren't expecting me
to actually turn up. Look, being a person who follows
the rules is a really deeply ingrained thing. I am
also this way, they have to tell him, we're giving
(59:54):
you your month's salary ahead of time because we don't
want you here. What she says, what would be the
point of you haunting the place? Is the wording that
she uses.
Speaker 2 (01:00:06):
But yeah, so.
Speaker 1 (01:00:09):
This whole this thing that I just reacted to that,
I was like, how did I not see this? I
was at the point where Colin is printing out these pamphlets,
and it cuts from Christmas concert for AIDS Fund. Two
cops going into the gentleman's toilets and coming out with
a kid who looks like, you know, the stereotype of
(01:00:34):
like a bad boy.
Speaker 2 (01:00:36):
You know.
Speaker 1 (01:00:36):
He's got some kind of graphic tea on and a
leather jacket and his hair messed up, and he's probably
like eighteen if that. And there is mister Hart gripped
up and they are both being put in the back
of the the wagon. That scene is so brief. I
(01:01:00):
swear I wasn't on my phone while I was watching this, Guys.
I don't know what happened, unless maybe I got a
text or something. I totally missed the scene on my
first watch. This is my first time seeing it.
Speaker 2 (01:01:10):
I must have.
Speaker 1 (01:01:11):
It's just really quick, so I must have looked down.
So it's just another like mister Hart and his repression
manifesting as this really like awful exploitation of young men,
perhaps boys. I don't know. It just seems like young
(01:01:31):
men hopefully and winding up arrested and humiliated because he
isn't able to just be who he is. It's just
this is the sort of thing that it didn't have
to be this way. I you know, I don't like
(01:01:52):
mister Hart. Don't mistake my compassion for his situation for
a like of him. But I just I can see
how this would happen.
Speaker 2 (01:02:04):
I just.
Speaker 1 (01:02:06):
Yeah, anyway, so Colin he also I noticed when he's
like doing these, uh these, what's the word I want?
The pamphlet? I keep saying, pamphlets, flyers, flyers is the
word I want. I just saw that he's got a
(01:02:26):
name tag on, which was really easy to miss. So
this isn't just him doing this for his own reasons.
He's doing this as the employee at the copy center,
so he's already got a new job. Oh good for you, Colin.
I completely missed the name tag. He's such a good boy.
(01:02:48):
Look at his little face. He's so like I just
love him. It's just the fucking cinnamon role. I somewhere
to God. At one point, Roscoe asks have you ever
had sex? And he says yes, and Roscoe says when,
and he just sort of curls up on himself, and
I couldn't help but wonder, like, is he curling up
(01:03:12):
because he's lying or is he curling up because the
sex he had was traumatic somehow? Was he assaulted already?
You know, I I'm very very curious, but yeah, that's nice.
I didn't realize that he already had a new job,
so good for you, buddy. And yeah, he's printing all
of that out for Jill, who is there as a customer. Ah.
(01:03:37):
It's so funny because we have these little bright moments
of hope and then you know, we cut to fucking
Gee's family and it's just this like devastating ending. But
I'm curious to see because obviously it's all ramping up.
Curious to see how Richie's going to behave in the
(01:03:58):
next episode. We'll see, all right, guys, I'm gonna wrap.
Thank you again for hanging out with me, Thank you
Ashley for commissioning this one, and until next time, did
the lou motherfuckers. That was an Unspoiled Network podcast.
This is an unspoiled network podcast. This is spoil Me
covering It's a Sin Season one, episode two. In this episode,
we get a new character involved temporarily, and I feel
(00:27):
really bad for Colin. Guys, this sucks so much and
it's so infuriating. I welcome to spoil Me. Welcome to
(00:57):
the show everyone. I am Natasha. Thank you very much
to Ashley for commissioning this episode. Ashley is here in
the chat. Thank you, Ashley. Really appreciate you. Also, though,
why are you doing this to me?
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Ashley?
Speaker 1 (01:14):
Oh my god, y'all, this is going to break my
little heart. Are we getting like the death of a
character we've grown to like every episode? I feel like
it's gonna be right. It was, uh, Ashley says. Gregory
Slash Gloria was in there episode one two, but there
wasn't much focus on him. That's kind of what I
(01:36):
figured was that we probably got like a quick drive
by with him. I My antenna went up as soon
as we were zeroing in on him this episode. I
was just like, oh boy, this is he's gonna die.
This is gonna be a whole thing because it's and
(01:57):
forgive me for this comparison, because I have said in
the past that any time I bring up The Walking Dead,
it's usually going to be to talk shit, and it
is usually to talk shit about The Walking Dead. But
I'm not criticizing the show episode for this. I just
am making the comparison that in The Walking Dead there
was a sort of similar joke where if there was
(02:18):
a character that began out of nowhere to get like
a lot of screen time, it was almost a guarantee
they would be dead by the end of the episode
because the show didn't really know how to handle having
such a huge ensemble cast in a way that made
you care about everybody, whether or not they were the
main focus of an episode, you know. Like, so this show,
(02:40):
I feel like, because I am aware of what the
AIDS epidemic is going to grow to be, I am
not feeling about this storytelling choice the way that I
was about The Walking Dead, which always felt very cheap
to me, in this way that it wanted you to
care and kind of manipulated you into it. This show,
(03:02):
it feels like it's genuinely we're showing you what happened.
