THE DEUCE with David Simon, George Pelecanos, James Franco AND James Franco

there are gay and trans writers on staff apparently

Feel like the death of Ruby was a case of the show pulling its punches, it would have been bleaker if it had been Ashley (a more tragic character than Ruby) who was killed. During the previous episode I was convinced CC was going to catch up with her and prevent her from getting on that bus to freedom.

xp ok then!

Loved the bit where Vincent asked the junior mafia guy, "I'm not a made man am I?"

Watched the first episode tonight--good start. Franco quite restrained. Lisa P!

hah, I only made that connection after the fact

This was better than I thought it'd be--very low-key, good performances all around, lots of room for a second season. My two favourite characters are Harvey Wasserman, the Ron Jeremy-like director ("Get in there, my son"), and Rudy the Mob Guy. I wonder if Maggie Gyllenhaal partly modeled the Candy half of her performance on Nancy Allen in Blow Out. I expected Franco to be in full-blown Scorsese overdrive the whole way, but he's very restrained, even as Frankie. Ruby's death was a sad ending. The music's kind of buried in the background, but I liked the Undisputed Truth and (surprise) the Guess Who.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlKU8POYQsk

pretty enjoyable premiere, I love a bunch of these characters (say, 2/3rds of them). And sometimes I like the use of the diagetic music/ppl listening to the same thing on the radio and other times I feel like whoever the music producer is is just fucking up left and right. Like, "This Year's Girl" as the opening music is very on-the-nose but I felt like it worked until for no apparent reason they overdubbed a woman's voice over certain lines? And then having "Cosmic Slop" and "Roadrunner" being played on the radio? what fucking radio station that pimps + pornstars listened to was doing that in 1977

otoh Barry White and whatever Moroder song that was in the gay disco were very well placed

lol nobody's watching this, are they

I am, but I'm watching season 1.

I didn't realize Megan Abbott was a writer and story editor on this; she's my friend's wife too, you'd think he'd more loudly socialize shit like this

also: this is really a great series. I echo everything poositive everyone said up above. when it was originally being touted it was very much along the lines of 'here's the start of the porn industry!" which is selling it short. It's about a lot more than that. I appreciate shows like this that give me a picture of what NYC was like at that time; the first time I went to NYC was 1997 by which time all of that had been completely cleaned up. It's hard for me to fathom a big chunk of a city even being like this these days.

I didn't know they were up and running again. I will definitely watch the second season, but I don't have HBO, so I'll have to wait for my bootleg DVD place to get it.

I'm still watching, but behind by a few weeks. Tough to watch this on the bus!

yeah it is *really* broad in scope. Almost too broad, I think. I'm generally enjoying it because it's so well shot and acted, and if I don't like one storyline hey don't worry in 5 minutes the show will be shift focus to somewhere else. But I think it does lack a certain dramatic tension, there's a distinct lack of real conflict. Everybody is made sympathetic in one way or another, there's no real villains, and no real stakes to anything - none of the characters really seem to be in opposition to one another, so what you get is just kind of a bunch of semi-interesting (and usually lurid) stuff happening. It ends up feeling oddly inert.

the one minor character I miss from season 1 was the porn store owner. that guy was just too perfectly cast.

xp

Been watching it ( missed this week's) and still loving the attention to detail. Some of the storylines are becoming yawnsome, though ( Gyllenhaal's (sp!) and the troublesome Franco "twin" especially). Love the cop stuff but I think I see where a lot of stuff is heading ( Maggie G's son prob inadvertently catching a porno starring mom / hooker porn starlet tries to leave pimp and trouble ensues/ etc etc). Girl who plays bar owner Franco's girlfriend should play Joan Jett in a biopic. Gorgeous.

Girl who plays bar owner Franco's girlfriend should play Joan Jett in a biopic. Gorgeous.

not gonna deny that she is v pretty but her character is so fucking annoying and unrealistic, that person did not exist in 1977.

What do you find annoying and unrealistic about the character?

"yeah it is *really* broad in scope. Almost too broad, I think. I'm generally enjoying it because it's so well shot and acted, and if I don't like one storyline hey don't worry in 5 minutes the show will be shift focus to somewhere else. But I think it does lack a certain dramatic tension, there's a distinct lack of real conflict. Everybody is made sympathetic in one way or another, there's no real villains, and no real stakes to anything - none of the characters really seem to be in opposition to one another, so what you get is just kind of a bunch of semi-interesting ... stuff happening. It ends up feeling oddly inert."

