A review of this weeks The Deuce, This Trust Thing, coming up just as soon as I stand on your menu
I gotta go, Vince.
This is Mike, late in this hour that comes late in the series. He has recently been diagnosed as HIV-positive, and his recent bout with pneumonia suggests that hes at, as his doctor says, the end of the beginning, if not the beginning of the end. So when he turns up at the Hi-Hat, he no longer has the time or energy for the kind of games he and Vince have been playing together for close to 15 years. He doesnt say where hes going or what he plans to do, just announces that hes going, and walks out, over Vinces protests, without another word.
If The Deuce itself hadnt already entered the beginning of the end stage in the third season premiere, its certainly there now. Only two episodes remain, and This Trust Thing is acutely aware of that as, it seems, are many of the characters. Not in a meta, Abed-from-Community-knowing-hes-a-character-on-a-TV-show sort of way, but in the sense that everyone seems to know that they are nearing the end of a particular stage of their lives. Some, like Mike and Paul, may be nearing the end of their lives, period (assuming Paul is right that he has the virus), and Rudy Pipilos life comes to an end altogether, courtesy of a few bullets from longtime henchman Tommy Longo. Mostly, though, the women and men of The Deuce are ready to move on from what theyve been doing for a long time, if only the world will let them.
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That desire to get out of a bad situation ranges from minor characters like Haddix (who wants Alston to arrange a transfer to a cushy post where he can serve until hes eligible to collect his pension) and some of the ex-parlor workers (who have cut a better deal for themselves without Bobby in the middle) to the major players.
Lori finally reaches her breaking point with her entire life in L.A., firing Kiki as her agent after reluctantly filming a gang-bang, and dumping Greg after she walks in on him having sex with another woman in their bed. Kiki defends herself as getting work for a client whos in a professional lull, while Greg suggests hes blameless because Lori has sex with other men all the time. Kiki at least understands the nature of Loris profession, even if shes blind to how distressing Lori has come to find the work itself. Greg, though? Hes just a more respectable, less violent version of Loris last pimp, hoarding and wasting all her money and thinking of her as nothing but a prostitute he can exploit. Hes a pussycat compared to CC, who would have gone nuclear after receiving a scratch on the face like the one Lori gives Greg, but the end result is the same: Lori has given up her body and her spirit without seeing any money from the endeavor. And her options seem sparse.
Paul, though he hasnt been tested himself, assumes hes HIV-positive and will soon follow Todd into the dark. He spends much of the hour going over old photos and looking back on all the friends and lovers hes lost. But he also has plans for the end he thinks is coming, as he asks Abby to liquidate all his assets and donate them to Gay Mens Health Crisis (the HIV/AIDS nonprofit now known simply as GMHC). But when a protest of Mayor Koch(*) leads to violence and an arrest, Paul looks reinvigorated, even happy. If hes really dying, hell at least go down fighting. And if hes not? Well, maybe hes found a new cause to throw himself into, rather than Todds black-box theater projects.
(*) One thing unclear from the scene where Gene Goldman flirts with Paul at the bathhouse: Do Paul and other men in the community know what Gene does for a living? Given how much resentment there is for Mayor Koch (whom everyone believes is closeted and self-loathing), and how welcoming people like Paul are to Gene, I would guess not. But by juggling so many characters in a show with so few episodes per year, nuances like that sometimes get missed, which takes away an added layer from a scene like that.
Abby has a lot on her plate courtesy of Vincent, who looks like hell and goes everywhere carrying the gun he used to kill Pasquale. Abbys rightfully alarmed by whatever she believes the pistol represents, and it briefly seems that she, like Lori, will be leaving her boyfriend for good. But Vince, ever the smooth talker even in dire times like these, talks her into returning, naive in the belief that Rudy can protect him from the other Gambinos. Instead, Rudy dies for the Martino brothers sins, sticking his neck out to claim he approved the Pasquale hit, and in turn being taken out by the duplicitous Longo. Whether Tommy is acting on his own or on orders from Carmine doesnt much matter. Rudy was always written as a kind of best-case-scenario Mafioso: a crook who nonetheless cared about honor and doing right by the people in his organization, and who would let guys like Paul slide under the right circumstance. The forces rising in the Family are far less warm and cuddly, and more apt to bring an end to the fun and games so many Deuce regulars have (mostly) enjoyed for so long. (Abby, for instance, may not find it so easy to sell off Pauls assets if and when the time comes.)
