Despite being the only female and straight person in the group, she understands the struggles of being gay. 'It's A Sin' Brings A Lost Generation Of Gay Men To Life It was a wake-up call. Check it out with a 1-month free trial, only on Apple News+. It's a Sin stars Olly Alexander as Ritchie Tozer, a gay teenager who moves to London in the midst of the Aids crisis. By showing Ritchies death off-screen, the show avoids creating a clichd conclusion and instead focuses on the after-effects of his death. HIV/AIDS is far from just a gay man's disease, but as its first victims predominantly gay men started filling up ICUs and morgues, a backlash against them ensued. As an adult, he is a famous radio DJ, going by Rich "Records" Tozier living in Beverly Hills. And maybe its due to fate or the inevitable intimacy of gay friendships (or a little of both), but its only a matter of time before these three men all find themselves in each others lives and, eventually, living together. Its a Sin on C4: What was the terrifying AIDS advert in the 80s? Episode three of Its a Sin is particularly harrowing, as more and more people around the group of friends are dying of HIV and AIDs. Our helplessness continues as Ritchie, Roscoe, and Colin deny and rationalize the fear away. Colin is fired simply for owning newspapers and magazines which discuss AIDS, and is locked up and deemed, "a menace to society" because he contracts the virus. Nathaniels role as Donald is his first ever appearance on TV. It's not an easy watch, but it tries to faithfully depict how gay men, their friends and families were feeling as the AIDS epidemic ripped through the population of gay men, who were unequally affected. Please enter a valid email and try again. In the 2017 movie adaptation, It lured Richie into a room by taking the form of Eddie Kaspbrak. Probably what he was like as a kid. Viewers of Its A Sin were left in tears at the emotional and heart-wrenching final episode, as the friends were once again rocked by the effects of the Aids crisis. When AZT, the first effective anti-HIV drug, is approved for use in 1987, some of the characters on the show have already died, years earlier. It is revealed in one of the final scenes of the film that Richie recarves his and Eddie's initials into a bridge. After the werewolf gets a hold of Bill, Richie managed to help Bill get free and threw a packet of sneezing powder at the werewolf's face, which momentarily incapacitated it. This is based on my real life friend Jill. He's been called to support a man on the ward. The 'token' he must recover for the Ritual of Chd is a literal arcade token (some fans have theories that Eddie is his token, and thats why he dies.) the strategic use of Keeley Hawes as the mother of Olly Alexander's Ritchie Tozer is the polar opposite. Richie had his personal encounter with It after running away from the Bowers gang in Freese's Department Store. We start with Ritchie (Olly Alexander) who moves away from his strict, conservative family on the Isle of Wight to London for university, where he meets a new crew of friends who celebrate his and their own queerness, including Jill (Lydia West), Ash (Nathaniel Curtis) and Roscoe (Omari Douglas).