Sometimes you watch a show, and you fall in love with it because it is dense, incredibly well-written, amazingly acted, perfectly directed, and gorgeously shot television, and you want everyone in the world to know about it. So, you talk up the directing aspects. You play up the novelty of the lead character, who is an a**hole, but a static a**shole that makes everyone around him better in opposition to him, which makes him a villainous hero. You even play up the fact that the cast — outside of their period costumes — are incredibly attractive sexpots.
Unfortunately, all of this falls on deaf ears, because the show I’m talking about comes on Cinemax on Friday nights, and it’s directed by a man who — despite a number of huge, entertaining box-office hits — still has a reputation for artsy porn, like The Girlfriend Experience.
So you think and you think and you think: How can I get people who I know would love this show — because they love shows like Breaking Bad and True Detective and Deadwood — to watch a medical drama set in 1900? Do I talk up the blood, because there’s a lot of it? Or the fascinating aspects of surgeries from back then, and the super nerdy science involved? Or do I mention that Andre Holland may be the most underappreciated actor on television?
No. That won’t work. But I know what will. Mention Alexandra Daddario. Boom! Now you’re listening.
Because Eve Hewson — who happens to be the daughter of U2’s frontman, Bono (aka Paul Hewson) — is to The Knick what Daddario was to True Detective, only there’s more to Hewson than the fact that she looks crazy good without her clothes. Nothing against Daddario — who is not going to be a threat to win any Emmy nominations anytime soon — but Hewson is also a terrific actress, as she navigates what’s turning into a sticky love triangle in The Knick that involves an earnest, young, smitten doctor and a detached, coke-addicted a**hole.
Guess who she prefers? In fact, she is even willing to demonstrate her affection for the brilliant but morally bankrupt Dr. Thackery (Clive Owen) by injecting cocaine into the vein OF HIS PENIS. But that’s not all! She is even willing to go down that road and get addicted to cocaine herself, if it means mad, drugged-up lovemaking with Thackery.
She’s great in The Knick, playing a kind of reserved, but knowing nurse who clearly has a wild side that she’s really excited about exploring, which puts her in the same category as Alexandra Daddario’s character in True Detective, a wild, intoxicated and intoxicating woman who has a thing for a**holes.
What’s nice about Hewson, however, is that — unlike Daddario, who only showed up in three episodes — Hewson is on the entire season of The Knick, which you really should seek out.
