What to Watch: When We Rise

You’ve seen the ads, the commercials and Facebook posts. You might have resisted because maybe its to soon, don’t want to relive those days, or maybe it has nothing to do with you. Or you might have avoided the mini-series because of all the negative press and reviews from right-wing news and conservative reviewers. 

I won’t lie, watching this series was emotional and it hurt. The young and unknown cast is rough in the first episode but they grow on you as the episodes progress. The mini-series is built on a decades scale with the early part of the story opening in the early 1970’s and the master class of the gay revolution/ The second half of the story arch brings us to 90’s and where my story begins. With this 20 year skip to future comes a whole new cast playing the more mature characters. I was lucky to volunteer at the quilt project in the mid-90’s and met a lot of the people historic people featured in the mini-series. Tom Amiano was one that will be burned into my memory for life. I was surprised to learn that Tom was father of Diane Jones daughter who I had met on two separate occasions.

The series may be rough watch because wounds in this time period may run deep on both sides. It’s certainly worth watching, I will say, I thought or maybe I expected more from Rachel Griffith’s but I think there was more of a writing issue in the end.