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What: A turn of the 20th century medical drama set in a fictionalized version of New York City's Knickerbocker Hospital, which in this particular version of history is home to one of the world's most brilliant and pioneering surgeons, who also happens to be maniacal, fairly racist, and addicted to cocaine. Ten lean episodes per season.
Who: Starring Clive Owen, all episodes directed by Steven Soderbergh, and a stellar supporting cast.
When: Fridays, on Cinemax. Season two starts tonight, in fact.
Why: Soderbergh's direction is on par with the best he's ever done. Owen is unsurprisingly brilliant as John Thackery. Handles matters of racism and sexism and classism well in a way that makes the early 1900s feel not so dissimilar to the 2000s. Extraordinary scoring by Cliff Martinez. And all of the medicine is historically accurate!
This is, I think it's safe to say, the best show that no one is watching. Soderberg got a courtesy Emmy nomination this year (which either he or Tim Van Patten should have won, but was given to Game of Thrones' David Nutter instead). Owen was nominated for a Golden Globe. It was far and away the best new show that premiered last television year, and by all accounts the second season is primed to be as good if not better.
Also S1E01 is free on Amazon so you can give the show a go if you are on the fence. Don't think it's readily available in full on any other platforms, though.
Just got around to watching this, after catching up on Homeland and watching The Act of Killing.
There was a lot to take in this premiere, which is to be expected given the ensemble and the way that the end of season one left us. I'll try to keep this spoiler-lite, since I'm sure not a lot of people have seen it yet.
Visually, the episode is one of the most captivating things that Soderbergh has done, not only on the Knick, but throughout his prolific career, and it really starts from the first shot. Echoing the first season premiere, we see the world first from Thack's point of view. It's bleary and out of focus at first, just as it was last year, and the object in his line of sight is again a woman. But where that first episode's first shot was building towards John Thackery's external truth, inviting us into the life he leads out in the world, this shot instead invites us into his inner truth; this vision is ethereal, not a nightmare, but not a dream either, and he is going to have to cope with what his drug problems wrought for him in season one.
Smash cut to title card.
Smash cut to an alarm clock, ringing like hell. It's Nurse Elkins' alarm clock, but there's no doubting that the wake up call is coming for Dr. Thackery.
The episode goes on to give us more cleverly shot scenes wherein the camera tells us exactly how things stand. In a conversation between Algernon and Henry, Soderbergh shoots low, and with handheld cameras, not afraid to let the physical obstructions of the room's furniture stay in frame. You don't need to know what Algie and Henry talk about to be certain from the direction that Dr. Edwards is in an uncertain position, because the camera conveys all of that just as nimbly as the actors do. A similar conceit is used when Lucy goes to give Bertie a birthday present. Things between these two are uncomfortable, and you can feel that from the moment she walks through the door, to the way Bertie is shot, almost from the perspective of the desk his is furiously writing upon. That Nurse Elkins is bathed in light and Dr. Chickering is lit only by the glow of his lamp is an interesting tweak of a familiar trope. Normally, it's this is to show virtue versus amorality, good versus evil, etc. In this scene, it's not quite flipped, but close. Lucy is no paragon of virtue, in Bertie's eyes or the eyes of the viewer, but she is trying to do the right thing, to mend this relationship, while Bertie, who has been a good man put upon for the majority of the series, is unrelenting in his holding a grudge against her. And yet, the shots of Bertie are consistently steadier than they are on almost anyone else in the hospital. Throughout the episode, the camera conveys who is in control.
That control also plays into another visual aspect of the episode that I really enjoyed, which is Soderbergh's use of focus. He repeatedly focuses the camera not on the foregrounded, principal participants in the scene, but rather the subject of the action, who or which is generally backgrounded. The most notable scene in which this occurs is undoubtedly when Philip greets Neely at the groundbreaking of the new Knickerbocker site. They kiss, and speak to each other, but the camera is not concerned with them, beyond what they are saying, it's instead focused on Algernon, who is centered in the frame and the subject of the scene, but is backgrounded. This happens several times in the episode, with particular characters being the subject of someone else's scenes. It's almost like Soderbergh is giving the camera a visual version of the passive voice with those shots, forcing the viewer to further consider the nature of things being under someone else's control, whether it's the Showalters, Gallinger, Bertie, Ping, the rehab, or just white people in general that are in charge. The interesting thing is that these situations, wherein the characters we are supposed to generally like as the audience are under someone else's control, are not all alike. Some of those characters need or deserve to be under the thumb of someone else, while others most assuredly don't.
In an episode fraught with fights for control - over the hospital, over oneself, over illness, over things that can't really be controlled at all, it's an impressive and important thing that Soderbergh's direction keeps that issue kinetic and present without seeming flashy.
Well, The Knick's second season finale puts virtually every other show that aired this year to shame. That was an exquisite episode of television. I'm still floored, and I finished watching it half an hour ago.
Well, The Knick's second season finale puts virtually every other show that aired this year to shame. That was an exquisite episode of television. I'm still floored, and I finished watching it half an hour ago.
Regrettably it is one of my few television blind spots at present. I hope to work my way through it between tomorrow an the end of the year.
Even knowing how highly regarded it is, I don't think any single episode of it could trump the season finale of The Knick (or a select few other episodes of TV that aired this year).
Regrettably it is one of my few television blind spots at present. I hope to work my way through it between tomorrow an the end of the year.
Even knowing how highly regarded it is, I don't think any single episode of it could trump the season finale of The Knick (or a select few other episodes of TV that aired this year).
But I will report back when I have a full sense.
cool. I was just curious if you preferred one over the other.