Haven't seen any of this yet, but sounds like Treme, which I watched a season plus of and eventually wandered away from. Hard to get excited about.

middle-class feminist studies girl drops out of college to dabble in sex-work activism also happens to have impeccable cutting edge taste in up-and-coming punk bands and happens to be a dead ringer for Joan Jett, I mean come on that is some v idealized hindsight-is-20/20 screenwriter nonsense

maybe if she was modeled on Andrea Dworkin I would buy it

xp

it was clear from the Wire that Simon (and I suppose Pellecanos?) like to show the moral grey areas that most real people live in and that that militates against having outsized evil villains, but I feel like the genuine uber-ugly levels of brutality that are deeply ingrained in being a pimp (or a mobster, or a corrupt cop) are overly obscured in this show - at least one of these types could be credibly expected to be a real monster, but that's not really how Rudy or CC or any of these types are written. This one wants to be an actor! This one's kinda nice sometimes! Rudy looks out for his guys! Stories without villains or at least some sense of struggle, of opposing forces, just tend to be less engaging, and this show is no exception.

I'm watching it too, and haven't seen this week either, but like most I'm sticking with it because it's well made and the actors are good rather than the plot which is all over the place and, as others have said, far too broad.

Larry is the standout character this season I think.

So many penises, it feels like.

Larry's on-set dick reveal + smile was by far the funniest moment of the season

The real villain of Simon's shows is the SYSTEM, man.

"dead ringer for Joan Jett"

is her hair black in season 2? I don't see the resemblance myself

how about Suzi Quatro

I'd say CC is unambiguously a bad guy

(i'm watching too, but don't have an awful lot to say about S2 so far. Just seems to be ticking along)

xpost Yeah her hair's black now she's booking punk and new wave bands for the bar.

I don't care at all about the other nightclub.

https://proxy.duckduckgo.com/iur/?f=1&image_host=http%3A%2F%2Fc7.alamy.com%2Fcomp%2FG4TDDK%2Fsinger-suzi-quatro-heathrow-airport-london-G4TDDK.jpg&u=https://c7.alamy.com/comp/G4TDDK/singer-suzi-quatro-heathrow-airport-london-G4TDDK.jpg
https://proxy.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fcdn1-www.comingsoon.net%2Fassets%2Fuploads%2F2018%2F09%2FThe-Deuce-S2E3-3.jpg&f=1

xp

Other xpost Nah, CC is going to turn into Iceberg Slim and be the hero of season 3.

I'd say CC is unambiguously a bad guy

I do think the bringing in CC's former bottom whore as Abby's activist partner has brought his shittiness into sharper focus

(lol @ Iceberg Slim, well-known good guy pimp! I guess he did ultimately renounce his wayward ways)

Good points, Shakey. I guess I'm just enjoying the ride but definitely there's a bunch of unrealistic crap worthy of whatever that awful Scorsese NYC A&R guy series was whose name I forgot. Though this is a much better sho, imho.

*show

Definitely more Suzi than Joan

that awful Scorsese NYC A&R guy series was whose name I forgot

VINYL! gawd that was so bad. also ref'd upthread lol

that steak order was confirmation that CC is 100% evil

tension def ramped up this episode. contradictions were heightened, one might say

was totally convinced that was David Proval playing the elder Martino in his one scene but apparently not...? That dude did look familiar though.

Armand Asante

No redemption for CC then.

My favourite new fact is that Blake Leyh wanted to use We Are All Prostitutes as the theme music for season 2 but David Simon wouldn't let him because he felt it was a bit too Do You See.

"let's go with 'This Year's Girl', it's much more subtle"

It's back, and it's 1985. They are giving us a version of the Jack Maple policing story. This show is great, but still feels pretty low-stakes.

so this is gonna be the "who is going to get AIDS?!" season eh

Yeah I guess :/

Sex, lies and videotape

"wolfpacks", AIDS, some anachronisms in the dialogue ( "run it back"? Who used that on the streets of NYC in '84?!) and a bit of a messy covering-all-bases feeling. Kind of a disappointing start.

Very much a "torn from today's headlines!!" vibe in the writing that felt facile. Let's see where they go. Still, the recreation of mid-80s NYC in the production- at least what I recall of it - is often uncanny.

it continues to look and sound incredible but it's kind of all over the place narratively