It's a Sin · Season 1 · Episode 5 · 19 February 2021
S1E5 Episode 5
THE MOMENT Jill's final act of loyalty - a scene that collapsed television critics and general audiences equally.
The finale completes the decade and delivers the full weight of what the series has been building. Davies refuses easy comfort; the ending is true to the historical record and to the characters he has spent four episodes making lovable. The performances across the ensemble reach their peaks.
Full episode analysis below. Spoiler-light verdict above.
Updated
It's a Sin Episode 5 aired February 19, 2021 on Channel 4 as the series finale, completing the decade and delivering the full weight of what Russell T Davies had been building across four preceding episodes. The 97-percent Rotten Tomatoes score from 75 critics and the Metacritic of 91 reflect a consensus that the finale earned its devastation rather than manufactured it - the historical record and the characters' internal logic converge without comfort. Jill's final act of loyalty is the scene that critics and general audiences identified as the episode's emotional peak, and it landed with the force of four episodes of accumulated love. The series won 12 BAFTA nominations including Best Mini-Series, and the GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Limited Series. The IMDb score of 8.5 from a broad audience reflects a series that made grief feel as present as joy.