Episode #1.2
- Episode aired Feb 18, 2021
- TV-MA
- 47m
December 1983. When an old friend, Gloria, asks Jill for a strange favour, Jill becomes trapped in a world of lies as the shadow of AIDS gets closer.December 1983. When an old friend, Gloria, asks Jill for a strange favour, Jill becomes trapped in a world of lies as the shadow of AIDS gets closer.December 1983. When an old friend, Gloria, asks Jill for a strange favour, Jill becomes trapped in a world of lies as the shadow of AIDS gets closer.
Photos
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaThe line "hit me with those laser beams" is a reference to the controversial song Relax by Frankie Goes To Hollywood which was famously banned by the BBC due to sexual references. The song promptly jumped from number 35 to number 1 in the charts 3 weeks later in January 1984, a rare feat at that time.
- GoofsColin and his boss, Mr Hart, go on a business trip to New York in July. New York in July is sweltering, with an average high of 29 degrees and an average low (at nighttime) of 20 degrees, but both of them are wearing winter coats, as are most of the people seen on the streets there.
- Quotes
Ritchie Tozer: Oh, he said, she said, they said, they're always saying something. But you want to know the truth? Do you know what it really is, AIDS? It's a racket. It's a moneymaking scheme for drugs companies. Do you seriously think there's an illness that only kills gay men? It can calculate that you're gay and kill you but no one else? Hmm. What about bisexuals? Do they only get sick every other day? And they say it's a cancer, but you can't catch cancer. Cancer is not a thing that can get caught. It's not like a cold or a cough. It's cancer. It doesn't transmit. 'Cause imagine it. Gay cancer. How is a cancer gay? I mean, what does it look like? Is it pink? Where is it? Is it in the wrists? I mean, for God's sake. You hear all these stories and all these rumors and all these nightmares because that's what they want you to think, that lot. They want to scare us and stop us having sex and make us really boring basically because they can't get laid. That's the truth. 'Cause according to them, how does it work, this AIDS thing? Okay, they say it's spread by poppers. They say it arrived from outer space on a comet. And they say that God created it to strike us dead. They say it was created in a laboratory to kill us. They say it's the Russians. They say we got it from the jungle. They say it's caused by friction!
[crowd howls]
Ritchie Tozer: They say it's in the spunk. They say Freddie Laker spread it when he introduced cheap flights. They say there's one patient zero spreading it wherever he goes. Whoo! They say it affects homosexuals, Haitians, and hemophiliacs, like there's a disease which has targeted the letter H. Who's it going to get next, people from Hartlepool and Hampshire and Hull? Don't you see what all of these things have got in common?
[enters a club called Heaven]
Ritchie Tozer: They're not true. And how do I know? How do I know it's not true? Because I'm not stupid! Which means, I don't believe it. I don't believe it. I don't believe a word of it! Now hit me with those laser beams!
- ConnectionsReferences Hi-de-Hi! (1980)
- SoundtracksLove Will Tear Us Apart
Written by Ian Curtis, Peter Hook, Stephen Morris and Bernard Sumner
Performed by Joy Division
As Richie's talks about this new disease from America and how he was too smart to fall for all the misinformation going around.
Well that could be applied to all those Covid deniers. People who refuse to mask and social distance. They believe it was all caused by Bill Gates or in a lab or is just a hoax or just like flu. In some ways nothing has changed.
As Richie and Jill strive for their Equity cards. The hedonism of the lads is still maintained. AIDS is something over in America. There was no safe sex message.
Although one man Richie is with in the Isle of Wight loses interest when he finds out that Richie lives in London.
It is Jill who comes to contact with the first person in their circle who has what looks like a persistent cold. The others do not know that Graham was ill.
Although the setting seems to be 1983/84. It is still an era where there is little information in Britain about AIDS and it still had a stigma of it being a gay disease.
Just look at Jill unsure what to do with the cup Graham drank out of. Or at the end Graham's family burning everything in the back garden.
It is Colin who brings information back for Jill after a trip to New York along with a Filofax. It also leads to Colin being fired. Not just because his creepy boss saw the AIDS literature.
A little known discriminatory true fact about the London fashion industry. They do not like Welsh accents. I am sure RTD was aware of this.
- Prismark10
- Jan 30, 2021
Details
- Runtime47 minutes
- Color