Did anyone read the book so they can compare to series?SPOILERS

I see the book came out in 1985.

The reason I'm asking if someone read the book was because, if you were around in the '80s, when the HIV/AIDS epidemic was sweeping through the gay community as well as affecting straight folks with medical conditions...

....this off beat dramedy with the ending in which Bridget takes a walk on the wild side and goes off with her bisexual love interest had a not-too-subtle hint that things were not going to turn out well in California for Giles.

I thought the whole point was doing her own thing, not being bound by convention. And all that.

But then, she mentioned Giles's "mole" to her ex husband. Then when Mark and Giles had a pub lunch Mark looked with concernd for sometime at the "mole" on Giles's wrist. Then the camera zoomed in on the splotchy large mole on Giles's wrist and lingered there in a close up.

Anybody around then was all too often seeing these terrible and devastating purplish splotch moles on people who had contracted the HIV/AIDS virus and were in the first stage of it taking their life. It was often the first hint they'd contracted it before becoming very ill.

With the book coming out in 1985 when AIDS was taking hold, and the tv series being in 1988...well....it shines a different light on Bridget and Giles running away for a "new life" in California.

He was not going to live long, if the whole "mole" episode was what it seemed to be in that time period.

Did the book address this?

Folks here seem not to have picked up on that at all. The long close up of his wrist in the pub with him quickly hiding it behind his cuff; and Mark's long rather intense look at Giles after he spied the mole was very heavy with innuendo.

If Giles did have HIV/AIDs back in the mid-'80s times period, he was done for pretty much.

That lends an entirely different message to the ending.

It makes it about far more than Bridget going off and spreading her wings--which is the theme of the whole series since she's the core story.

Why change it up in the final episode to make it look like Giles isn't going to be the partner she's hoping for? And then what about her health if indeed they are sexually active? It suddenly in the 4th episode with the mole thing seems to be another show entirely. It changed it up a bit.

It would be interesting to know what the producers and writers of the series were conveying--if anything--with regard to the Giles's health.

It just seemed like they went out of their way to talk about the mole, then show it in a close up. And not just to indicate that Bridget knew him intimately. It seemed like more meaning than that in the end.