|
That end was definitely hokey but it definitely reminded me how many characters they killed off over the series. A lot!
|
#
?
Oct 30, 2019 06:03
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 3, 2024 19:21 |
|
|
I don't know what to think of Eileen's ending. It was totally in line for her, but it was frustrating watching her character have zero growth throughout the entire series. She expanded, she became more powerful but never changed at all, She's just completely self involved from beginning to end. It wasn't bad or anything. It was probably actually a good way to end it for her, but it wasn't satisfying to watch. Also, it was sort of brutal and genius at the same time, that not a single person seemed to even be aware of Laurie's suicide. I thought it would at least be addressed in the final episode. For a show all about jacking people off there sure wasn't a whole lot of happy endings  I don't think a single person got out unscathed except loving Tommy Longo.
|
|
#
?
Oct 30, 2019 06:32
|
|
|
Also Bobby doesn't get enough love. His descent from working class everyman, to total degenerate, then back to square one was really fun to watch.
|
|
#
?
Oct 30, 2019 06:40
|
|
|
I thought there was a big missed opportunity in the epilogue when Vince was talking to the bartender. When Vince said he ran a bar and club in the 70s the young guy could have said something like "oh, the bad old days?" since that's what people in the city call that era now. Maybe it would be too on the nose, but it would have highlighted that the best time of his life is now viewed by history as a scourge.
|
|
#
?
Oct 30, 2019 09:31
|
|
|
I binged the last bit of this while during slow times at work and god drat. Black Frankies ending was a nice little nod, and the ghost scene was pretty cute.
|
|
#
?
Oct 30, 2019 11:06
|
|
|
I liked the ending in the sense that what started in The Deuce is now just one click away in a hotel room (now that we’re at peak commodification of porn), but I disliked the focus on Vince as he was my least favorite character.
|
|
#
?
Oct 30, 2019 16:24
|
|
|
Ubiquitous_ posted:I liked the ending in the sense that what started in The Deuce is now just one click away in a hotel room (now that we’re at peak commodification of porn), but I disliked the focus on Vince as he was my least favorite character. Apparently the last scene was the first thing they wrote, and there was even consideration of using Vince talking to the bartender as a framing device for the whole show.
|
|
#
?
Oct 30, 2019 16:30
|
|
|
nooneofconsequence posted:Apparently the last scene was the first thing they wrote, and there was even consideration of using Vince talking to the bartender as a framing device for the whole show. They also could have kept that conversation in the pilot vague enough that you couldn't be sure until the finale whether it was Vince or Frankie that made it to 2019.
|
|
#
?
Oct 30, 2019 16:41
|
|
|
This article where David Simon talks about the Franco allegations is fascinating, and pretty contentious between Simon and Sepinwall. https://www.rollingstone.com/tv/tv-features/deuce-finale-david-simon-interview-part-2-james-franco-allegations-904238/
|
|
#
?
Oct 30, 2019 18:22
|
|
|
David Simon Season 3: That's a wrap, folks!
|
|
#
?
Oct 30, 2019 18:59
|
|
|
nooneofconsequence posted:That's funny. I assumed some kind of civil rights or defense attorney. I guess she did look kinda corporate but iunno. probably having my read of the shot coloured by her trust fund baby roots, figured she'd sell-out eventually. it's a pretty neutral scene now that I know what she said. non-related: thanks for the tv shows mr. simon, sorry about your posting.
|
|
#
?
Oct 30, 2019 20:22
|
|
|
After ruminating on the last episode for a few days, I have to say that I appreciated a lot of it, but I disliked the last part. It felt saccharine, even a little mawkish, and really added very little to the show other than reminding the viewer of earlier characters who'd disappeared after the first or second season. I think what I found most grating about it was the fact that, as noted in this thread, Simon doesn't often indulge in that kind of sentimentality -- Lori's suicide going unmentioned in this episode being a good example of that -- and I think it makes his writing all the stronger. I would have much preferred the show ended with Paul's comment on the seasons changing (which was already a little on the nose, but still more poignant). Also, everyone watching the show does so knowing what Times Square ultimately becomes, so having Vince walk through it just felt unnecessarily blunt. I did like the little jab at Abbie, though, making clear that for her this was always just a world she could escape from whenever she wanted to, which wasn't the case for any of the other characters she interacted with apart from Darlene and Larry. Also, I have to say that I found the conclusion of Candy's storyline to be tiresome. She ultimately remained a one-note character whose constant breathy monologues about how this isn't porn it's art!! really wore thin towards the end. The last scene with Harvey watching the movie and coming back to her declaring that what she was doing really was art also felt bathetic given that the scene he apparently teared up at seemed really bad. I loved the setting of the show and thought that most of it was excellently written and acted, but between much of the storyline of this last season being telegraphed from a mile off and this ending it's kind of diminished the whole thing for me.
|
|
#
?
