Critic
Why HBO’s ‘The Deuce’ Is Not Just Another ‘70s Show
The intersection of sex and money in 1970s Times Square makes for must-see TV.
Maggie Gyllenhaal plays Eileen, aka Candy, in The Deuce.
Photographer: Paul Schiraldi/HBO
When it rains in The Deuce, the new HBO drama set around 1970s-era Times Square, it’s the prostitutes who are most at risk. The deluge drives away sex-seeking Johns, so the women scurry, their microskirts soaked and mascara running, to look for clients in dive bars that will let them in. Others are driven into darkened theaters, where they work on their knees, rather than their backs, for a fraction of their usual fee. And if they come up short, their pimps will exact a violent retribution.
Sex and microeconomics are not strange bedfellows, but on the seedy section of 42nd Street that gives The Deuce its name, the two are inseparable.