In television, as a season winds up to its finale, it's natural for them to ram up tension, subplots and character motivations so that the months-long narrative can end on an emotionally justified high-note. Depending on who handles the show, however, this can sometimes may or break a season, as many find themselves forced to bring up everything to the unnecessary ninth degree.
Given the amount of restraint that director Steven Soderbergh has had in his films, however, I assumed that he would possibly avoid this desire to have the story be overblown on his first season of The Knick. While this new episode doesn't sink the ship (even though many around the story's narrative are apparently falling below the sea), it does show that even Soderbergh can get caught up in some melodrama.
In centralizing, both with its characters and its narrative, on Dr. John W. Thackery's (Clive Owen) cocaine addiction, the show starts to lose its natural, focused-but-restrained cool in favor of bombastic bursts of emotions, people shouting and people smashing things. After demonstrating a nicely subdued portrayal last week, Owen's newly paranoid character favors the louder side of things this week. Which, ultimately, is not quite as haunting and powerful as last week's "Working Late a Lot," but still succeeds due to Owen's fierce intensity in the role.
With that in mind, however, this is also the reason why a predictable subplot featuring the newly pregnant Cornelia (Juliet Rylance) and an emotionally distraught Algernon Edwards (Andre Holland) doesn't click. Despite Holland giving a nicely tender performance this week, the scenes between them are written in such a way that they come across as too, dare I say, hokey and melodramatic to work. They are meant to be played off as sentimental, but mostly come across as too overbearing and tonally disjointed to what has come from them before.
What makes these scenes all the more disappointing is that they take away from a continued plot point centered on Everett Gallinger's (Eric Johnson) distraught wife, Eleanor (Maya Kazan), still emotionally distraught from losing her first born. Its introduction this week is among the show's darkest yet, but it is quickly dropped and only half-hearted brought up again before the episode ends. This is the plot point that should have been explored in this installment, but is mostly forgotten about thanks to all the craziness happening this week.
That said, however, while this week's episodes loses some of the thoughtfulness of episodes prior, it still captures a sense of quiet observation through Lucy (Eve Hewson), the only character in a show about doctors that seems to have motivations that aren't for personal gain. Lucy's selfless sacrifices are among this episode's best trials and tribulations, for they keep a sense of low key reflection that The Knick has built upon itself to strive.
Although the show has begun developing a sense of humor of late, "The Golden Lotus" is, for the most part, decidedly humorless. Despite the appearances of comedians John Hodgman, making a quick cameo at the end of the episode, and Tom Papa, returning to play his snake-oils salesman Luff. With that, however, this is what introduces one of the show's best features: quiet reflections on life, God and the nature and purpose of everything. This week's best moment centers on Cornelia and Sister Harriet (Cara Seymour) doing just that.
While, ultimately, not quite up to snuff with some of its finer episodes, "The Golden Lotus" still proves that The Knick still very much indeed has it in itself to make a well-executed examination of our past and future. As it wraps up its first season next week, one can only imagine that this will continue on.
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