The Deuce

The second season pays dividends to the viewer in the form of taut and lively performances. ... If you’re not already invested in this drama, you may find this season to be shinier, brighter and more seductive than before. The Deuce was already an excellent drama. Now it’s definitively one of the best shows on TV.

A stunning, transportive experience each and every episode. More importantly, this mesmeric atmosphere allows Simon and Pelecanos to implement an unusual storytelling structure; a time capsule approach that chronicles the most important moments for its story and characters, like anything else, but that doesn’t promise immediate thrills, constant conflict, or your traditional episodic build toward a crescendo.

Vividly teeming with tragicomic life and reeking of desperation, danger and moral decay, the series takes a while to build an actual story--a common trait nowadays in high-minded long-form TV Narratives--but by the end of the first eight hours, an decriminalized porn becomes big business, you'll surely want to know what happens next. [18 Sep - 1 Oct 2017, p.27]

In The Deuce, producer David Simon tries to do for the sex trade and 1970s evolution of pornography what "The Wire" did for drugs. After a slow start, this engrossing, characteristically nuanced HBO drama mostly serves up aces.

The show (like the recent Hulu drama Harlots) navigates a complicated path between showing the reality of sex work and somehow keeping the action from being impossibly depressing. It’s as often funny as it’s brutal, and yet the two modes don’t undermine each other.

No one is arguing that The Deuce isn’t entertaining, if slightly cliched. But we shouldn’t pretend The Deuce is the truth. It would be easy to praise the series for being unjudgmental and focusing on the human elements. However, there was a lot of pain involved in that world, and the series is too carefully constructed for you to feel it.

The Deuce can’t hold all of its many pieces together, despite the pockets of strong writing and performances, making viewers bounce around a visceral world with just not enough emotional gravity.