After some solid, but not officially stellar, episodes, "Where's the Dignity" comes out of the gate as the show's first true enforcement into great television. One can only hope that the show will stay in this path for the near future.
While the previous episodes seemed to focus mainly on one-to-three characters, this episodes throws that mentality out the window and focuses on everyone, seemingly, at hand. While normally this would make for a disorganized, scatter-shot narrative, here it works mainly because of how dependent director Steven Soderbergh and showrunners/writers Jack Amiel and Michael Begler are towards making this world seem so viably cold and biting in a wide-scale sense. Everything here is a matter of feeling over knowing, and that is what makes it work so well here.
If, for whatever reason, you were waiting for a montage of a man viciously stepping on rats, this is your lucky day. Oddly enough, this select moment from the show is one of the most unusually beautifully segments yet, capturing all the raw intensity of the show, while visually creating something unforgettable and fascinatingly unique. Especially in its presentation.
That, in turn, is part of what makes this week's episode stand above the rest thus far. Not only does it showcase more flourish that Soderbergh promised briefly in the first episode, but only occasionally lived up to before, but it finally seems to gain control over bouncing about its narrative.
Whether this is coming from Soderbergh finally growing as confident in the television form as he is in film or simply just working past the build-up the last couple episodes needed to establish, it means the show is actually as good as it very bloody well should be. Not that the other episodes were ever really bad, but they seemed to lack the full spark that this episode finally captures inside its bottle.
The drama is more grounded, well-nuanced and realistic this time around. The show seems to have stepped away from pushing its R-rated material and gory, and finally focuses squarely on focusing on these characters and exploring them play around in their lives. As per usual, the show is at its best when it focuses on either Algernon Edwards (Andre Holland) constantly battling with his peers to be recognized for his work, not his race, and Tom Cleary (Chris Sullivan), a scruff, low-level employee of the Knick who constantly finds himself at odds with the local Catholic church's nuns.
What really sings in this episode is its sly and dark sense of humor. Whether it is a misunderstanding in how a corpse's dying wish goes or Algernon's dry, sarcastic responses to his race, this episode—while by no means lighthearted—is able to get away from pigeonholing itself in its constantly moody mindset. It's viewpoints on racism and sexism in this time period are still a bit too thick. But at least now there are holding it up in good strides.
At risk of being repetitive of late, Cliff Martinez's score in this episode is among the best it has been so far. Especially in the show's opening moments and when Lucy (Eve Hewson) enters the Chinatown "care center," it embodies such a unsettlingly fascinating mood that gets under your skin in all the right/wrong ways.
As much as I have praised this episode, there is one big takeaway from this installment. By being low key, nuanced and controlled, the show can become a constantly engrossing drama, unafraid of stepping on its peers toes and letting people know in its soft-spoken manner that it is here, to stay. Whether you like it or not.
Image courtesy of ACE/INFphoto.com