It is loud. It is messy. It is hallucinating. When Mike Nichols finally brought the Angels in America series to HBO in 2003, people expected a period piece about the 1980s. Instead, they got a fever dream that felt more like the present than the past. Tony Kushner’s "Gay Fantasia on National Themes" wasn’t just a play about a virus; it was a sprawling, angry, beautiful autopsy of the American soul.
Honestly? It’s a lot to take in. You have Al Pacino chewing the scenery as a dying Roy Cohn, Meryl Streep playing everything from a rabbi to a ghost, and Justin Kirk as Prior Walter, a man literally wrestling with a divine being in his bedroom. It’s operatic.
The Messy Reality of the Angels in America Series
People often forget that before it was a six-hour television event, it was two massive plays: Millennium Approaches and Perestroika. The transition to the screen could have been a disaster. Stage plays usually feel claustrophobic when filmed. But Nichols, who directed The Graduate, understood that this story needed to feel both intimate and cosmic.
The plot basically follows two interconnected couples in New York City during 1985. You have Prior Walter and Louis Ironson. Prior has AIDS; Louis has a moral compass that points everywhere except toward staying and helping. Then you have Joe and Harper Pitt. Joe is a closeted Mormon lawyer working for Roy Cohn, and Harper is his Valium-addicted wife who sees imaginary icebergs.
It shouldn’t work. The tonal shifts are jarring. One minute you’re watching a realistic argument about political abandonment in a cafeteria, and the next, a wall is exploding and an angel is descending on a wire.
Why Roy Cohn is the Key
If you want to understand why this series still trends every time there’s a political upheaval, look at Roy Cohn. Al Pacino plays him as a man who is literally rotting from the inside out, yet he refuses to admit he has "the gay cancer." He insists he has liver cancer. To Cohn, power is the only medicine.
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He is the villain, but he’s also the engine of the story. Kushner used the real-life Cohn—the man who helped send the Rosenbergs to the electric chair and mentored a young Donald Trump—to show how the American "tough guy" persona is actually a death sentence. It’s a terrifying performance. Pacino doesn't go for sympathy. He goes for the jugular.
The Angel and the Theology of Moving Forward
The Angels in America series hinges on a very weird idea: God has abandoned Heaven because humans are too interesting. The angels are bored and scared. They want humanity to stop moving, to stop progressing, because every time we change, it causes a "cosmic upheaval."
Prior Walter, the reluctant prophet, eventually tells them to go to hell. Well, not literally, but he rejects their demand for stasis. "We live past hope," he says. That’s the core of the whole thing. It’s not about being "brave" in the face of death; it’s about the sheer, stubborn refusal to stop evolving even when everything is falling apart.
Emma Thompson’s portrayal of the Angel is terrifying. She isn’t a Hallmark card. She’s a bird of prey with multiple sexualities and a booming voice that sounds like grinding tectonic plates. When she crashes through the ceiling, it isn't a blessing. It's a catastrophe.
Small Details Most People Miss
- The Casting Trick: Did you notice that most of the lead actors play multiple roles? Meryl Streep is the most obvious, playing Hannah Pitt, the Rabbi, and Ethel Rosenberg. This isn't just to save money on the budget. It’s a thematic choice. It suggests that our enemies, our ancestors, and our neighbors are all part of the same fabric.
- The San Francisco Ending: The play ends at the Bethesda Fountain in Central Park, but there’s a heavy spiritual weight placed on the "great work" beginning. It’s a call to action.
- The Music: Thomas Newman’s score is haunting. It uses these repetitive, pulsing minimalist rhythms that make the 1980s feel like they are vibrating.
Why We Still Care Twenty Years Later
Let’s be real. A six-hour miniseries about the AIDS crisis is a hard sell in the era of TikTok and 10-second hooks. But the Angels in America series stays relevant because the "plague" is just a backdrop for a larger conversation about who gets to be an American.
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It tackles the failure of the justice system, the cruelty of religious dogma, and the way we abandon the people we claim to love. When Louis abandons Prior because he can't handle the "stench of death," he represents every person who talks a big game about social justice but disappears when things get messy.
Kushner’s writing is dense. It’s poetic. Sometimes it’s even a bit pretentious. But it’s never boring. He captures that specific New York anxiety where everyone is overeducated and under-loved.
Watching It Today: A Practical Guide
If you’re going to dive into the Angels in America series for the first time, don't try to binge it in one sitting. It wasn't designed for that. It’s split into two halves: "Bad News" and "Good News."
Watch Millennium Approaches (the first three hours) first. Let it sit. It’s the darker half. It deals with the breakdown of the world. Then, wait a day and watch Perestroika. That’s where the magic realism kicks into high gear and the characters start finding some semblance of hope in the ruins.
What to look for while watching:
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- The Ghost of Ethel Rosenberg: Watch the chemistry between her and Roy Cohn. It’s a weirdly tender relationship between a murderer and his victim.
- Harper’s Visions: Pay attention to the Antarctic scenes. They represent the ozone hole—a literal "tear in the sky" that mirrors the tear in the social fabric of the 80s.
- Belize: Jeffrey Wright is the unsung hero of this series. As Belize, the former drag queen turned nurse, he provides the only real moral clarity in the whole story. He’s the only one who actually does the work while everyone else just argues about philosophy.
The Legacy of the Production
The HBO version won nearly every Emmy it was nominated for. Eleven of them, actually. It swept the acting categories, which almost never happens.
But its real legacy isn't the gold statues. It's the fact that it forced a mainstream audience to look at the AIDS crisis not as a "lifestyle" issue, but as a national tragedy that touched everyone from the halls of the Department of Justice to the suburbs of Salt Lake City. It humanized the "other" in a way that felt confrontational rather than condescending.
Taking the Next Steps
If you’ve finished the series and find yourself wanting more of that specific Kushner energy, you shouldn't just stop at the credits. There are ways to deepen the experience.
- Read the script: Kushner’s stage directions are legendary. They are often funnier and more descriptive than what actually made it onto the screen.
- Compare the versions: If you can find a recording of the National Theatre’s 2017 revival starring Andrew Garfield, watch it. It’s a completely different take—grittier and more physical than the HBO version.
- Research the real Roy Cohn: Understanding the actual history of the 1950s Red Scare makes his scenes in the series much more chilling. He wasn't just a character; he was a monster who actually existed.
- Visit the Bethesda Fountain: If you’re ever in New York, go to the Angel of the Waters at Central Park. Stand where the characters stood in the final scene. It’s a reminder that even in a city of millions, there is space for grace.
The "great work" Kushner talks about isn't over. It’s an ongoing process of fixing a broken world. The Angels in America series doesn't give you a happy ending where everything is resolved. Instead, it gives you a blessing. It’s a messy, complicated, "more life" kind of blessing. And honestly, that’s all anyone can really ask for.