A beautiful, tragic penultimate episode of The Deuce on HBO tonight, as I suppose intelligent stories about the porn business are wont to be.
The beautiful part was a beauty of the soul, when Candy asked Lori who she was. Candy explained that she was two people - the former prostitute and now porn director, Candy, and the woman, daughter, and mother, Eileen. Candy could've read some of Erving Goffman, the sociologist who said all of us lead at least two lives, our public lives that we show to the world, and private lives that we show only to our family and close friends. Sometime they're not very different. Sometimes they are.
But Lori was unwilling to talk, even to her benefactor and friend of sorts, Candy, about Lori's private life. She wouldn't even tell Candy her real name. And so we were left to conclude that Lori was missing a life. And the most important life at that. Her private life. Who she was, when only those she loved were looking. So maybe that was an admission that she loved no one, and no one loved her. The negation of what Candy had assured Lori of, that everyone loved Lori Madison. Because Lori Madison was not a real person. She was just an act.
And I suppose that explains what happened at the end of the episode. It was horrible and so unnecessary. You get the feeling that if only Lori had given herself more of a chance, she would have been professionally more successful, on her terms, and also found somebody to love. (Unforgettable performance as Lori by Emily Meade.)
Did Candy realize, the next day, what happened, when Lori didn't show for work? I think she certainly sensed it. If you haven't seen The Deuce, it's worth seeing if only for this episode.
Next week is the series finale.
See also The Deuce 3.1: 1985 ... The Deuce 3.2: The First Amendment! ... The Deuce 3.3: Love and Money, Pimps and Agents ... The Deuce 3.4: Major Changes ... The Deuce 3.5: Lori and Candy ... The Deuce 3.6: Memorable Scenes
And see also The Deuce Is Back - Still Without Cellphones, and that's a Good Thing ... The Deuce 2.2: Fairytales Can Come True ... The Deuce 2.3: The Price ... The Deuce 2.4: The Ad-Lib ... The Deuce 2.6: "Bad Bad Larry Brown" ... The Deuce 2.9: Armand, Southern Accents, and an Ending ... The Deuce Season 2 Finale: The Video Revolution
And see also The Deuce: NYC 1971 By Way of The Wire and "Working with Marshall McLuhan" ... Marilyn Monroe on the Deuce 1.7 ... The Deuce Season 1 Finale: Hitchcock and Truffaut
It all starts in the hot summer of 1960, when Marilyn walks off the set
of The Misfits and begins to hear a haunting song in her head,
"Goodbye Norma Jean" ...
1 comment:
While Lori's ending was shocking and, for me, unexpected, it was telegraphed quite well by the writers. She had now been a sex worker for almost 14 years. The men she trusted did not love her and used her as a cash cow. The business itself had become something she no longer found any joy in, and didn't like being a part of it anymore. When she went back to her childhood home it was boarded up. The love she was being offered, in particular at the strip club, was from those who only knew who she was as an image. When she decided to turn a trick in The Deuce at the end of the episode I was both shocked and somehow it felt natural - she was returning to that moment in her life when she made that decision, when she got off the bus and had breakfast with CiCi. There was nothing to go back to, and nothing evident in the future that she wanted, and the person she was was only Lori Madison anymore.
I thought a lot about this episode, and her suicide was something the writers very elegantly telegraphed without ever showing her bursting into tears or dangling off a balcony getting ready to jump. Everyone she had ever trusted had used her and no one cared. It was a life she didn't want anymore and she didn't see any other life was possible. Could she have found a way out and made something with her life? Could she have gotten new management, built up a nest egg by dancing and then quit and done something with herself? Certainly. But none of those things held any allure or interest for her. I found it incredibly realistic and well done, and very, very sad.
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