The Knick

It’s not exactly a new concept. An acerbic but brilliant doctor with an addiction. The only thing that makes it stand out is it’s setting and time and of course Soderbergh's involvement. There is also a modernity to the period piece that I think we can attribute mainly to the music composed by Red Hot Chili Peppers’ member Cliff Martinez. This show however is no Downton Abbey or Grey’s Anatomy  for that matter, as it makes explicitly clear with gruesome shots of  blood and bone and suffocated fetuses et cetera. When I began watching, I wasn’t certain if I liked it. It drew me in with a kind of bile fascination or maybe more apt would be to call it a bloody fascination, but not for the reasons I’ve expressed. You see, nothing could prepare me for the moment when a character uttered the words ‘ dusky coon’. And that should tell you a bit about what we’ve come to expect in our period pieces now. Even with the presence of black people,   there seems to be two modes: a revisionist utopia or at least one where our mains are progressive enough to ‘see past color’. 

As much as I appreciate the Knick  for not sugarcoating the facts of the time( not going the white savior route)I can’t help but suspect that its authentic cinema verite vibe and historical accuracy is a ruse for the free license of using racial epithets much in the same way I feel similar shows have excused female debasement. Hence, the bile fascination. I don’t like Chief Surgeon John W. ‘Thack’ Thackery(I don’t recall ever hearing anyone call him Thack), but I know we’re also not meant to like Thackery, we’re just meant to see his genius in spite of his moral and behavioral failings. I prefer to see neither. I see him as entertainment. But at times his schtick can be so terribly hackneyed and that sort of ruins the enjoyment. I knew at once she was introduced, he would woo and corrupt the bland Nurse Elkins, and I rolled my eyes at flashbacks where he was introduced as a plucky young doctor with a lost Lenore. As a very wise woman once said ‘ am I supposed to feel sorry for that bitch? Because I don’t!’ The best parts of House M.D.  in my opinion, were the sick burns that House dished out indiscriminately and so is the case for this fictional physician. It is really captivating to watch a show set in a time where medical advancements were unfolding and slowly becoming what we know today. 

It was hard to watch the sole black physician, Algernon Edwards, endure everything he did and still soldier on for these people. But boy did I relish in his small victories. And I suspect that was the point. His hardships are compelling and unfortunately historical. He and Dr Thackery have an Iago/ Othello dynamic at first, which wanes less and less once Thackery discovers Edwards work and begins to see him as a worthy member of his team. All of the surgeons at the Knick have their own vices:Thackery’s is drugs, by far the most lethal, Gallingers is prejudice, Edwards is brawls and Bertie’s is a crushing naïveté and adorable-ness that I do not look forward to seeing dissolve. And of course, Bertie also had the misfortune of crushing on the same bland nurse.  

I should make clear that Clive Owen is brilliant in the role. I just find the character largely unimaginative and a little bit inimical. With his manly physique and good looks and toxic manly ways everything about the character of Dr John Thackery again seems to be designed to be critic proof. Smart viewers will see him for what he is. Less smart viewers might say ‘He's not an asshole, he’s a genius.’  And knuckledraggers might offer that ‘The two aren’t mutually exclusive’ and in fact  the plethora of stories like these seems to insinuate that there is a correlation. But I’d wager that it does not mean causation. And it especially doesn’t excuse it.  And then there is the fact that Thackery does suffer from a cocaine addiction, back before his disease was even classified as such. Already I imagine another chorus shouting: ‘Dr Thackery cannot be an asshole! He was making history!’ I wonder what Darwin would’ve called that bunch?

Drawing on the oft repeated circus theme, can you imagine a musical based on this show in the vein of the Greatest Showman, but you know actually good?  After all, Thackery was based on a real physician. Now there’s a novel concept.