My Review of It's A Sin: "Episode 2"

Written by Russell T. Davies

Directed by Peter Hoar

Ritchie (re AIDS crisis): "It's not real. I don't believe a word of it."

Oh, the denial is real and it's not good. Last week we saw the death of Henry Coltrane and this week, another guest character suffered the same fate. We saw Henry's death affect Colin, this time it was Jill affected by the death of Gregory "Gloria" Finch (David Carlyle).

Gloria might have been a one episode character but this episode did an amazing job with an excellent guest performance from David Carlyle. We saw Gloria/Greg as a part of the group, a unrequited admirer of Roscoe before his illness took place and Jill became a confidante for him.

Lydia West has become quite a find with both Years And Years and Dracula but if this miniseries doesn't catapult her to bigger success, I'd be genuinely surprised. Everyone needs a friend like Jill Baxter and Jill was the only one to be of any help to Gregory in his last few months before his spiteful family took him back to Scotland.

With Jill doing her best to learn more about AIDS (even enlisting Colin at one point), Ritchie's overt denial about the seriousness of the crisis while frustrating was also pretty realistic. I did like Jill telling Ritchie that he was too clever for his own good but her words did seem to fall on deaf ears. Unfortunately, it's pretty obvious that Ritchie's staunch denial will have consequences fairly soon.

As for Colin, he lost one job but soon gained another. There was also something rather satisfying in seeing his sleazy boss get a comeuppance as well. Meanwhile Roscoe watched his sister get married from afar, met his niece and gave some money to his family. Although I didn't like Roscoe being unkind to Gregory, his family scenes were a highlight.

The only character of the main five not to do much this episode was Ash. He was basically just there but given that he was reading about the crisis last week, I'm surprised he didn't back Jill up when she was trying to make Ritchie and Roscoe be a little more sensible.

- Both Ritchie and Jill got into Equity and Valerie still thinks they're a couple. Also did Ritchie mention he's a Tory?

- Those brief scenes Colin and his boss had in New York were actually shot in Liverpool.

- Standout music: Laura Branigan's Gloria. 

- Chronology: It started with December 1983 before moving into 1984.

Another strong episode, this series continues to pull no punches as things are beginning to get very real and it's become apparent one of our main characters will become ill within the remaining episodes. This episode wasn't an easy watch and I can imagine the rest will also difficult viewing.

Rating: 8 out of 10