Nov 1, 2019 08:47
|
|
|
I think the last scene was supposed to show the character of New York as much as the characters of the show. It shows the result of the big renewal project started in the 80s and I think it asks the same question of the viewer as was directly asked to Chris: "is this better or worse?". And regardless of how you answer that it reminds you that as dramatic as the changes to New York have been, none of the people we've been following for 3 seasons have been helped by any of it. These are all points the show has already made, but I think they pulled it all together in those last scenes and made what could have been eyerollingly cheesy work, at least for me.
|
|
#
?
Nov 1, 2019 09:19
|
|
|
The modern Times Square location shots in the epilogue did exactly what they needed to do, which was really drive home the transformation around 42nd. Even though all we ever saw of the "old" Deuce was that one stretch up in Washington Heights with some heavy production design applied, those ground-level shots of Old Vince walking past tourist traps, chain stores and vibrant crowds were effective; juxtaposing the rough-hewn characters we knew with the bright, pristine wonderland that decades of real estate scheming and political glad-handing made real.
|
|
#
?
Nov 1, 2019 17:57
|
|
|
Anyone who's lived and worked in NYC as far back as the 70's could have felt what Vince did when he was going through NuDeuce. I do have to admit they got everything spot on, with the tiny exception that there were like at least two penny arcades right on 42nd, and four in the general area of 42nd St. Wonder if they had started production just a few months earlier, they might have been able to shoot inside a real version of the peep show joint that Vince / Frankie ran, namely Show World. It was literally sitting there for months unused with stacks of german porn magazines and intact peep show booths after its owner died. Also literally didn't notice that Vince was casually paging through porn offerings on his hotel TV, and yes it was a stark comment on how commoditized / ingrained into modern culture porn has become.
|
|
#
?
Nov 1, 2019 20:39
|
|
|
Binary Badger posted:Also literally didn't notice that Vince was casually paging through porn offerings on his hotel TV, and yes it was a stark comment on how commoditized / ingrained into modern culture porn has become. I noticed it, and chuckled at it ("Heh, that's what the show's been about") - but because having dirty movies on-demand at all times in hotels has been pretty much par for the course since I've been a kid, the real weight of the irony didn't hit me in the moment.
|
|
#
?
Nov 1, 2019 22:33
|
|
|
I only just caught up on the end of this season, it was solid but lacking something that the previous season had, I'm not really sure what, but it just felt like something was missing. Still very, very good though. Outside of anything else, I wanna say how much I loved Bobby complaining about the massage parlor girls dumping the parlor and being their own bosses, claiming that this is why you have a union to prevent this type of thing, and then the girl behind the bar goes,"....but isn't that what THEY did? Formed a union to look out for each other?" Bobby never quite grasping that he'd become one of the exploitative bosses screwing over the worker was really well handled.
|
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2019 03:52
|
|
|
Jerusalem posted:I only just caught up on the end of this season, it was solid but lacking something that the previous season had, I'm not really sure what, but it just felt like something was missing. Still very, very good though. The Dickensian aspect?
|
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2019 08:28
|
|
|
So what exactly is the core thesis of the show, now that it's ended? I feel like the ending ghosty walk thing is supposed to evoke how sanitized and commodified Manhattan had become, alongside pornography and sex work itself. Our protagonist, who has lived through it all, has the comfort of hitting a button on his remote and being able to instantly see any number of hardcore sex flicks; wholly compartmentalized from the reality of the city outside his hotel room. I kind of hate how gauzy and nostalgic the capstone is, but I do feel like Simon had some sort of intent with it.
|
|
#
?
