Oh, sh*t. I didn't even think about that.

Great interview with Simon & Pelecanos.

Basically...

Season 1 = 1971 / '72

Season 2 = Late '70s

Season 3 = 1985 / '86, "when Times Square came crashing down around [the characters'] heads."

For the most part, we'll follow the same characters throughout the three-season life of the show. Though, like The Wire, it sounds like some could drop or rise in prominence, if not dead or written out altogether.

Also, I had no idea that Franco's twin brother characters are based on real twins...

I cannot envision how any of the women characters (except maybe Abby) survive violence or AIDS beyond early 1980s

good article. Thanks for posting.

Simon mentions the miniseries in the interview, and I can't stress enough...if you haven't watched Show Me A Hero on HBO, go do it. So well done.

Unthought Known said:

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Candy just got the aids.

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I thought that too, but 1971 seems a little early.

I also thought that and thought it was early, too.

She would be one of the early victims in the US, but it's plausible, which is good enough for Hollywood. They'll just call it pneumonia.

et98 said:

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Unthought Known said:

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Candy just got the aids.

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I thought that too, but 1971 seems a little early.

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No. People were dying of aids prior. It just wasn't diagnosed. She may have a good 10-15 years before she dies.

First case later diagnosed was a guy in KC in 1969.

Either that or they'll save it for season 2 which is set in 79-80. That would make more sense.

If they did it now she would just die and they would not know the cause. We would know...but I don't think thats dramatic enough. Maybe she just gets VD or something.

BernArnold said:

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Either that or they'll save it for season 2 which is set in 79-80. That would make more sense.

If they did it now she would just die and they would not know the cause. We would know...but I don't think thats dramatic enough. Maybe she just gets VD or something.

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i didn't think she would die of aids next week.
But there has to be a reason they made the point that the actor preferred guys.

And when I said it I didn't even know they were keeping the same characters.

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But there has to be a reason they made the point that the actor preferred guys.

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I didn't think of it at the time, but you're right, I think she got the AIDS too.

I really liked the cop character in this episode, first of all the actor Lawrence Gilliard Jr. is so good. He should be getting bigger parts in general, I like him in everything he does. His character is in this really interesting spot, he wants to get with journalist, but she gives him push back cuz he's a source or just isn't interested. So what is he to do? Dangly a big story, but only as deep cover so he's not a source, will that work? If she does give in, it's almost a form of prostitution, paralleling the mains story lines. I'm rooting for him either way.

One scene that I feel didn't work or just didn't ring true to me was the pimp busting in on the porn set. I just don't buy that pimp would scare everybody so much. Seems like a borderline illegal porn set would have it's own muscle or maybe the actor of that pimp just didn't sell it for me. Either way, I think the scene again highlights the theme of the episode that while the street pimp still has power and influence in that world, porn and politics are going to push them out.

What way does the Abbey character screw Franco's character? I feel like he has a blind spot to her and she's going to cause him some trouble.

It's called Chekov's gun.

They also went out of their way to make it clear that they aren't using condoms. If she doesn't get it, land o' lakes girl does.

Duncan Idaho said:

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They also went out of their way to make it clear that they aren't using condoms. If she doesn't get it, land o' lakes girl does.

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True. But they also showed Candy getting a load dumped in her.

Not sure if creampie was popular in pron back then.

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It's called Chekov's gun.

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Which part were you referring to? Or all of them. You're right, the show has placed loaded guns on several stages.

TexjbA&M said:

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Quote:

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It's called Chekov's gun.

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Which part were you referring to? Or all of them. You're right, the show has placed loaded guns on several stages.

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The bi/gay dude shooting a load in candy. Definitely something there. Or at least something for us to think on.

My point is that they revisited the fact to make sure that it was clear to everyone that she got spackled.

They were pretty clear earlier showing that the girls used condoms (at least some of the time) when they were working the street.

They are trying to make her infection more tragic by having her get sick by trying to get off the street.

Yeah, the HIVy angle seems like a very likely option, especially when they went to the gay mag shot. It was in the NY area in the early 70's. Pretty sure they found a child that had been born with it in the NY/NJ area '73 (discovered all this later after the child died on the late 70s).

I didn't get to the AIDS conclusion at all. First the guy lost his composure and finished early because he was so excited. I took it as, she is really good at this porn thing. Which was further confirmed by the guy being gay.Not only did she make a professional get off early, but it was a gay professional.

Yeah, honestly, that's how I took it as well. Not saying AIDS won't come into play eventually, but that didn't even cross my mind until I read it here.

Seemed like they went to a lot of effort to emphasize that gay guys are dumping unprotected loads into her at a time when AIDS was starting to spread across the US. Maybe she didn't get it on that load, but to have him shuffle through gay magazines seemed like an attempt to punch the viewer in the face with a bigger point and some dark foreshadowing about how her experience with the sexual revolution in the 1970s will end. They even doubled down on the unprotected aspect, since she needed a towel as well as had to warn the other prostitute.

The latest scientific research has the AIDs virus reaching the US in 1971 from Haiti.

So I highly doubt she has contracted it already in 1971 here - except by dramatic license of course.

Although it did definitely hit NY first...then SF by 1976.

It's possible just unlikely I think.