This is the story, you know, and that just it
feels different, And I always find it really really interesting
whenever there is something that's a trope in a way
and why there are times where I react with violent
(03:24):
hatred of that trope, and then there are other times
where that's that same trope clearly, and I'm just like, no, this,
this was fine, This worked, you know. And I think
a lot of it has to do with what your
goal is and what the effort was that you put
into it. So because the goal is to tell a
(03:48):
very real story and the effort establishing this person, and like,
you know, he the writing is good enough that he
feels like a full real person in the same way
that mister what was his name? I keep wanting to
call him mister Cabana, because there is something about his
(04:10):
name that is like ringing that bell for me. What
was the name of Colin's little short lived mentor there
who passed away played by Neil Patrick Harris. He like
both of these characters that die, we grow to really
like in a short space of time. It's not even
(04:34):
with with you know, Colin's friend, it's just Colin's life
that he's involved in. Whereas Grace slash Gregory or sorry,
Gloria slash Gregory, he's involved in everybody's lives, so we
get a little bit more time with him because of that,
even though the focus really is on Jill with him
this episode, Henry Coltrane, where am I getting Cabana? I
(04:58):
do not know. I'm I'm so sorry, So okay. I'm
trying to decide how I want to approach talking about
this one, because I feel like breaking it up into
characters is probably going to be the easiest. We'll start
off with Richie. Richie is a really compelling character. He's
(05:26):
somebody that I think audiences could love or hate, and
I'm in this camp where I really like him, but
he teeters on the verge of me wanting to slap him,
which is kind of the space that I think I
occupy for a lot of people. And I'm not trying
to even be funny. I genuinely can be very like Richie,
(05:52):
where I always have a glib response to things. I
am a little bit too smart for my own good
and can talk myself into or out of believing stuff.
I will monopolize a room and sort of like I
am an attention wore, and I will let that take
(06:14):
over at times where it's not appropriate. He is trying
to I think sort of channel that in his choice
of profession here, and I think that is for the best.
I have a channel with a podcast which helps me
do that a lot less in everyday life, because I
am getting my desire for attention satisfied somewhere else. And
(06:35):
I think that's kind of key. But his whole attitude
of this whole thing is just fear mongering and bigotry.
And use logic and think about how none of the
things they are asserting about it make any sense. That
(06:57):
logic is sound, you know. And this is what I
found really really interesting about watching this unfold here. And
I assume a lot of what he is saying, and
a lot of the things that we see happening in
the bar especially, we are basing all of this stuff
on actual experiences that gay men had during this period.
(07:21):
And this was something that I always wondered about because
obviously homophobes are going to say that this is like
targeting gay men as a strike from God, that this
is some sort of vengeance for their sin, right, which
it's kind of the title of the show being it's
(07:42):
a sin. It's clearly a double edged It's well, that's
what people say about being gay, but really what's the
sin is the way people are treating them and the
way they handled this whole epidemic. So what I was
wondering about the response to the rise in this disease
in the gay community was like, what kind of information
(08:06):
were they even seeking out? How were so like, how
were they responding? Was there a real spread of fear?
Did people start to like kind of shut themselves off
in a way, Because it's a weird parallel and this
was this show came out in twenty twenty one, which
you know, I don't know if it was filmed before
(08:29):
the pandemic or if the filming took place as the
pandemic was happening. And then we get like, it's such
a physical show. People are kissing and like skin on
skin so often because sex is such a huge part
of it that if it were during the pandemic, I
imagined that everybody would have had to have been isolated
because they had to make sure that nobody was carrying
(08:50):
COVID before they left them on set, because it was
just everybody's in physical contact with everybody else. But it's
really impossible in the light of you know, coming at
in twenty twenty five, and looking at all of this,
I okay. Ashley says, they started filming in October twenty nineteen,
so it was before everything started to Really what I
(09:11):
find interesting is like, I am, of course going to
draw some parallels between the way that AIDS is being
talked about in this show versus the way that we
handled COVID, and they're you know, there's a very different
sort of slant to a lot of it because it's
(09:34):
social media isn't a thing, and so the way that
rumors or theories get bandied about is either face to
face people, just like gossiping articles in newspapers that are
like for the general public, and so those are probably
(09:54):
going to be heavily laced with homophobia. Articles that are
specifically targeted to the gate community, which are going to
have a completely different tone to them and maybe totally
different information as well. And how separated all of those
methods of communication are from one another, whereas today everything
(10:20):
is overlapping in this way that becomes even if you
don't agree with the line of thinking, you will become
aware of what is being said from all sides without
even looking.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
Into it too much.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
A lot of the time, because social media just winds
up permeating things, you know, and the way that he's
going through, like, oh, they say it's this, they say
it's this, and this is the episode. I think Ashley,
when you said last episode they even asked him if
he had sex with a monkey, I'm wondering if you
were responding to what happens this episode, because I really
(11:00):
don't remember that last episode. I may be wrong, but
he says they asked if he had out ofver had sex.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
With an animal.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
And the lack of knowledge of where this thing started
and the way that we focus on that part too.
