A First Look at HBO's "Deuce"
Monday, July 10, 2017 at 7:00PM Chris here. David Simon is something of an HBO perennial, delivering the likes of The Wire, Treme, and the Oscar Isaac-led mini Show Me A Hero to much acclaim. He's back (along with his frequent collaborator George Pelecanos) this fall for another round of prestige grit with crime series The Deuce, an NYC-set look at the rise of the porn industry and its violent underbelly.
Now before you go calling this HBO's next Vinyl, consider that it also gives us twin James Franco and Maggie Gyllenhaal in several wigs. There is a lot to take in for a seemingly familiar series: a logo that looks like it belongs in an Atlantic City lounge, campy period detail, dialogue that feels intentionally cheesy. I'm not sure if the tone is supposed to be slightly off-kilter, but there are enough bizarre elements to make The Deuce more intriguing than another severe Goodfellas retread. While the first look below features a lot of the expected plots points for such material, it also hints that we could be getting some peak form Gyllenhaal among its glossy production value. The Deuce debuts September 10.
Reader Comments (7)
Count me in! Where do I sign up? What happens?
Maggie gives good TV. See: The Honourable Woman.
This looks as dirty as James Franco's underwear. What is the relevance of this in 2017?
Yeah, this just looks like <I>Vinyl</I> redux and I think it will get the same kind of reception. A prestige drama looking behind the scenes at the porn industry feels like it's been a long time coming (especially on HBO) but what is HBO's obsession with doing period pieces? Why can't it be set in the 21st century? The dominance of the Internet killing the porn industry could be an intriguing context to set this in.
And please, someone call a stop to unnecessarily shoe-horned gangster/crime/murder subplots.
Looks compelling enough for awards recognition.
Effective trailer selling sex and atmospheric sleaze
James Franco really seems to appear in a lot of projects about porn.