Critic Reviews

A mastery behind the camera that subtly elevates the compelling story in front of it makes The Deuce an utterly captivating experience. You’ll have watched the whole series before you stop to look at the clock.

The Deuce is an absorbing, resonant chronicle about the evolution of dehumanizing skin trades and the mainstreaming of adult entertainment.

The subject matter, the nature of most of the characters, may not seem appealing, but there is a resilient humanity at the base of The Deuce. Most of all, there is a great story and even greater storytelling.

The look of The Deuce is thoroughly transporting, and that’s just the start. ... As with “The Wire” and “Treme,” we meet a large, multicultural ensemble of characters in The Deuce, most of them written with remarkable specificity and distinguished by shrewd acting choices. And as with “The Wire” and “Treme,” their stories piece together slowly but surely into a single broad canvas of Americans on the fringes of our economic system.

Each hour’s blazing horns, during the closing credits, are a weekly must-hear. The dialogue is sharp and suitably dicey ... There’s nothing pretty here. But in the eyes of this beholder, you’ll otherwise know great drama when you see it.

It’s the kind of storytelling--ebullient, moving, brutal and informed with human mystery--whose every chapter only whets the appetite for more. ... A smashing work all around.

Overall, The Deuce formulates an intoxicating anthropology, characterized in equal measure by both possibility and sentimentality.

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.

This final, lovely season won’t gloss over the nasty, cruel, and devastating parts of the sex industry, but it does let us soak in the finely-aged relationships between its note-perfect characters as they’re paved over for new hotels.

The show’s creators get just as caught up in this sordid albeit entertaining world as viewers, but Simon and Pelecanos take care not to forget what’s underneath it all.