Directed by Paul Holahan
Written by Jan Oxenberg
The detectives reopen the murder case of a 25-year-old gay man, which took place in 1983, at the request of his then-lover.
Tropes:
- Ambiguously Bi / Gay: Paul had flings with men in the past but ends up engaged to a woman in 1983. It's never confirmed whether he’s an Armored Closet Gay, whether he likes both men and women, or his flings were experiences that were unsuccessful and merely confirmed his attraction to women.
- Armored Closet Gay: Paul is so armored he's willing to kill his own brother just to keep from being Forced Out of the Closet.
- Artistic License – History: In 1983, Jeff mentions that Rock Hudson may have something else than liver cancer. While that was the cover story for Hudson's actual diagnosis of HIV, the story didn't break until 1984.
- Beauty Equals Goodness: Subverted and inverted with the same character. Melvin "Carlo" Fishmen is a stud who slept with several other men just to give them HIV in 1983. But when we meet him in 2004, he hasn't aged well, but he's become a much better person.
- Bury Your Gays: The victim is Jeff, an HIV-positive gay man.
- Cain and Abel: Jeff was killed by his brother Paul, who didn't take kindly to Jeff trying to edge into the family business all of a sudden for the sake of his lover while he himself had been The Dutiful Son all this time. Jeff also found out that Paul had a gay fling years ago, which the latter feared Jeff might use to blackmail him.
- Closet Gay: Carson Finch is a closeted conservative newspaper columnist who took offense at Jeff's suggestion of a mass coming out. His friend Leonard had a fling with Jeff's brother Paul.
- Death of a Child: Implied. A man is shortly suspected of Jeff's murder because he lashed out at Jeff for not getting him a drug for his own son, who was dying of AIDS at the time. It's never confirmed whether or not the child survived.
- Deliberate Values Dissonance: Many characters in 1983 did not know how AIDS infected people. Carlo thought that it was a form of cancer so it's not contagious. Another character thought it could be transmitted through touch.
- He Knows Too Much: Paul kills his brother Jeff partly because Jeff found out that Paul was Ambiguously Gay, and is afraid he might accidentally reveal the secret to their homophobic father in his efforts to save his boyfriend, despite Jeff's reassurances.
- I Was Quite a Looker: Carlo and Carson know how they have both lost their good looks.Carlo: I'm ugly now. I make a living cleaning bird cages, but look here. I was gorgeous.Carson: That's me in the swim trunks. Lord, have mercy.
- Irony:
- In the Cold Open, Artie realizes he has AIDS. In those days (the early '80s), it was believed to be a certain death sentence, and he was accepting of his fate. Fast forward 20 years and he's a long-term survivor due to experimental drugs he took, while Jeff is the one who was dead within months (albeit via murder, not disease).
- In 1983, Jeff burnt down a popular gay bathhouse due to its lax standards causing the spread of HIV. The owner wasn't too shaken up about it, as the AIDS crisis would have destroyed his business had Jeff not burnt it down, and he got well compensated via insurance.
- Karma Houdini: Carlo, who purposely infected hundreds of men with HIV, survived to present day.
- The Lost Lenore:
- Downplayed and a male-male example. 20 years after Jeff was brutally murdered, his then-boyfriend, Artie, is engaged to be married but is still in need of closure. To get it, he gets Jeff's case reopened in the hope they can solve his murder.
- Paul had a lover named Leonard who died a year before in 1982. He was really broken up about it.
- "Mister Sandman" Sequence: Jeff and Artie talk about what's really making Rock Hudson sick.
- Preserve Your Gays: Jeff's lover Artie, himself also HIV-positive at the time of the murder taking place, has survived to the present due to taking experimental drugs. The episode ends with him being newly wed to another man.
- Really Gets Around: Carlo slept with several men in the eighties, just so he could spread his HIV.
