The Deuce: The Complete First Season Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		2.0
Overall		4.0

The Deuce: The Complete First Season Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman February 13, 2018

It may be hard to actually believe, considering what has been called the “Disneyfication” of Times Square, but there was a time when this most iconic of intersections was actually more than a little seedy, and often (especially at the wee hours) more than a little frightening. Though I was a kid at the time (something that may have played into my reactions), I still remember being scared out of my mind even a few years after The Deuce’s 1971 time frame when a taxi couldn’t get me right to the apartment in midtown where I was staying just a few blocks south of Times Square, and I had to walk (actually, run, and in a panicked state at that) a couple of blocks in the middle of the night one night with a number of pretty unsavory characters shuffling around, some of whom were evidently mentally unbalanced and shouting rather loudly despite the hour. The Deuce is the latest offering from frequent collaborators David Simon and George Pelecanos, and in some ways it plays like a sibling to Simon’s The Wire: The Complete Series, with a novelistic approach that features a rather huge cast, and a labyrinthine storyline that deals almost incessantly with corruption of one sort or another. The Deuce is often a disquieting viewing experience, dealing as it does with prostitution and, ultimately, the porn industry, but it’s also viscerally compelling a lot of the time, courtesy of a glut of fine performances by a rather eclectic cast. In fact, it may be the sheer number of characters who float in and out of various episodes that may keep some viewers at bay, at least for a little while, since it takes a few episodes for various elements of this show to start to congeal into something resembling an organic whole.

In what is a somewhat perplexing plot conceit, at least in terms of how it’s utilized in the first season, James Franco plays twin brothers, Vinnie and Frankie Martino. Vinnie is the “good brother”, a hard worker who is employed at a bar and who is accosted by some of those scary middle of the night types I mention above in an opening sequence where Vinnie is mugged after doing the night deposit of the bar’s take for the day. That gives the character first a bandage and then a welt on his forehead which is perhaps meant as a more or less subliminal “identifier” once Frankie, who is much more of a “prodigal son”, enters the picture. Vinnie's disintegrating marriage with Drea (Zoe Kazan) rather quickly gets Vinnie in contact with various "low lifes" engaged in the prostitution trade which was then a burgeoning business in and around Times Square, once Vinnie leaves home and sets up residence in a seedy hotel frequented by pimps and their workers.

One of the short EPKs devoted to each episode include in this three disc set as a supplement mentions how Pelecanos is the “micro” guy and Simon is the “macro” guy in terms of how they approach scenes and dialogue writing. The example given in this EPK is the scene introducing one of the focal pimps, C.C. (Gary Carr), who is sitting around a bus station with a (pimp) buddy of his checking out potential “merchandise” (women are largely commodities in The Deuce), while the actual dialogue concerns Nixon and the Vietnam War (an addition made by Simon, according to Pelecanos). C.C. ends up spotting an apparently innocent girl named Lori (Emily Meade), whom C.C. thinks he’s cajoling into being one his new “girls”, though there’s a bit of a punchline in store for C.C. when it turns out Lori may be a bit more worldly than she lets on.

Almost tangential to the initial proceedings is prostitute Candy (Maggie Gyllenhaal), one of the few working girls who has the temerity to eschew being “managed” by a pimp. Candy is kind of oddly on the periphery of the story in the early episodes, but it’s actually her arc that starts to command more of the central focus, as her apparently inborn entrepreneurial talents start to take her in a new direction, namely the nascent porn industry (as someone not versed on the history of all of this, I assume the huge San Fernando Valley site of the industry hadn’t yet developed). This is just one of several ways that The Deuce is kind of subtly anarchic, positing a woman finding her own “power” in a business where women were (and continue to be) routinely subjugated.

There are a number (a rather large number) of other characters stuffed into this vignette laden enterprise, including student Abby Parker (Margarita Levieva), a kid from a prosperous family who is rebelling against her parents and among other things is involved in an affair with one of her college professors, but who (probably predictably) gets folded into the main storyline. C.C.’s aging “main girl” Ashley (Jamie Neumann) also wends through the tale, initially jealous of C.C.’s relationship with Lori, but ending up being a rather sympathetic character when it’s revealed that C.C. can be frighteningly abusive.

