A season finale is a unique and delicate art form, something trickier to put together than solid series pilot. It needs to stand on its own as a great episode, but also deliver on the promise of a seasons worth of storylines a reward to the audience for sticking it out. It should keep the action true to the characters weve spent months learning to love (or hate), and plant the seeds for what lies ahead. The best, like Mad Mens Shut The Door, Have a Seat, from Season Three, or The Sopranos first season ender I Dream of Jeannie Cusamano, or virtually any season finale of Breaking Bad (Hank on the toilet, Gales face in the door, Lily of the Valley take your pick), keep you talking and thinking and completely engaged until the show returns.
If The Knicks inaugural dismount Crutchfield doesnt quite hit all those notes, it certainly stays true to what Soderbergh and writers Amiel and Begler have tried to do in this premiere run. That is: create a world of flawed people with fucked up but noble ideas about scientific technology and mans place in it, spiced up with the gory minutia of turn-of-the-century medicine just for kicks. For all the drug addiction, secret trysts, busy fleas and underground fight clubs, this hospitals damaged crew of doctors, nurses and administrators showed up for work every day, and very often, did good, incredibly gross work. Cinemax renewed the series before the pilot aired, rightafter Soderbergh and crew completed shooting the season and yet, Crutchfield feels like the creators were purposely setting the table for whats to come. The introduction of characters like Dr. Zinberg and Cornelias brother, plus the feeling the writers held nothing back (SisterHarriets secret identity revealed, Bertie discovering Lucys affair, John Thackerys complete unraveling, the hospitals imminent closing), gives you the sense that theyre blowing up all the big storylines so they can reset.
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That said, its hard to remember a season finale this bleak, in the sense that not one major character ends up in a better place than they started 10episodes ago, and everyone across-the-boardis miserable.Take Cornelia and Algernon. The pretty, proper virgin on the cusp of your wedding day seeks out the sisters services, only to regret it the moment she reunites with her lover. When the nuptials arrive, Algernonchooses to brawl with the biggest, baddest boxer he can find instead of heading to the church. The fight and the wedding is the big, wordless Soderberghian set piece of the hour; the two scenes, both staged in cavernous, vaulted spaces one white, one dark intercut to the voices of a choir in Godfather-esque fashion. Sheisa shell of the modern, progressive woman weve learned to know. He isa far cry from the proud, ego-driven Mr. Paris Shoes.
Then theres Herman, for whom the phrase, Nothing breaks a man like a good cock punch, has never been more prophetic. After one of Bunkys goons delivers the aforementioned jab to the crotch, the hospital administrator hatches a plan to rid himself of the loan shark by enlisting Ping Wu to kill him, passing it off as fulfillment of a debt to Thackery. Whether the ensuing assassination sequence, also reminiscent of The Godfather,plays as accurate or ludicrous will be left for another time (to begin, google Sai Wing Mock), but theres no denying the entertainment value of a good ole chainmail n hatchet action scene. Naturally,Herman being Herman, the whole escapade only makes things worse, since hes now indebted to a homicidal kung fu master.
But no ones reversal of fortune has been starker then Everett and EleanorGallinger, whose gruesome drama resolves with the latters torture at the lunatic asylum. There are times when The Knick tilts intoAmerican Horror Story territory, and the casting of arch comic John Hodgeman as the physician didnt help dispel the sense that something was off and not in a good way. That feeling continues when Everett attacks Algernon, blaming him for all his problems. Its a believable transference of anger the man took his job and thats when everything started to go downhill. But the death of his child and his wifes subsequent spiral into madness played out so far removed from the rest of the hospital action, it seems odd Everett would cling to his misconception, when the audience (and seemingly, the writers) have long forgotten it.
Sadly, a few favorite characters Cleary, Harriet, Speight, Dr. Christiansons beard were mostly or fully absent from this hour, and there was no mention of Nicaragua. But where Crutchfield succeeds, fittingly, is with the story of Dr. John Thackery. From the pilots first shot of the out-of-it doctorwaking in his opium den, The Knick promised a show about a brilliant but flawed anti-hero. As the season progressed, the series often undercutthat notionby making others like Cornelia, Lucy and Algernon the focus. In the finale, however, Thackery again takes center stage. Firmly in the grip of a cocaine-and-Zinberg-induced paranoia, he mistakenly kills a patient and winds up completely incapacitated, with only the senior Dr. Chickering to save him. Berties full understanding of his mentors dissolute habit, and more soul-squashing, the revelation of his affair with Lucy, gave the story extra bite. As they drive off after leaving Thackery in the sanitarium, their short, bitter exchange makes clear how far each traveled this season, and opens intriguing possibilities for where they could go next.
And then theres the near-perfect final shot of Thackery now Crutchfield left alone in his bed, framed by a loving close-up of his medicine, the new wonder product from the Bayer Aspirin Company, named after the word heroic. Foreshadowing for Season Two? Well see.
Previously:Stand by Your Man