Most critics come down in favour, and the praise gathers almost entirely around the two leads. Matt Bomer and Jonathan Bailey are credited again and again with a chemistry that carries a relationship across four decades, and several reviews call the result moving, even devastating. The frank sex scenes draw approval too, for telling us something about the men rather than decorating the story. There is broad agreement that the series takes gay history seriously and covers ground television has mostly left alone.
The reservations are about shape. Critics complain of a middle stretch that loses momentum, a muddled timeline and a history-lesson approach that crowds out the characters. The spread is wide, from the mid-80s down to the mid-30s. Vulture is the one outright negative, arguing the lesson swallows the people. Collider, more mixed, faults the series for romanticising a toxic relationship and sidelining Black, female and trans characters. The Hollywood Reporter, alone, picks out Allison Williams’s Lucy as the most compelling performance.