Rudys not the episodes only casualty. Candys mother Joan finally succumbs to her illness, and her death in turn seems to sever Eileens connections to the rest of the family. Her father wont even look at her during and after the funeral; later, Candy hangs up on Adams phone call after realizing her son was too high to attend. Candy isnt overtly looking to get out of porn, either, but shes spent much of this season building to the epiphany she gets here, courtesy of the waitress at the diner in the opening scene. Where Candy sees someone verging on magical (Youre like the wind, watching you work), the male customers just see someone to flirt with, harass, and humiliate when all else fails, and the waitress has no choice but to take it, telling our heroine, I work for tips. What world do you live in?
Later, at Harveys office, she finally puts it together, explaining, What men want no, what theyll pay for that becomes the world. And were all whores from this. The film she wants to make is still porn, but Harvey is chastened enough by the way Candy reframes what they do that he finally offers to kick in some of his own money to finance the movie.
And its during an early rehearsal that Candy opens up about her origin story even if only we and Harvey can tell that, whereas the lead actress assumes shes being given useful backstory for her character. In recounting the story of how she got pregnant at 15, went to her father for help, and then was abandoned by him at the apartment where he took her for an abortion, Candy finally clarifies exactly why she has been adamant for so long about not asking for the protection or financial support of a man. Harvey one of the few men Candy has ever let support her, even a little understands the meaning of the story immediately, and is touched by it. But his response is a mess, as he takes her vulnerability as a chance to act on his longtime crush, kissing her on the office sofa. He quickly recognizes the move for the mistake it was, but the damage seems already done. Once again, a man has tried to make the world into what he wants right after he has forked over a lot of cash and Candy is expected, even briefly, to go along. Maybe the series ends with the two of them still making movies together, but it feels like we are getting closer and closer to her realizing that, like Lori, she just cant do this anymore.
Some other thoughts:
* One character bucking the getting-out trend, sort of, is Melissa, who comes back to the city after accepting what was obvious to Vince the day she left town: that her father would never be able to let go of the work she did. Her friend Reg being sick offers her the chance to work as a costumer, so maybe shell find a way out, after all?
* The Deuce writer Carl Capotorto hasnt acted since the end of The Sopranos, where he played Paulie Walnuts cousin, Little Paulie Germani. He gets back in front of the camera here to play Pauls friend Bruce, who has somehow avoided contracting the virus when most of his peers have died from it.
* Each episode inevitably has at least one subplot that feels like a victim of the cutting-room floor. This time out, its Loretta, who meets her boyfriends mother for the first time and finds out hes invented a story of how the two of them met. Did they first encounter each other through her former life in sex work? Through the anti-porn protesting? We can only guess at that, and at whether more context will be provided in the remaining episodes, given how much else is going on.
* Party like its 1985: In Regs kitchen, Melissa finds a cabinet full of Coca-Cola cans, which Regs ex hoarded, presumably in response to that years arrival of New Coke. (The return of what would be called Coca-Cola Classic didnt come until summer.)
* When Rudy is smacking around Tommy, he tells him, You gonna lie to me, lie to me with some respect! As someone who has followed David Simon-affiliated shows for a long time, I was slightly disappointed that Rudy didnt follow up by saying that he was not Montel Williams.
* This weeks music (and with Club 366 closed, the soundtrack is a bit lighter of late): My Ambition by Marcia Griffiths (Abby and Pilar at the apartment); If We Never Meet Again by Keely Smith (Rudy comes to the mob bar); Casino by Love of Life Orchestra (Gene and Paul talk at the bathhouse); Lament of the Lonely by Honi Gordon (Rudy scolds Tommy) Bryan Adams Summer of 69 (Lori catches Greg with another woman); and Mind & Time by Ornette Coleman (Bobby considers his options to bring back his former employees).
* And finally, one correction to last weeks recap: Lori is from Minnesota, not Indiana. When we last saw her in that episode, she was continuing her personal appearance tour.