While there are a number of figurative (and sometimes literal, frankly) alleyways that this series wanders down, including aspects of a journalist (Natalie Paul) covering the lives of the working girls, in a way much of the first season tends to play out in ping ponging arcs detailing the career travails and triumphs of both Candy and brothers Vinnie and Frankie, who end up getting involved with organized criminal types. But also kind of like The Wire, it actually is the alleyway material rather than huge overarching narrative sweeps that makes this show so continually arresting. I haven’t even gotten into a number of other supporting characters, many of whom have incredibly moving stories (Ruby, played by Pernell Walker and Darlene, played by Dominque Fishback, are just two excellent examples). The series is not for anyone with a prudish sensibility, since it offers frank and sometimes surprisingly graphic depictions of various sex acts, with quite a bit of full frontal nudity from females and even occasionally males. But the kind of smarmy feeling that was part and parcel of Times Square back in the day has seeped into virtually every nook and cranny of this piece, and while pretty fetid, it’s also often unforgettable.

The Deuce: The Complete First Season Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Deuce: The Complete First Season is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of HBO with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. This series is a triumph in production design, even if that production design represents a less than luxe look at various locations. As is discussed (briefly) in one of the Inside the Episodes, the crew basically rebuilt Times Square and environs, with some forced perspective and other special effects magic helping to achieve a look that offers sometimes surprising depth of field, despite scenes that often take place at night. The palette has been just slightly tweaked at various points, with a very subtle but noticeable bluish tint added occasionally that gives things an appropriately seventies look for a reason I can't really further define. Other moments, including some in various bars, have more of a sepia or yellow tone added. Detail levels are routinely quite high, though some scenes look like they've been further digitally tweaked to appear even dimmer and grimier, leading to occasional lapses in fine detail.

The Deuce: The Complete First Season Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Your tolerance for seventies era music may determine just how much you like The Deuce: The Complete First Season's DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix, since it attains much of its power from source cues, along with the hustle and bustle of its central location. But even in more confined spaces, like the bars Vinnie works at or even the hotel where some of the pimps and prostitutes hang out offer really good directionality and well placed ambient environmental effects. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly, and all elements are smartly prioritized on this energetic and enjoyable track.

The Deuce: The Complete First Season Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Disc One

• Episode 01 Pilot Audio Commentary with David Simon (Co-Creator / Executive Producer), Nina Rostroff Noble (Executive Producer) and Maggie Gyllenhaal (Actor / Producer)


• Inside the Episodes (1080p; 5:26) offers brief EPKs for each of the three episodes on this disc.

Disc Two

• Inside the Episodes (1080p; 5:15) offers brief EPKs for each of the three episodes on this disc.

Disc Three

• Episode 08 My Name is Ruby Audio Commentary with George Pelecanos (Co-Creator / Executive Producer), Michelle MacLaren (Director) and James Franco (Actor / Executive Producer)


• Inside the Episodes (1080p; 3:54) offers brief EPKs for each of the two episodes on this disc.


• The Wild West: New York in the Early '70's (1080p; 11:49) features some archival footage (not all of which I'm actually certain is the Times Square area), along with comments from the cast and crew about the ambience of the city in those days.


• The Deuce In Focus (1080p; 8:13) talks some more about the setting of the series, and features some brief but interesting interviews with directors Michelle MacLaren and (Star Trek: Voyager fan alert!) Roxann Dawson.

The Deuce: The Complete First Season Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Kind of interestingly, just as I was putting the finishing touches on this review, I got an email update from Variety stating that the second season of The Deuce was indeed going ahead with James Franco on board, despite the recent harassment allegations that have subsumed the actor, as with so many others in recent weeks and months. It may put a kind of weirdly ironic pall on proceedings, given the salacious subtext of so much of this series. Hopefully, though, things can be resolved to everyone's satisfaction (one way or the other) to allow the show to continue to explore the fascinating stories it has introduced in its first season. The good news is that this show is so stuffed full of remarkable characters that should push come to shove my hunch is it could actually survive quite easily without Frankie and/or Vinnie. Technical merits are strong, and The Deuce: The Complete First Season comes Highly recommended.