'Lost Boys & Fairies' Is a Spellbinding Tearjerker

Don't let the glitter and feather boas fool you, you need a Costco supply of tissues to watch Lost Boys & Fairies. The adoption drama dropped on Britbox on Tuesday and is a tearjerker as much as it is a celebration of queer families. Lost Boys focuses on Gabriel (Siôn Daniel Young), a "performance artist extraordinaire" beginning the process to adopt a child with his partner Andy (Fra Fee). However, as the two begin interviews with their assigned social worker, Jackie (Elizabeth Berrington), Gabriel's past and the couple's insecurities threaten their chances at adoption and their future. 

Set in Cardiff, Lost Boys & Fairies examines queer love, interanlized homophobia, trauma, and the essential nature of found family. To top it off, each of the three episodes features a stunning musical performance from Young. The eponymous song at the end of Episode 1, written by series creator Daf James, is a particularly stand-out number that warns of the bittersweetness ahead.

As sparkly and celebratory as Lost Boys & Fairies is, there are moments where it could shine brighter and it is not for the faint of the emotional heart. It's a worthwhile watch, but viewers should go in with eyes wide open. 

Warning: The rest of this review contains spoilers for the show's first two installments, so if you want to go in cold, go watch the episodes and then come back. 

The premiere episode introduces us to Gabriel and Andy, who have been together for eight years. They thing getting married is heteronormative, but they are ready to start a family of their own. Andy is ready and Gabe is ready to do anything to make Andy happy. As their interviews with Jackie begin, they both put on their best faces so they each seem like the perfect parent, but flasbhacks reveal that Gabe is skimming over his traumatic past that included seeing his mother die, growing up with a religious single father, severe bullying, and a drug-addled promiscuous past that didn't end until Andy helped get him clean. 

Gabe's rough upbringing created layers of internalized homophobia that generated friction between him and Andy. Gabe's insecurities and fears put a lot of barriers on the child they hope to adopt. He wants a young girl with no physical or intense emotional difficulties, while Andy just wants to be a dad. All of that gets turned on its head when they met a precious young boy named Jake (Leo Harris) at the adoption center activity day and formed an unexpected connection. 

Jake identifying outside of Gabe's parameters pushes his panic button. And it becomes evident midway through that the show has spent so much time on Gabe's childhood trauma and not enough on Andy's. Just as we start to understand what makes Andy tick, and therefore how the relationship works when things get hard, Andy is killed accidentally while trying to break up a street fight during a walk home. 

Does this count as a kill-the-gays trope if most of the cast is queer? The death of Andy serves to force Gabe to reconcile his personal views on parenting rather than wanting to simply support his partner, but it's a torturous gut punch. It felt like Gabriel was struggling enough without the devastating loss of his partner, but Andy's death heaped on the misery and exposed the limited series' most significant weakness. 

Gabriel is the show's central character; however, the final episode stays so squarely on his perspective and experience when it would benefit from bringing the characters closer to his internal struggle. Everything about Andy's death is about how Gabriel reacts to it, and his entire identity becomes "Gabriel's partner." There is only the tiniest of space made for the grief Andy's mother and the queer community that adopted him before he and Gabriel even met. Even Jake's reaction to the news becomes a tool to escalate Gabriel's guilt and panic rather than an exploration of how the little boy feels and how Andy's death changes this fragile family. 

Young does an incredible job of carrying the emotional load, especially in the final episode, when Gabriel relapses and must crawl back to sobriety to prove himself to be the man that Andy loved and Jake deserved. The story would have been even more effective if the show had allowed more space for the people in Gabriel's life to be more impactful pieces of the puzzle. 

We know that Gabriel grew up in a strict household and his father held old-fashioned religious views. However, when we meet Emrys (William Thomas) in the modern day, he's not the cold, strict man from Gabriel's childhood. He's reserved, but he shows up for his son at every opportunity, even if he doesn't express his love in the most obvious way on his first attempt. We are so locked in Gabriel's traumatized view of his father that the show misses an opportunity to show Emrys' growth. People can change and evolve. He may not be the perfect father, but he could still be someone in Gabriel's support network if his son only gave him the chance. 

Lost Boys & Fairies is an evocative and ultimately heartwarming story about resilience and pride. It's carried out by actors at the top of their game – especially Young – but it could have been bigger. The limited series ends with the potential for more and a deeper look at Gabriel's early days as an adoptive father. We know Gabriel's backstory now, but further episodes could delve deeper into Gabriel's world and allow the people around him to be a more significant part of his story. It would be even more empowering if it were even more inclusive. 

All three episodes of Lost Boys & Fairies are now streaming on BritBox.