The Deuce series finale was just on HBO. Unsurprisingly and appropriately, not much in the way of happy endings. But ...
Well, that last segment of New York City in 2019 was a mini-masterpiece in itself. With almost everyone we came to know dead, decrepit, or just not known, we found one clear winner in 2019: the vibrant, cleaner, streets of New York. Although Vince was less than happy - old and I assume still alive in that last scene, fantasizing not hallucinating on the verge of death as he walked that street - we the audience can't deny that what he saw for real around him was better than what he saw in his prime decades in that place.
The reunion with Frankie was perfectly sad and wise. The encounter with Candy, coupled with what Vince earlier saw about her career, had a similar mix. Sadness and wisdom - or time, as Vince told the image of his brother when Frankie told Vince how bad he looked - was dripping and palpable in every frame.
The only one who was ahead at this point was Abby, a successful businesswoman. Vince doesn't see her in his aged imagination. She walks down the street after Vince has descended into the subway. A symbolically on-key tableau of two former star-crossed, porn crossed lovers, missing each other one last time on the street.
I think The Deuce really said and showed some important things. I'd have liked an even longer finale - what happened to Harvey, for example - but who am I to complain?
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 ... The Deuce 3.7: Who Is Lori Madison?
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" ...
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