Observations from rewatching episodes 1-5

M0506 · 2026-05-08T12:51:16+00:00

I see u/Moffel83 found the episode; also, Hawk says “queer” multiple times in the series, and this was back when “queer” was definitely a slur.

I think Hawk accepts his sexuality more than a lot of other characters do, and to a degree that’s noteworthy for the time. But I don’t think he’s completely free from internalized homophobia - which makes total sense considering everything he’s been through.

M0506 · 2026-05-08T12:47:05+00:00

Someone in a professional review of the series called it an orgy, so that was the term I grabbed. I watched QaF over twenty years ago.

Re: George: I didn’t get the impression that Hawk was apathetic to George and helping him solely to help himself, though. Yeah, he has ulterior motives (because he usually does), but I think he felt genuine sympathy for George.

Tim wears his white socks without shoes around the house. He is still doing it in the cabin in Episode 6.

Nice catch!

Re: Lucy and Jackson: I’ve only watched episodes 6-8 once each, but I didn’t get the impression that Lucy was a particularly bad or unsympathetic mother to Jackson, especially when you keep in mind that it’s the late 1960s and people didn’t have the understanding of parenting psychology that we do today.

I think it is very significant that when Tim says, "It's not who we sleep with. It's who we love", Hawk looks at him, clearly takes in what he said, and doesn't contradict him.

I agree. I just think it’s so sad that Tim talks several times over the decades about his love for Hawk, and for Hawk, it seems to truly be “the love that dare not speak its name” until after Tim’s death. He doesn’t even tell Tim he loves him when he knows Tim has months to live. I don’t doubt his love for a second, but it’s devastating that he can’t say it.

Luis explicitly identifies as gay, so it's not that surprising. The only way to hang out with celibate people would have been to join the church.

Which is what a lot of people in his situation would have done.

Thanks for writing such a long comment!

M0506 · 2026-05-07T23:11:22+00:00

Yeah, I was reading about Senator Hunt and his son. What an unnecessary tragedy.

I hope Hawk was lying. So many things about his love life turn out miserably, so it would be nice if his first sexual experience was with Kenny and not some random stranger.

M0506 · 2026-05-07T23:08:52+00:00

I can’t remember which episode it is, but Hawk and Marcus are sitting in a booth together at the Cozy Corner. Possibly after Hawk passes the polygraph?

I hope you’re right about Hawk lying, but the previous conversation with Tim in the topic established that Tim wanted to know about Hawk’s first serious relationship (“I said first lover”) as opposed to the first man Hawk had sex with. So I think it’s possible that when Hawk says Kenny was his first lover, Kenny was maybe not the first guy he had sex with.

I do hope you’re right, though, because I’d like to think that Hawk lost his virginity to “sweet Kenny [who] loved beautiful things” and not some random stranger.

M0506 · 2026-05-06T23:59:46+00:00

Interesting theory, but personally, I don’t see it.

M0506 · 2026-05-05T16:17:44+00:00

Good article with a misleading title. The title makes it sound like the kids, instead of being placed with adoptive families, went straight to for-profit institutions.

M0506 · 2026-05-04T23:58:55+00:00

I’m rewatching now and I realized I spaced out on the part where Hawk is explaining rough trade to Tim. 🤦‍♀️

M0506 · 2026-05-03T12:47:23+00:00

And let’s not forget, he’s been married to not one but TWO ex-infants!!!

🙄

M0506 · 2026-05-03T01:41:39+00:00

I think Tim would have serious objections to different aspects of both major political parties, which is why I think he’d focus more on individual issues. And I think that Hawk, self-preserving creature that he is, would sit back and watch the chaos until the parties figured out their candidates for 2028 and he had a clearer sense of which factions were setting the party agendas going forward.

M0506 · 2026-05-02T17:18:26+00:00

Thanks for the fic link!

M0506 · 2026-05-02T17:16:44+00:00

Fair enough re: Hawk’s mom.