I understand wanting to find like a patient zero, but
even if you do, and even if you get to work,
(11:29):
if it turns out, oh, this is the patient zero,
and if we find them, we can find some kind
of cure. Even if you can do that, people are
dying from this so quickly. You aren't really helping at
the moment. You are helping in the future, and we
need to manage what's going on now, and they just
(11:52):
don't have any information. And because the whole issue is
so tied up in homophobia, even the actual doctor that
Joe goes and talks to later, she asks if he
has any information and he says that literally does not
(12:13):
affect you. What do you mean? And she's like, well,
I have friends, and he says, no, I don't have
any information. Why would I You need to leave? Like
her asking a medical professional for medical advice is so
out of line because she's implying maybe your day by
(12:37):
simply asking for the information, which is insane, Like the
just the asking for it. That's what we were dealing
with was the information was not only inaccurate a lot
of the time, but what you could get you had
to fight to get because nobody really seemed to want
(12:57):
to like touch the story. And I mean this in
like a literal and figurative way and talking about like
the way that the gay community reacted. We see at
a certain point in this episode there is a bald,
older man who is trying to distribute pamphlets about AIDS
in the bar, and I really really loved how this
(13:20):
scene was played because you can see this man is uh,
oh sorry, Ashley is saying, yeah, sorry, I just come
back from my nail appointment, so I hadn't watched it
beforehand and got mixed up. It's totally fine, I knew
that was like a thing anyway, But this dude is
clearly trying to do what he feels is the right thing,
(13:40):
and he is concerned, Like you can just feel the
genuine worry coming off of him in that scene and
the way that he says to Richie, I'm not trying
to cause trouble. That line for me, really, like spoke
volumes the idea that I'm not attempting to like stir
(14:02):
shit up.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
Dude.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
This is purely because I believe something is going on
and people need to start being aware of it. And
Richie's reaction is this whole story is based on pure
homophobia from prudes and assholes, and you are falling for it,
(14:28):
you fucking rube. And honestly, I have I can't hold
him accountable for feeling this way. I can't blame him.
I can't. The logic that he presents this episode about
all of the flawed assertions where it originated or what
(14:49):
caused it, who it's affecting, who it isn't affecting. Everything
that he is saying sounds bonkers, because it is bonkers,
because we we're letting our prejudices completely determine how we
decided to pursue or whether we pursued this as an
(15:09):
epidemic something for the public in general to be worried about,
and we decided the public didn't need to worry. It
was only gay people that needed to worry, and therefore
it's none of our business because gay people are an
aberration of humanity anyway, so just let them die. It's fine.
(15:30):
It's it never occurred to me that gay men would
see this information as a complete and total lie that
was just made up. I like, he is admitting. It's
sort of a weird line that Richie is straddling where
(15:53):
he knows. He even says at the beginning of this episode,
he starts to hook up with the guy who hears
that he's from London and immediately zips his fly up,
and Richie is like, no, it's American men that you
don't sleep with boys from London are fine.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
And the fact that.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
It's like, you know, we know that whatever it is
is likely contagious, but there is no line being drawn
to like, yeah, well, if you traveled to the US
and had sex and then come back, maybe that's a link.
You know, the fact that he is able to say
(16:32):
it's boys in America.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
That you need to worry about.
Speaker 1 (16:36):
It's acknowledging on the one hand that this is a
real thing happening somewhere, But it's not enough that he
believes it's happening here, or that it's like enough to
really warrant worrying about on the scale that people are
starting to worry about it. And I just think that
(16:59):
I if I am going to be faced with the
fear of a disease that is this virulent, that seems
to be like only affecting one community in particular, and
homophobia is such a thing, and I have just finally
(17:19):
found a place that I feel I've been long and
can fully be myself. I wouldn't want to acknowledge that
or think it was real either, you know. And I
think that COVID is a great example of the ways
in which we just decide not to believe things that
(17:40):
are inconvenient for us. We just decide it's probably nothing,
even though all evidence points to the contrary. If it's
going to hamper our lifestyle and the way that we
choose to go about our days, we can tell ourselves
an awful lot of stories to make it like whatever
(18:01):
we decide to keep doing without changing is fine, and
you see this like it's a combo of that and
just the fear of the stigma. In what happens to
Gregory slash Gloria, I want to acknowledge to the fact
that Gregory goes by Gloria because I'm not sure if
it's supposed to be that it's just that Gregory has
(18:23):
an alter ego in drag or if Gregory is meant
to be trans but transness wasn't so much a thing
at the time, so he couldn't fully be Gloria because
it was just not done. So I don't, like, I
don't want to keep calling him Gregory's slash Gloria because
(18:45):
it's kind of a mouthful. But I also don't want
to like just go with Gregory by default because he
presents his male because I feel like that's also just
kind of shitty. So maybe I was Colin g I'm
saying him though anyway, aren't I So like, I don't know,
maybe I should just say Glorious, and so I'm going, oh, oh, oh, sorry, Ashley. Uh.
(19:09):
The frustrating thing about this episode for me is that
I know if there was a new virus, like aids
targeting people in this way, I'd be in complete agreement
with Richie that it's just pure bigotry, right, Yeah, And
then she goes on to say, I'm not sure, but
they do also use she her pronouns during the episode.
I maybe should just go with they. I'll call them
(19:33):
G and say they. Right, that feels neutral enough, So
I'll try and remember that apologies ahead of time, because
i know I'm gonna suck it up, but I'm gonna
do my best. So we see as things begin to
unfold with G, Jill goes over. G has a little
(19:57):
bit more. It feels like of a relationship with Jill
specifically then with the other boys of the episode, and
I assume part of that is the fact that Jill
is like kind of the touchstone for everybody, but that
G is older than the others, and so, you know,
(20:20):
we see it later on when Jill is asking them
if they had slept with G, everybody just being like,
oh my god, no, they're like thirty five years old.