Nov 10, 2019 02:19
|
|
|
I probably need a little more time to really let it settle, but I think the idea - explicitly stated at some points - is that sex and exploitation never went away, it was just packaged in various different ways that were considered more palatable or even legitimate than the initial naked exploitation by the pimps. None of the people who were trying to clean up the city were actually interested in anything but appearances. The sex never went away, it just got shunted to different areas. The first season takes the "innovative" approach of creating solo booths where people could watch porn with some level of "privacy", before taking away their purchases in black plastic bags.... by the end of the show we see you can sit in your hotel room, watch porn and it'll be shown on your bill as "PPV purchase". Same thing, different package, but one has become acceptable while the former was intensely embarrassing and looked down upon. Candy starts the show as one of the few prostitutes who refuses to have a pimp so she can maintain control over her own life. On her "last" porno appearance, at a time she's considered a star and a noted director of femerotica etc we see her show up on set and be told by her male director that he expects her to do as she is told and do anal and gangbangs in direct contradiction of their agreement... and she does it. She avoided the pimps but she ends up doing something she didn't want to do at the order of a man exploiting her for cash, but it's considered perfectly fine and ordinary by everybody. The healthcare concerns over sexually transmitted disease go nowhere until developers realize they can exploit it for their own benefit, and the people who get run out of the massage parlors and gay saunas etc are no longer actually reachable in bulk by healthcare professionals which probably helped spread the disease, but it's played up in the media as a way to solve the crisis. Again, it's all about the perception, we "cleaned things up!" but everything was either swept under the rug or shunted to the side. Prostitutes were no longer on the streets (or were on other streets in other parts of the city), they were in the parlors, but then they left the parlors and worked the hotel bars instead etc. Basically, sex never goes away, and the exploitation never went away either, all that happened is that Times Square became a sanitized and friendly place for tourists and businesspeople, while the people who lived and worked there in the 70s just got tucked away elsewhere out of sight. Jerusalem fucked around with this message at 06:54 on Nov 10, 2019 |
|
#
?
Nov 10, 2019 03:13
|
|
|
Capntastic posted:So what exactly is the core thesis of the show, now that it's ended? I feel like the ending ghosty walk thing is supposed to evoke how sanitized and commodified Manhattan had become, alongside pornography and sex work itself. Our protagonist, who has lived through it all, has the comfort of hitting a button on his remote and being able to instantly see any number of hardcore sex flicks; wholly compartmentalized from the reality of the city outside his hotel room. I kind of hate how gauzy and nostalgic the capstone is, but I do feel like Simon had some sort of intent with it. I think the line "remember when sex was sex?" is a key part. If sex isn't now sex, then what is it?
|
|
#
?
Nov 10, 2019 10:29
|
|
|
Just finished the series. I watched season 1 around when it aired but kind of forgot about the show in 2018 so I wound up watching the last two seasons in quick succession after reading recaps to jog the memory. That ending was lame as hell but I get the need for some levity after that extremely brutal penultimate episode. The look Lori has as she ponders the coke before grabbing the gun, putting it to her head and firing with no hesitation is haunting me. Scattered thoughts: Maggie Gyllenhaal needs more awards recognition for this show. Sad we couldn’t get any Larry this year. I think Franco is good as Vince but terrible as Frankie somehow. Abby never got great arcs but Margarita Levieva is one of the most beautiful people alive so I mostly enjoyed her.
|
|
#
?
Dec 2, 2019 06:44
|
|
|
Orange Devil posted:The Dickensian aspect?
|
|
#
?
Dec 11, 2019 10:26
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 3, 2024 19:21 |
|
|
OK I'm super far behind but I finally got around to watching this and God drat. The first two seasons were great in a voyeuristic sort of way but this one just really landed. Eileen and Abby were never my favorite characters but I thought they pulled it off much better this time around (I could have done without the "and then they stood up and clapped" moment at the city meeting, though.) The slow creeping horror of AIDS was really well done, as was Lori's spiral. Man, they really sold the hope spots for Lori but... nope  Bobby finding a scruple and then immediately losing it to Russian traffickers was amusing in a skin-crawling sort of way. I knew that was where the Mob was heading but I wasn't sure Bobby would be along for that ride. The epilogue was a little overdone, could have been worse. Abby becoming everything she hated was a great capstone to her arc.  on the makeup job on her and Vince, though. They barely pass for 60 (and very obviously made up, at that) and they would be a lot older than that by now.
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2020 05:21
|
|