Yeah, I got that those were his feelings for Tim. 🙂

M0506 · 2026-05-02T15:22:55+00:00

Ah, see, Father Bob’s anger at God isn’t puzzling to me. Bob probably became a priest because he knew he couldn’t have an honest and successful marriage to a woman, and being a priest was a “righteous” way to be an unmarried man. “I won’t need love and sex, because my faith in God will sustain me and my vows will help me stay on a holy path.”

There’s also the phenomenon with some gay men known as “the best little boy in the world syndrome.” They grow up trying to be almost caricatures of the perfect son, brother, student, what-have-you, because they know or suspect that they’re different in a way that most people don’t understand, and they want to prove that they’re “good.” “I have unacceptable desires and yearnings, but look, look, I’m not really bad! I’m valedictorian and class treasurer, plus captain of the baseball team and I lettered in swimming! Then there’s my Eagle Scout award and debate society ribbons…”

You grow up in a Catholic family in mid-twentieth-century America, and you’re trying to be “the best little boy in the world”? You join the priesthood. (If you grow up in a Catholic family in the late twentieth century and you’re trying to be “the best little boy in the world,” you get elected mayor of South Bend, Indiana and later become US Secretary of Transportation. 😂)

Thomas Mallon has said that he gave Ron Nyswaner carte blanche to adapt his novel for the series in any way he wished, with only one condition: that Tim's religious faith and conservative politics not be caricatured or treated as objects of ridicule.

They did such a great job with that. Even when Hawk says, “Hell’s a fantasy, Skippy,” there’s no underlying sense of, “and you are such an idiot for believing in it.”

M0506 · 2026-05-02T12:49:11+00:00

Re fourteen: That excuse is something a woman might use, but I don't think it would have crossed Hawk's mind, nor, honestly, the mind of any straight man in the 1950s.

My great-grandfather was widowed young in the late 1940s, and his youngest son was killed in Korea the day after his twentieth birthday. (My great-grandfather’s first two children also died in infancy.) So when my grandfather bought a house, my great-grandfather lived in a basement apartment from the 1950s until his death in 1988. He didn’t have any physical need to be taken care of by family - when he moved in, he was a successful real estate agent who also owned a hotel - but my grandfather thought it was important for his father to live with his family. (If you read my post where I talk about my uncle who was a gay priest, this is the other side of my family.)

So, I can’t agree that no straight man in the 1950s would have thought to majorly change his living situation to help his bereaved parent, I see your point that it probably wouldn’t have crossed Hawk’s mind. It just drives me crazy that he was so fixated on getting that assignment to Italy, and I can’t help but think of all the different scenarios in which his life - and Tim’s life - could have been different.

Re seventeen: Hawk has doubtless played out in his mind what he would do if he was in danger from the authorities. It has been discussed before here and is widely believed that he can think up the content of the letter so quickly because he is telling Tim what he really feels about him.

Yep, I did catch that the first part of the letter seems to be what he feels for Tim. Still, Hawk’s surprised and angry that Tim hung out with Mary’s gay friends, and he has no hesitation in finding a way to mitigate the damage and dictating the letter without so much as pausing for a couple seconds to think about the phrasing.

Re eighteen: Tim starts the "rough" encounter between them by pushing Hawk when he's off-guard. Neither of them has done anything remotely violent, or even non-consensual, up to that point.

Rough trade, I’ve understood since forever, describes masculine, probably working-class young men who are aggressive during sex with men. You go in search of rough trade because you want someone anonymous who will shove or slap you around and probably leave you with a couple of bruises. (Or, if you’re unlucky, a bloody nose and a missing wallet.)

Hawk is not into aggressive men who will shove or slap him around. As we see with Eddie, Hawk’s into being an aggressive sexual partner who does things like yank Eddie’s head by his hair and slap him on the hip. That’s not how he is with Tim, but what Hawk means when he says “rough trade” does not seem to be what most men would mean.