Absolutely not. So I think that it's just Jill doesn't
just hang out with people that she wants to sleep with,
(20:43):
because that's not the role that she plays in this
friend group, whereas you know, with the boys, they are
primarily hanging around with people their own age. And sorry,
Ashley says, Okay, I googled it and the actor themselves
hee him and they them, so probably they them is
the best way to go. Okay, cool cool cool they
(21:05):
of them. Honestly, it is just like the best way
to go anyway. But I do really think that we
are behind in our evolution not having a better gender
neutral pronoun because it can get confusing sometimes with they.
I don't accept that as a reason not to use it,
as some people try to do, but I do understand,
(21:27):
having had conversations talking about these, that it gets a
bit tangled sometimes. So anyway, there goes this period where
we don't ce G for like two three days, and
Jill really seems to be the only one that's worried
(21:50):
about them. The others are just sort of, oh, yeah,
haven't seen them around. I you know, assume they're just
you know, doing whatever. Nobody really notices Gee's absence or
feels it in the way that Jill does. So eventually
Jill gets called out of class and it's g pretending
(22:13):
to be her brother and asking her to come over
with this very hushed, urgent voice, and of course I'm like, well,
we already knew why he wasn't showing up, why they
weren't showing us. See I'm doing it, why they weren't
showing up. So when Jill arrives, g opens the door
(22:34):
and immediately shoots to the other end of the corridor
and is like, come in, close the door, but keep
your distance. And it's such an awful moment because the
way that Jill, I think, has already got a worry
(22:56):
about what this is. I think the fact that ge
was gone for a few days and that Jill was
already a little bit more predisposed to actually take seriously
the threat of AIDS than Richie was. I think Jill
has a little bit of an inkling. But just of
course you want to be like, don't be ridiculous to yourself,
(23:19):
you know. But the way that it begins is that
she tells Jill, they said it was suberculosis. They gave
me this whole questionnaire. And then eventually Jill says, then
what is it? And g says what do you think
(23:40):
it is? And starts sobbing, And it's never actually said,
and they know so little about AIDS at this point
that G really believes I can shake it off like
the flu. Yeah, I got it, but I'm doing way
(24:04):
better after having this terrible chess cold. Now it's fine
and it's past and probably no big deal. And the
thing is that is so dangerous about this to me,
G doesn't want Jill to tell anybody about this, and
(24:27):
later on G comes out and is mingling with everybody
without telling them what they're actually going through. Now, I
want to emphasize AIDS isn't caught the way that COVID
is caught. COVID is so contagious, right, the way that
(24:49):
we were talking about. You have to sterilize all surfaces
you need to use, you know, to wash your hands
for at least thirty seconds and use hand sanitizer, and
not touch, not touch your face, not touch, you know,
any mucous membranes around your mouth or your eyes. All
of our worries about how COVID was transferred were valid.
(25:11):
That turned out to be exactly the truth about how
it was spread. But at this point, nobody knows how
AIDS is spread, and so Jill has the reaction one
would have finding out that a person just came into
your house with COVID and they aren't telling the people
around them. And again, I just think it's really interesting
(25:34):
to watch that scene through this lens, knowing that when
they filmed it, the like whole COVID thing hadn't even
happened yet, and also knowing how many people would walk
around sick in our present day with the information that
we had, would still put all kinds of folks at risk.
(25:55):
So I don't want to act as if G coming
out and mingling with everybody was actually putting them at risk,
because it isn't transferable on surfaces and whatnot that way.
But I do want to point out G doesn't know
that and is still willing to take this risk with
(26:18):
that completely unknown at this point, and that is what
I call really really selfish. And it's also the kind
of thing that I point to regarding the way people
just didn't want to alter the way they live their
lives with COVID, and they just wanted to keep having
parties and going to work and grocery shopping without a mask,
(26:41):
all of these things that it was like you were
being asked to do very little a lot of the time,
and they were still fucking unwilling to do it. And
it's partially with g It's like a different it's different stakes, right,
because for the most part, if you were a healthy,
(27:02):
able bodied person, you were able to get through COVID
unless there was some other complication. And that is not
to say that long COVID isn't a thing, because I
can say with firsthand experience, oh yes it is, and
it is fucking vile. But you didn't have to usually
worry that you were going to drop dead as soon
(27:23):
as you found out you had COVID. You had to
hunker down and wait for it to pass. In the
way g is treating AIDS in this episode, but knowing
now that untreated and advanced as it was, it's a
death sentence, deciding to go out into the world with
(27:47):
those steaks is really really upsetting to watch. When g
rolls into that fucking kitchen and Jill has to pretend
it's all fine. I felt my heart rate go up.
The anxiety that I felt at the fact that g
Is is not only lying to everybody, but asking Jill
(28:11):
to cover and go along with it as well. After
everything Jill had done for them, It just it felt
so so selfish, and I have to remember that built
into this is the knowledge that G had that a
(28:32):
lot of people who get this do die. And so
when you don't want to admit that you've got COVID,
and that you tell yourself, I just have to get
through it. It's just you potentially going out and spreading
COVID to other people because you don't want to be
(28:54):
slightly inconvenienced because we don't want to acknowledge it. But
with G, it's I want to go out into the
world because I think I might be about to die
and I can't just die alone in my apartment or
I can't face that this might be a life sentence.
(29:19):
And so if I go out and I'm around people
who are fine, I can trick myself into thinking I'm
also fine and that it's nothing or that it's over.