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/10/how-one-man-was-wrongly-blamed-for-bringing-aids-to-america/505412/

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HIV first started infecting humans somewhere in West Africa, having jumped into us from chimpanzees. From there it spread around the world, and as it did so, its genes changed. By sequencing those genes and comparing those changes, scientists can reconstruct a family tree of HIVa phylogenyand work out which strains are descended from which.
Worobey did this in 2007 using archival blood samples from five Haitian immigrants, who were among the first AIDS patients in the U.S. He showed that these Haitian strains most likely gave rise to those that later swept the country, implying that virus stopped in the Caribbean on its way from Africa to America. He also concluded that the virus must have arrived in the U.S. around 12 years before AIDS was formally recognized in 1981.

But when he tried to publish his results, "one reviewer said: There's no way the virus was circulating in the U.S. for that long under the radar; I don't believe it," Worobey recalls. It was hard to convince the doubters because the Haitian samples were all collected in the 1980s, after the epidemic's supposed start. He was looking further back in time by analyzing the virus's genes, and skeptics either didn't understand or didn't buy that approach.

So Worobey started looking for older samples. He found several that had been collected from gay men in New York and San Francisco in 1978 and 1979, for studying hepatitis B. He and his colleagues tested thousands of these, and a few yielded enough genetic material for him to sequence the complete HIV genome.

These sequences bolstered his earlier conclusions, and added some new ones. They reveal that HIV had spread from Africa to the Caribbean by around 1967, and had jumped into the U.S. by around 1971. It landed in New York City and began diversifying rapidly. From there, it spread to San Francisco in 1976, creating more clusters of infection. By the time anyone noticed the first sign of AIDS in 1981, the virus had already hopped from coast to coast, and become genetically diverse.

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I would emphasize that I didn't think she didn't necessarily get it in that scene, although it's very possible with the AIDS timeline. It's more that scene was intended to show that gay guys are dropping unprotected loads into her in this line of work that she's hoping will lead her to more safety, while AIDS is about to take off. Dark foreshadowing of some tragic irony ahead. But that community would have been likely involved in the early cases. IV drug user birthed an AIDS baby in 1973 in NJ.

yeah sure...I think it's very likely to play a part in the series.

It may not even be here but that scene laid the groundwork for it certainly.

It should be part of the 2nd season in some way for sure which is set in late 70s at which point there were many sick infected men....it just wasn't identified yet. And in the sex trade it has to play a part.

I don't think she got it at the scene but she will get it or one of the other girls will get it. They even brought up the clean thing when the producer was giving her the contact info for the chick pimp.

Don't forget aids basicly shutdown the sexual revolution and had a very chilling effect on promiscuity in the mid-80's. So I could see it playing into the latter seasons. St elsewhere had a MD get aids from a pro. James bond went from womanizer to monogamous in 1987.

They also brought up the "ho-hum" attitude that people had towards std's back then at the airport brothel. The pimp just casually mentioned that all the girls were swimming in syphilis and had to bathe and penicillin between tricks.

Basically this episode was supposed to be the inflection point where the danger of sex work went from primarily violence to disease. And that the false sense of security she got from escaping the violence caused her to drop her gaurd (no condoms) will end up killing her.

I don't think a "load" or "no load" would have anything anything to do with her getting aids. That's passed by blood transmission more common in anal sex and IV drug use (not an MD, maybe one can chime in). In this case it was vaginal sex.

There's a reason why they emphasized the "load" that I can't put my finger on. Maybe a prelude to the riskier activity the porn industry is set to undergo. Not sure.

I think we need to come up with some Game of Thrones shorthand for this theory.

C+L=A?

while more likely to get aids from anal sex, hiv is trnasmitted thru vaginal sex.

1968 Kansas City.

This is an area that is difficult to put accurate rates of transmission, but widely accepted is that it's transmitted via vaginal sex and that a woman is at much greater risk than a man in hetero sex (at least double). The existence of other STD's as well as torn up porn cooter also increase the risk of transmission. Look at Africa right now - in parts of africa, women average catching it 6 years earlier than men and are 3x more likely to be infected than a man.

And again, I don't think the intent of the show is to demonstrate transmission in that moment. More to highlight the risk she's taking by ****ing gay men unprotected when a deadly disease is about to take off.

Beware of Doug said:

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I think we need to come up with some Game of Thrones shorthand for this theory.

C+L=A?

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P + V - C = H + I + V

Completely agree that aids can be transmitted vaginally when a torn poon is involved. But the "load" wouldn't have made a difference and that seemed to be what was focused on here.

A friend told me that it's a universal rule that decent prostitutes never kiss and always demand protection. They even provide the condom. Now we a have decent prostitute get unloaded upon in a porn shoot and was unable to kiss a guy on the normal date a few episodes ago.

Maybe the focus is about turning from a prostitute to a porn actress.

or trying to be a normal person while being a sex worker

or more likely, it's about aids.

I'm probably over thinking it. Might go watch some research material.

The load is the fluid transmitting the virus. Anal is more risky as it's likelier to result in torn tissue, exposing the virus to the bloodstream, but a Times Square hooker likely has a pretty beat up vagina, making transmission easier, especially if she's got other STDs.

I think The focus on him not using a condom definitely was meant to highlight the risk of diseases and pregnancy (thus checking to make sure the girl was on the pill), both contemporary diseases and HIV soon

Wow..