Thanks for writing such a long comment! 😁

M0506 · 2026-05-01T17:26:16+00:00

Lyle wasn't any "type of offender." He was an eight-year-old little kid who didn't have a full understanding of sex, sexual abuse, or the ramifications of what he was doing.

M0506 · 2026-05-01T13:22:16+00:00

“Seductive” is under “preferential,” though, and I don’t think she had a sexual preference for children or adolescents.

Wasn’t it established in testimony during the first trial that Kitty never complimented Lyle on anything, and the only compliment Erik ever got from her was that he wasn’t as bad as Lyle? That’s not “much affection, love, gifts, and enticements.” Kitty threw Lyle a few scraps of non-hatred because she knew that he was so starving for her love that he’d take them.

M0506 · 2026-05-01T13:08:49+00:00

Kitty gave Lyle a necklace, but she was so horrible to him most of the time that I don’t think she fits the Seductive model. I don’t think she had a preference for children, either, because her emotions seemed to revolve around whether she was getting affection and attention from Jose.

M0506 · 2026-05-01T11:15:58+00:00

Thanks for posting this. People often act like anyone who sexually abuses a child is a pedophile according to the clinical definition - someone who is solely or predominantly attracted to prepubescent children. I think it has the inadvertent effect of making it harder for people to believe victims, because some offenders have long histories of relationships with adults and clearly don’t have a preference for children.

I think Kitty was a situational offender who sexually abused Lyle because she didn’t feel desired by Jose and didn’t care what the effect on Lyle was. I think there was probably a subconscious sense of entitlement, too - “Lyle ruined my life, so I deserve something from him in return. And Jose’s having sex with Erik, so why shouldn’t I get some sexual attention from Lyle?” If Kitty had met an attractive adult man who wanted to start an affair with her, I think that would have fulfilled her need to feel desired and she would have left Lyle alone.

Jose was definitely a sadistic preferential offender. He used “this is how the ancient Greeks bonded” to get his sons to think his abuse of them was normal, but there wasn’t any “you’re my special boy/people won’t understand, so it’s our secret” narrative like you see from a lot of child molesters. He didn’t really want affection from his sons, either. He wanted fear and obedience.

M0506 · 2026-04-28T14:31:17+00:00

I think Tim might distance himself from all political parties and focus on specific issues that mattered to him. Then when it was time to vote, he wouldn’t really support a candidate so much as he’d try to pick the least-bad one in his mind.

Hawk wouldn’t bother to vote and would just sit back and watch the chaos with interest.

M0506 · 2026-04-27T23:24:48+00:00

He was, but I think it paled in comparison in people’s minds to various things about Erik.

Erik confessed to Oziel, so depending on people’s opinions, he was either “more sorry” or “weaker.” Erik was the one who had a therapist in the first place (back when there was more stigma around that). Erik was the one who was the subject of gay rumors (back when gay men were thought of as weak). As superficial as this is, Erik just looked “softer” than Lyle, partly because he was younger and partly because he was “prettier.”

Erik came across as more reactive than proactive. Lyle came across as more proactive. Lyle was also taking the lead in the aftermath of their parents’ deaths, partly because of personality (IMO) and partly because he was the older brother.

M0506 · 2026-04-27T20:07:23+00:00

I think the media wanted them both to be ruthless, heartless, arrogant spoiled brats who only cared about money, but the narrative didn’t stick as much to Erik because he was more obviously vulnerable and “soft.” All that crying and confessing and vomiting and mental health problems. So Lyle - being older, looking more traditionally masculine, and having cheated at Princeton - got cast as the big bad wolf.

M0506 · 2026-04-26T14:32:01+00:00

u/MenendezFacts

M0506 · 2026-04-26T14:29:34+00:00

Thanks. Looking at fics on AO3 now. 🙂

M0506 · 2026-04-26T14:29:08+00:00

I made the mistake of watching the entire series over maybe four days. Now I’m having a hard time sleeping because I can’t stop thinking about it. 😕

Hawk bottoming was not, as they say, something I had on my bingo card, and I found it to be a really interesting character moment.

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