Journalist-turned-TV producer David Simon is particularly good at two things: exposing the mindless, brutal institutions and systems that grind many Americans down, and humanizing people who normally exist at the margins of polite conversation.
When Simon tackled those subjects in HBO’s The Wire, he created one of the best series on television. Now he’s created the best new show of the 2017 fall season in HBO’s The Deuce (debuting Sunday), a gritty, urban drama about the moment pornography became “street legal” in New York City, and the commodification of flesh became an industry. (Ed. note: This is a show about pornography, so, as you might expect, this review discusses adult themes.)
The setting for Simon’s latest urban fable is 1970s Times Square, before the days of Disney stores and chain restaurants. This is back when streetwalkers worked “The Deuce” (slang for West 42nd Street in Midtown) accepting occasional police roundups and overnight stays in a holding cell as the cost of doing business.
In ‘The Deuce,’ Sex Isn’t Titillating — It’s Business
Photo: Paul Schiraldi/HBO