So it's you know, these comparisons to COVID, there's like
some of it holds up and some of it because
the stakes were so different and because the fear around
it was so much more acute and so much more
(29:40):
filled with unknown factors. I have to assume a lot
of people who had AIDS were doing this exact thing
where they just thought it'll it'll pass, and otherwise went
about their lives in the way they always had and
didn't want to face up to what it was that
(30:01):
could be happening to them. And I have again a
lot of difficulty blaming them for that. Like if I
had this acute issue with my chest and then it
seemed to go away, I would likely also think, maybe
(30:22):
it's fine now, you know, Like we saw the way
that it happened with Henry Coltrane, and he got sick
with this chest thing and it progressed pretty rapidly from
there and then he died and there was no like
regression back into seeming healthy. So if that's not happening
(30:42):
for you, it is understandable with the limited information you've
got that you would think, oh, look, I don't have
to worry.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
But again, it's.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
Because we didn't understand the way this disease worked, and
we just the whole The lack of reliable information from
reliable sources who actually took the research of it seriously
is infuriating to watch, and it makes me really sad
(31:15):
knowing that even when we have COVID and we do
have reliable sources of information, and we have the CDC
telling people to mask up and do X y Z
and avoid crowds and whatever. Even when we have that
reliable information from a reliable source, we find a way
to make it so that it doesn't matter and we
still do the thing anyway. So I want to point
(31:40):
to if they had the info that they needed, much
of this could be avoided. And that may be true.
But after COVID, a part of me wonders is that
or would we have done the thing that we seem
to do, which is ignore the problem until we die,
(32:00):
until we die from it, you know, Like I genuinely
don't know, like the way that so many people were
able to act as if it's all just a huge
conspiracy to sell drugs, to sell the vaccine. That same
theory is put forth in this episode by Roscoe. I
(32:22):
think that it's like the pharmaceutical companies created this so
that they could get a drug in you or sell
you something or whatever. The reaction to it. There's so
much of it that feels so similar that I am
(32:44):
not saying the homophobia that resulted in the lack of
real information isn't a factor, But I am saying that
my understanding of the way human beings react to this
kind of crisis has been fundamentally changed by living through
(33:04):
COVID and the seeing the very real way that the
Center for Disease Control that is meant to be the
final word on how we handle this was utterly ignored
and discredited. It just makes me worry a lot. Yeah, so.
Speaker 2 (33:30):
Let's see.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
I'm trying to see. Ashley says. It's also understandable to
a degree that g wanted to see their friends one
last time just in case that too, although they did
also say they were just going out for fresh air
and ran into the boys, so it maybe it was
just bad luck. I feel like it is not one
hundred percent definitive. I think that they went outside because
they were cooped up in the apartment and probably stuck
(33:53):
with their own thoughts about dying, and went to a
place that they knew they'd run into the boys. Because
we have we are creatures of habit, aren't we. So
you you leave your house and it's likely you're going
to head to somewhere that brings you comfort at a
time like this, and likely you are going to run
into the people who you know there.
Speaker 2 (34:16):
Sorry, I guess, Hey, babe, would you let Aria out. Sorry, guys,
I told him to bring Pippin in here. But Aria
is a she wants out, but she also does that.
Speaker 1 (34:31):
Thing where she hides and makes it impossible to get
her out, despite that being precisely what she wants. So okay,
I'm I'm going to finish up talking about G and
Jill and then I'm going to back up and talk
about Roscoe and Colin.
Speaker 2 (34:50):
So G.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
Eventually, when Jill goes over, there is laid out on
the couch and it seems either able to stand or
simply too exhausted to bother. And their dad and I
think sister are there not is that's not his that's
not their mother, right. I feel like we see their
(35:16):
mom later in the yard crying. And it's such a
bizarre scene, you guys, because like, Jill has been here
for G in a way literally nobody else has been.
And the way Gee's father is to her is so disgusting,
(35:40):
Like he says thanks at one point, like throws it
in in the midst of all of the other like
insults and rude, get the fucks out, and eventually gets
to the point by saying this happened because you encouraged
him his word, using him by the way, and I
(36:05):
had like it took a second for me to be
like what, And then I realized the dad believes that
Jill was enabling his son's homosexuality, and so is somehow
complicit in the fact that g is sick. But also
(36:28):
the dad obviously doesn't want to admit how dire this
situation is. The sister sees that Jill is wearing rubber
gloves and is instantly like, wait, wait, do we need
to be doing that? And the dad is getting angry
at her for even suggesting such a thing because he
is seeing as hysterics. And it's again, the idea of
(36:53):
somebody wanting to take fairly reasonable, innocuous precautions and another
person freaking out about them wanting to do that is
a very familiar thing these days. So they are coming
to take g back to Glasgow with them, and I
(37:17):
just thought it was interesting how many people, when they
get sick, the reaction is for us to gather up
that person and bring them back home with us, which,
you know, this makes sense when somebody is potentially dying.
I feel like the fact that they are being brought
home is a signal in itself how bad the situation is.
