HBO Max's 'It's a Sin' is a Joyful, Gut-Wrenching Must-Watch

It's impossible to go into a drama that touts itself as the story of the AIDS crisis in 1980s London and expect anything that even remotely looks like a happy ending. And it's true, Russell T. Davies' haunting gut-punch of a drama, It's a Sin is unflinching in its willingness to be honest about the horrors that essentially wiped out a generation of gay men. But it's also a heartfelt and joyous celebration -- of the potential, the grace, and the sheer joy -- of those same lives.

The series begins in 1981 when the threat of a nameless gay cancer is something present only in rumors and whispered background phone conversations. Three young gay men move to London, ready to chase their dreams and explore their sexualities in a city that's more accepting than the places they come from. Outgoing Ritchie (Olly Alexander) dreams of becoming an actor, at odds with his conservative Isle of Wight parents that want him to go into law. Roscoe (Omari Douglas) runs away from his Nigerian immigrant family who wants to pray the gay out of him. And Colin (Callum Scott Howells) arrives looking for the connection he's been unable to find in his Welsh hometown.

Though clubs, parties, and nights at the pub, the young men dance and hook-up with abandon, embracing the lives and freedom they'd mainly been denied up until this point and building a sense of community amongst their little cadre of misfits and outcasts. Ritchie's acting school BFF Julia (Lydia West) rounds out the group, becoming a sort of emotional center for this hurricane of lost boys, who chase pleasure and break their hearts by turns.