A review of tonight’s The Deuce coming up just as soon as I wear a Rolek watch…
“Why do you do this?” –Abby
“You don’t need to understand.” –Darlene
We’ve reached the midway point of this first season, and now that we mostly know who everyone is and what they do, it’s time for The Deuce to start interrogating this world and the people in it.
At times, this happens overtly, like the conversation I quoted above between Abby and Darlene, or Chris Alston and Sandra the reporter sharing similar puzzlement about why any human being would choose this profession. But the prostitutes and the show itself push back on the Woe Is You, Poor Sex Worker of it all. These are not happy lives, and they’re ones that certain characters like Candy are eager to escape, but nor are most of the hookers presented as naive dupes who have been thoroughly brainwashed by C.C. and the other pimps. They all have their reasons, and they’re not necessarily to be shared with the privileged likes of Abby, who has multiple soft places to fall if her current gig doesn’t work out, or Sandra, who still seems like a tourist (Chris is able to differentiate her from the sex workers because of her shoes).
And even though the relationship between pimp and prostitute is terribly one-sided, we see in one of the show’s funniest moments so far that even the big scary pimps don’t fully control — or really understand — the women in their respective stables. When Barbara complains to Larry about her heavy flow at this time of the month, this turns into an elaborate discussion among the women at Leon’s about the advantages of period sex(*), tampons vs sponges, and all sorts of other matter-of-fact issues about being an adult woman, prostitute or not, on this planet. And Larry and Rodney and the others could not be more disgusted, nor more baffled, by all of it. Literally their only job is to help these women have sex for money, and they have no idea how any of their biology works. It’s amazing.
(*) Rebecca Bunch might really enjoy this show, I’m thinking.
And while the sexual focus through the first few episodes was mostly on relations between prostitutes and their clients, “I See Money” expands its view outward to offer a contrast between those encounters and the kinds that aren’t paid for — or, in some cases, the kind that are, just not in the way that Darlene or Lori make their money.
Candy (who already has more freedom in her personal life than the other street walkers) meets a divorced dad while out shopping for herself, and is charmed enough to agree to a real date with him. During these scenes, she’s not Candy at all, but Eileen. It’s still a false persona in many ways — this Eileen doesn’t have a son, and sure as heck doesn’t earn her trade out on the Deuce — but close enough to reality, and to a life Eileen very much wants rather than the on she currently has, that she listens admiringly to Jack’s answering machine message over and over before the date. But when the evening comes, we see that the woman who is usually so in command with her customers is as lost and fumbling as anyone else is on a first date — maybe more, because it’s clearly been a very long time since she’s tried such a thing. Earlier in the episode, a john dies while she’s in the middle of performing oral sex on him — a new rock bottom, and a new story to tell herself each time she has doubts about trying to change professions — yet she almost seems more vulnerable when she’s at the restaurant with Jack. And when he drops her off at the end of the date, she gets caught between “Eileen” and Candy, at first resisting his attempt to kiss her goodnight, then perhaps going too far too fast before heading upstairs.
Chris’s attempt to go out with Sandra turns out to be more overtly transactional, even if he doesn’t realize it at first. He doesn’t have much experience with reporters, let alone attractive black female ones, so he doesn’t understand that while he’s looking for a date, she’s looking for a source. Still, at least he gets a burger and fries out of it in the moment, not to mention someone else who’s as curious as he is about why these women do this work, and what exactly is happening with these new no-go zones.
The episode’s most straightforward relationship involves Abby and Vinnie finally hooking up, and even that’s complicated by the earlier reappearance of Vinnie’s estranged wife Andrea. James Franco is so charming (in both roles), and Vinnie is in general such an easygoing, inclusive guy — here he’s not only okay with the arrival of a trans regular from the bar’s days as Penny Lane, but excited about the message Dora’s presence sends to the rest of the clientele — that it’s easy to forget that in the first episode, he walked out on his marriage (admittedly a bad one) and his kids (who have no blame in any of it). Andrea turns up here to ask Vinnie to come home, or even just take the kids to the beach, but he’s not having it. Both of them cheated — “I’m just a man,” Vinnie admits. “No better than any other.” — and both of them did ridiculous things, like Andrea lighting Vinnie’s clothes on fire.
Still, the ease with which Vinnie cast off his family is discomfiting, intentionally so, and hangs over his flirtations with Abby, who here finally makes a move, insisting to her boss, “You’re not in control of this. I am.”
Where Eileen at times on her date has trouble not blurring the lines between her Candy life and her other life, Abby and Vinnie’s first time is purely sex between two people who find each other attractive, and it’s shot that way. Simon and Pelecanos have talked about not wanting the show itself to be sexy, but that seems to be more about the porn and prostitution scenes. This sequence in the bar looks and feels different, because it is. Abby is in control of this, and Vinnie is letting her be, and everything is okay.
Abby doesn’t understand Darlene’s profession, but she understands what she herself wants, and in “I See Money,” she gets it.
Some other thoughts:
* Darlene dismissively refers to Abby as “the Breck girl,” referencing a popular shampoo campaign of the era. Here’s a young Kim Basinger as a Breck girl, for instance.
* Some Mob-related developments this week: Frankie goes on a gambling hot streak that Vinnie is able to use to wipe his tab clean with Tommy Longo, and Vinnie’s work running the bar — and not skimming off the top like everyone else does — makes him an appealing frontman for Rudy Pipilo’s plans for the neighborhood. And without Bobby on the job site to ride herd over his guys, the paycheck-cashing scheme nearly falls apart until Longo’s guys beat up the man complaining the most about it.
* Big Mike, who interceded with the gun incident on The Hi-Hat’s opening night, joins the payroll, and in turn introduces Vinnie to another potential new employee: Frankie — immediately nicknamed Black Frankie to avoid confusion with the bad Martino twin — a Vietnam vet who’s good with a gun.
* The show is so far getting the balance right with Paul, who’s there to educate Vinnie (and the viewer) about the state of gay rights in NYC circa 1971 (here explaining that he was a bartender at the Stonewall until the famous riots happened), but also gets to exist as a character in his own right, albeit briefly in the early going, like his date with a nervous semi-closeted businessman.
What did everybody else think?
Alan Sepinwall may be reached at sepinwall@uproxx.com. He discusses television weekly on the TV Avalanche podcast. His next book, Breaking Bad 101, is out 10/10 and available for preoder now.