(37:40):
And it just made me wonder if I were really sick,
would my mother come to collect me, you know, like
I'm married, but I could see her like either moving
in here or being like you need to come home
with me. So Jill tells everybody and other than just
(38:03):
kind of being like oh wow, and they didn't even
say goodbye, nobody really seems to care. And then at
the end of the episode, we have Jill passing around
a Christmas card and Roscoe this whole time is very
salty in a way that feels like he is taking
(38:24):
it personally that G didn't say goodbye, that G is
leaving and is putting up this front of well who cares,
as like a form of protection. And when Roscoe gets
the card to sign, he even looks at her like
this is ridiculous and like it's a fucking Christmas card, Roscoe,
get a hold of yourself. But they send it. It arrives,
(38:48):
the sister instantly tears it in half, and then we
see all of the sympathy cards and we go into
the backyard and there is a pile of G's stuff
being burnt. Because I'm assuming everybody thought it was all
fucking infectious. And you can see that there's even baby
pictures mixed in there, which to me reads as we
(39:10):
are disowning him even though ge is dead. We are
going to pretend like we never had this child to
begin with, because the way that they died was so
shameful to us that we don't want anyone to know
at all. It's a really weird energy because nobody's crying
(39:33):
except the mother, who is very like obviously in grief crying,
and then there's the father, who is also teary eyed,
but like it was hard for me to tell if
it was more I can't believe my son was gay
and this happened, or if it's I really thought he
(39:55):
was gonna be okay. I never thought we'd be here,
and maybe a combo, but it just it really is
eerie to watch the existence of a person be reduced
to this pile of stuff in the yard, you know.
(40:15):
I it's a bizarre reaction that nowadays I can't wrap
my head around, you know. And I'm wondering when the
crew in London is going to find out, because it
(40:36):
doesn't seem like anybody gives a shit about informing anybody else.
So the only thing that's ever going to tip them
off is if there's like a notice in the newspaper,
like an obituary, which would our friends even be looking
for that. If they're this determined to pretend that Gene
(40:59):
never existed, would they put it in like as an obituary.
I'm assuming because they got sympathy cards. People do know.
But yeah, this whole thing is just like it's really
saddening to see G in denial, G getting help from
somebody who actually cares about them, and then as it
(41:23):
gets worse, being ganked by family who do not care
the same way or accept G the same way, and
that is who G has to spend their final moments with.
And then they are so ashamed that they decide to
like erase them. It's the most awful end of life
(41:44):
I can imagine, like, like in terms of an innocuous
sort of other than like torture, you know what I'm saying.
I'm not putting it down to that kind of thing.
I'm not comparing it to that, but it's just there's
something about the banality of it, combined with the hopelessness
and the ugh. It's just a lot you guys. So
(42:10):
Ashley says, yeah, it really feels like they're gonna try
and pretend they never existed. So g being memorialized in
this show for the rest of time is really something
I hope they would have been happy to see it. Yeah, yeah, same.
So all right, since I brought up Roscoe already, I'm
gonna start with Roscoe because we see him getting ready
(42:32):
in this morning suit and it turns out that his
sister's getting married and she's already five months pregnant. So
between Roscoe and his sister, they have been complete disappointments
to their parents.
Speaker 2 (42:51):
And you see a.
Speaker 1 (42:53):
Moment where Roscoe's in the car watching his father, who
is looking around clearly to see if Roscoe is going
to come, and in my opinion, seems very sad not
to spot Roscoe right away. And Roscoe's response to seeing
his dad is to put on more makeup, to lean
into the feminine look that he knows is going to
(43:16):
make his dad irritated. It's a very aggressive makeup application, guys,
and then we cut from there to him fucking somebody
that he doesn't know their name and then walking away
while that person's trying to just say goodbye, and Roscoe
(43:40):
won't engage, won't even turn, won't waive, nothing behaves as
if that person isn't even there. It's just so deeply
unhealthy and it is so distancing. It's Roscoe trying to
pretend he doesn't need anybody because his family let him
(44:00):
down so profoundly, and he feels so rejected that what
he's doing is rejecting first and now there's no rejection
happening to me anymore, because I don't give it a
chance to happen. And the very fact I think that
G left without saying goodbye, I think really hurt Roscoe
a lot more than they are willing to admit. And
(44:21):
so they're constant refrain of first of all, trying to
say that G just couldn't hack it in London, that
it's you know, it was just too tough for him.
I mean, come on, and then later on just like, well,
why should I care what's going on with them? They're gone,
aren't they. It's almost giving what GE's family is giving,
(44:44):
which is I'm just going to pretend that G never existed.
And it was just really heartbreaking to watch because I
can so understand where G's rage is coming from, and
it's valid, but the way he's not Jee's rage, sorry,
(45:04):
Roscoe's rage is coming from, but the way Roscoe is
choosing to handle it is ultimately going to make him lonelier.
And then eventually his sister comes to visit months later
with the baby and he finds out that his father
(45:28):
is going back to where is. It starts with an
l I already forgot, I'm sorry guys without their mom.
Their mom is staying and her sisters are moving in
with her, and lagos, thank you, Ashley, and Roscoe is
just like, why the fuck would he do that? It's
(45:50):
awful out there, and his sister says, because he was
too heartbroken by us to handle being here anymore.
Speaker 2 (46:00):
Which is.
Speaker 1 (46:02):
The most up your own ass thing I've ever heard.
And this is like a major part, you guys, of
why I didn't want to have children, is I have
seen the way that many parents have their entire identity
like wrapped up in how their kids turn out, and
I understand how that could happen, and I didn't want
(46:26):
to put that burden on anyone. I don't feel like
I have my own life figured out. I don't need
to be bringing a kid into this world and putting
a bunch of expectations on them, And I can be
unreasonable and controlling, and I know that. So it was
just like, there's a lot about my own personality that
I was just like a kid would not do well
(46:47):
or I wouldn't do well, you know, either way it
would be a downgrade. So the fact that he is
so grief stricken that his beautiful, healthy daughter had sex
before marriage. She's got a gorgeous child, but he can't
(47:09):
even let himself enjoy this because of the shame. He's
got a vibrant, ambitious son, but the son's gay, so
it's just like he doesn't exist either. The way that
people decide to cut themselves off from their own joy
(47:32):
and then act like they are victims of something is remarkable,
and I won't pretend I don't also do this too
to some extent, but like not in this sort of way.
