The Knick Season 1 Episode 2: Mr. Paris Shoes

                                                                         
                                                                 

There is a new show on Cinemax and I posted a review of season 1 episode 1 last week. This is one great show and all my friends who are into Steampunk will especially enjoy the period sets and clothing. Think of the show as Penny Dreadful meets Nurse Jackie. It’s that good.

 On episode 2, poor Dr. Edwards (Andre Holland is forced into using a cluttered hospital basement as his office. This shocks Cornelia Robertson (Juliet Rylance), who is stand up righteous over women’s rights and the rights of minorities, but her hands are tied because the other doctors at the Knickerbocker Hospital are as bigoted as you can get.

                                                                                  

While the ever resourceful Dr. Edwards miraculously changes the dingy basement into a clinic to treat black patients, who are discouraged from using the white’s only hospital, Dr. Thackery (Clive Owen) and his fellow surgical comrades experience a horrible event due to improper installation of electrical wires causing a surgical patient to catch fire and an operating nurse to get electrocuted. The incident may have been caused by Herman Barrow (Jeremy Bobb) pocketing some of the money to get the work done right. Barrow is also in debt to a loan shark named Bunkie (Danny Hoch), who doesn’t take kindly to anyone being late with their payments.

                                                                              

We get an in depth look at Thackery’s drug routine which have him spending great deal of time and money at a local establishment in China Town. Thackery later questions Nurse Elkins (Eve Hewson) on her loyalty and her silence about an embarrassing incident.

                                                                                

Jealous over Dr. Edwards knowing how to do a complicated procedure for which he wrote an article in a French medical journal, Doctors Gallinger (Eric Johnson) and Chickering (Michael Angarano) have ambulance driver and bully Cleary (Chris Sullivan) break into a library in order for them to steal the journal.

                                                                                 

Later that night, Barrow loses a tooth thanks to Bunkie, Dr. Edwards stands up to a bully at his dilapidated boarding house, and Cleary catches Sister Harriet (Cara Seymour) wearing street clothing and entering a tenement. What is the good sister doing there? Sister Harriet is helping poor mothers to eliminate an extra mouth to fee. Will Cleary rat out the good sister? Tune in next Friday at 10 p.m. on Cinemax to find out.

Steampunk Granny's review of The Knick

                                                                                        
                                                                 

If you’re not faint of heart at the sight of blood and if you don’t mind a few burly ambulance drivers fighting over your body, then I have a show for you to watch. The Knick is going to be a hit show for Cinemax because of the fine acting and script. The series is directed by Steven Soderbergh and stars Clive Owen as Dr. John Thackery. The action takes place in New York City and the year is 1900.

 

                                                                          

Dr. Thackery works at the Knickerbocker Hospital, but when he’s not saving patients with limited resources, he’s battling his drug addiction. Hospitals did not have a great reputation in those days and the belief was that when people entered a hospital; they died. It wasn’t for lack of care, but more the lack of sanitation and knowledge that bacteria could destroy the best surgery.

 

                                                                          

Surgery was done in amphitheaters where anyone could sit in the balcony and watch as the surgeons sliced through flesh while giving a blow by blow description on what they were doing …not very sterile. If that isn't enough to put the fear of God and germs into you, there is also a war between ambulance drivers. I kid you not! They are paid by the number of bodies they bring in to be cured. This leads to a lot of gang style fighting...imagine being the poor sucker on the stretcher.

                                                                     

When Thackery refuses to hire a Harvard graduate, Dr. Algernon Edwards (Andre Holland) because the man is African American, Cornelia Robertson (Juliet Rylance) has her powerful father pull the lighting fixtures off the hospital walls. Cornelia is in charge of Social Services and she is against segregation. Thackery backs down and the fixtures are returned, but the show is packed with interesting characters including my favorite, Sister Harriet (Cara Seymour) an Irish Catholic nun who smokes cigarettes and has a snappy answer for any and all idiots who cross her path. I love this nun.

                                                                       

 The clothing, streets scenes, surgical tools, hospital setting is accurately portrayed making the viewer feel that we have just tumbles through a ripple in time and landed on the streets of ole New York…but do be careful of the horse drawn carriage coming your way…the mortality rate is high and you might not make it back home.

                                                                      

This is a great series and I’m giving it a four **** star rating. Watch it.