Gay Character Denies AIDS Exists in It's a Sin First Look 

Queer as Folk creator Russell T. Davies shook viewers to the core with the dystopian HBO series Years and Years a few years ago. Now his five-part series It's a Sin, premiering on Channel 4 in the United Kingdom this month and HBO Max later this year, turns back the clock to follow a group of queer friends in London beginning at the start of the AIDS epidemic. In a chilling new trailer for the series, one of the characters, Ritchie (Olly Alexander), concludes he doesn't believe that AIDS exists after listing dozens of conspiracy theories and the misinformation about what was happening to so many gay and bisexual men at the time.

"It's a racket, it's a money-making schema for drugs companies," Ritchie says.

"Do you seriously think there's an illness that kills only gay men? It can calculate that you're gay and kill you, but no one else. What about bisexuals? Do they only get sick every other day?" he says. "They want to scare us and stop us having sex and make us really boring -- basically because they can't get laid."

The series is based on Davies's experiences coming out in London in the '80s, and it captures the exhilaration of coming out only to be hit with a plague that was misunderstood and often came with a great deal of stigma. The series also emphasizes the critical reliance on queer friend groups and found family.

It's a Sin stars Lydia West (Years and Years), Ash Mukherjee, Omari Douglas, and Callum Scott Howells. And it features Neil Patrick Harris, Stephen Fry, and Keeley Hawes (as Ritchie's mom).

Watch the clip from It's a Sin below.