So we eventually have Roscoe running to the apartment and
dropping a bunch of money through the slot because I
think he feels more at ease with his mother than
(47:55):
his father, and also is aware that like she's probably
going to be in a bad way, and he wants
to help and I'm hoping that maybe now that his
dad is gone, he will be able to rebuild a
little bit of the relationship, you know, maybe because one
of his aunts, I don't know, she seemed like she
(48:15):
might be all right, I don't know. He might not
want to, and that's totally fine if he doesn't. It
did feel like he was reaching out a little bit,
but he also literally sprints away so as not to
be seen. Ah, I don't know, I don't know, I
don't know. We'll have to see. There's a kind of
(48:35):
like I talked about Richie a lot, because so much
of this episode deals in his disdain for the explanations
of what's going on. But I will also mention that
there is a acting like I keep wanting to call
it like screen actors Guild, but it's not. But basically
(48:59):
what it is you do enough gigs and prove that
and you wind up being accepted into a community of
working actors that gives your resume some legitimacy. And so
him and Jill are performing and they keep getting like
(49:19):
signed off by the person who owns the place, which
later on it turns out that when Richie was like
interviewing with a guy he did imply are you just
friends with the person who owns the pub? And like,
is this real? And he is, of course very indignant,
even though that is not untrue or yeah wait that
(49:43):
is yeah, okay, sorry, I get myself tangled up with
the double negatives sometimes. But in the end, both he
and Jill wind up getting accepted a union. Thank you, Ashley.
So that's like the one bright spot in the midst
(50:04):
of this. It feels like, is them beginning to move
forward with their own goals now Colin. So Colin is
being sent by his job to New York City and
it's all very exciting until the receptionist I don't know
(50:26):
what to call her, says, you will have to do
whatever your boss tells you. And we all knew exactly
where this was heading. And so his boss does indeed
come to his room and try to corner him, and
it is unbelievably uncomfortable. Like the way they did this scene.
(50:52):
This is the kind of thing that I would love
to play for anybody who wants to know how somebody
could submit to sexual assault. Why wouldn't they fight back?
Why when you are alone in a room with somebody,
it changes the whole dynamic and it makes you feel
(51:13):
so vulnerable, and this is also his job on the line,
and potentially if he upset the guy enough, it might
be that, like he leaves you there, who knows, you know.
I don't know if she has a name in the show,
but the boss is mister Hart, Thank you, Ashley.
Speaker 2 (51:33):
So he.
Speaker 1 (51:37):
Tries to do the thing about being clean again. It's
really taking this angle is so it's such a choice,
but it's obvious that mister Hart is closeted. And eventually,
(52:03):
when Colin gets home, because mister Hurt spots all of
the newspapers and magazines about the AIDS epidemic on one
of his night stands, that immediately shuts mister Heart down
and has him high tailing it at the door. I
was like wondering, does he think Colin is infected? Or
(52:27):
is it just the confirmation that that Colin is gay,
even though having that material shouldn't be a confirmation that
he's gay. Well, I guess they are like gay men's
magazines and newspapers and stuff, so maybe it is regardless.
This is a man that is wanting to fuck a
(52:47):
man and then firing him for being gay or for
suspecting that he is AIDS positive, which it's just the
internal logic here is it's a lot of twisting and
(53:10):
turning you have to do to make this make any
sort of sense. And all it comes down to for
me is if he really does think that Colin is infected,
he wants to hire somebody that isn't because he plans
on whoever he hires he will fuck them, And so
(53:31):
I have to, like, I have to get this boy
out of here, just by virtue of the fact that
I was only hiring him with this intent to start
off with, and now that he's no longer an option,
what good is it to me? You know? It could
be also the confirmation that he's gay, because even though
this dude was obviously putting the moves on Colin, he
(53:52):
is telling himself a whole other weirdo story inside his head.
So maybe it is as simple as that, but it's
awful to see that scene where Colin gets fired. The
receptionist is doing that thing where you use bright peppi
(54:15):
tones along with very coded HR language to make it
seem like this awful, humiliating, discriminatory thing that's happening to
you isn't really happening to you. It's this incredible method
of gaslighting that works pretty well, honestly a lot of
the time. And it's not just that she's doing it
(54:38):
with that tone and everything. It is that mister Hart
and the new assistant are also in the room pretending
that they don't hear. It's so humiliating. Like I've been
fired before, but never in in front of everybody else.
(55:03):
It's always been I need to talk to you in
my office, that kind of thing. The way that it's
done out here where everybody's witnessing it, it just adds
this certain layer to it all, you know. And Colin,
of course is devastated because he loves this job. Now
(55:25):
I am devastated for Colin because he loves it, but
I also feel, you got out of there without winding
up being assaulted by this man, so probably this is
for the best. Colin. I can't help but feel relief
that he no longer has to deal with mister Hart.
I get why he didn't want to leave, and I
(55:47):
know finding a new job is not easy, YadA YadA. Nevertheless,
I just feel this is ultimately for the good. And
later on we see Colin printing out a pamphlet for
an aid's Christmas fundraiser, which is really interesting because you know,
(56:14):
Colin had his first hand encounter with Henry Coltrane and
as far as I know, hasn't brought it up with
any of his friends that he lives with, And I
think that's sort of it does kind of work with
his character. Colin is such a he is so introverted
(56:37):
and shy that I could see with a personality as
forceful as Richie's, who is just so openly contemptuous of
the whole idea, I could definitely see a person like
Colin just deciding it's better not to say anything like
that actually tracks to me. But I do think it's
(56:58):
just interesting to note that he hasn't mentioned it to
anybody yet. When he goes to New York and he
gets all of this information together and comes back, now
he's doing this fundraiser, he is obviously taking this more
seriously now and he brings all of this info back
(57:19):
for Jill, and Jill, oh my god, you guys, the
scene where she has to break that coffee cup up.
It was watching it. It's just because like, we know,
that's not fucking how it works, you know, but she
literally is so terrified that just washing it as hard
(57:43):
as she did isn't enough. Just taking it out of
circulation entirely and putting it in the trash isn't enough.
If somebody were to open the trash and see it
sitting there and was like, this perfectly good mug is
in the trash. Why we can't risk that. So she
literally wraps it up in a towel and uses a
(58:03):
hammer to break it into pieces before she throws it away.
It's just such a great little, you know, microcosm of
what's being done to everybody's property. But anyway, we have
at the end of the episode this sort of moment
(58:24):
where everybody is at the bar, and you know, they're
all chilling in their little groups, but we see Jill
come and give Richie a kiss and then move on.
She doesn't sit down with them, and we see her
go and sit with the bald guy who had been
(58:46):
trying to hand the pamphlets out earlier, and oh my god,
what is his name? The guy with the long hair,
he is sitting there as well, and it just seems
to be like there is this huge gap that's happening
between the people who believe that this is real. And
(59:11):
oh my god, y'all, I'm so sorry I didn't even see.
I don't know how I miss this. I'm scrubbing through
the episode. Ash thank you, ashy Oh, Ashley's over here.
It made me really uncomfortable to realize I am, in
fact a Colin. I left my job because I got
recruited to another one to replace another girl who was
about to leave. Then her circumstances changed, so they brought
(59:32):
me in and told me the next day was going
to be my last day. And when I came in
the next day to work and fulfill my obligations, and
it was made clear very quickly they weren't expecting me
to actually turn up. Look, being a person who follows
the rules is a really deeply ingrained thing. I am
also this way, they have to tell him, we're giving
(59:54):
you your month's salary ahead of time because we don't
want you here. What she says, what would be the
point of you haunting the place? Is the wording that
she uses.
Speaker 2 (01:00:06):
But yeah, so.
Speaker 1 (01:00:09):
This whole this thing that I just reacted to that,
I was like, how did I not see this? I
was at the point where Colin is printing out these pamphlets,
and it cuts from Christmas concert for AIDS Fund. Two
cops going into the gentleman's toilets and coming out with
a kid who looks like, you know, the stereotype of
(01:00:34):
like a bad boy.
Speaker 2 (01:00:36):
You know.
Speaker 1 (01:00:36):
He's got some kind of graphic tea on and a
leather jacket and his hair messed up, and he's probably
like eighteen if that. And there is mister Hart gripped
up and they are both being put in the back
of the the wagon. That scene is so brief. I
(01:01:00):
swear I wasn't on my phone while I was watching this, Guys.
I don't know what happened, unless maybe I got a
text or something. I totally missed the scene on my
first watch. This is my first time seeing it.
Speaker 2 (01:01:10):
I must have.
Speaker 1 (01:01:11):
It's just really quick, so I must have looked down.
So it's just another like mister Hart and his repression
manifesting as this really like awful exploitation of young men,
perhaps boys. I don't know. It just seems like young
(01:01:31):
men hopefully and winding up arrested and humiliated because he
isn't able to just be who he is. It's just
this is the sort of thing that it didn't have
to be this way. I you know, I don't like
(01:01:52):
mister Hart. Don't mistake my compassion for his situation for
a like of him. But I just I can see
how this would happen.
Speaker 2 (01:02:04):
I just.
Speaker 1 (01:02:06):
Yeah, anyway, so Colin he also I noticed when he's
like doing these, uh these, what's the word I want?
The pamphlet? I keep saying, pamphlets, flyers, flyers is the
word I want. I just saw that he's got a
(01:02:26):
name tag on, which was really easy to miss. So
this isn't just him doing this for his own reasons.
He's doing this as the employee at the copy center,
so he's already got a new job. Oh good for you, Colin.
I completely missed the name tag. He's such a good boy.
(01:02:48):
Look at his little face. He's so like I just
love him. It's just the fucking cinnamon role. I somewhere
to God. At one point, Roscoe asks have you ever
had sex? And he says yes, and Roscoe says when,
and he just sort of curls up on himself, and
I couldn't help but wonder, like, is he curling up
(01:03:12):
because he's lying or is he curling up because the
sex he had was traumatic somehow? Was he assaulted already?
You know, I I'm very very curious, but yeah, that's nice.
I didn't realize that he already had a new job,
so good for you, buddy. And yeah, he's printing all
of that out for Jill, who is there as a customer. Ah.
(01:03:37):
It's so funny because we have these little bright moments
of hope and then you know, we cut to fucking
Gee's family and it's just this like devastating ending. But
I'm curious to see because obviously it's all ramping up.
Curious to see how Richie's going to behave in the
(01:03:58):
next episode. We'll see, all right, guys, I'm gonna wrap.
Thank you again for hanging out with me, Thank you
Ashley for commissioning this one, and until next time, did
the lou motherfuckers. That was an Unspoiled Network podcast.
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