The Deuce Season 2 Episode 8: Nobody Has to Get Hurt Review

If you would like to read my review of the last episode, click here.

Synopsis: Rudy and Matty the Horse buy Lori away from C.C., who has a back-end agenda. Abby, Dave and Loretta warn Ashley about the dangers of her aggressive activism. Goldman shares his plans for cleaning up the Deuce with Alston. Larry Brown is reunited with a girl from his past. Vincent turns to his father for relationship advice. Candy puts the finishing touches on “Red Hot”in advance of its premiere. (HBO)

Writer: George Pelecanos

Director: Tanya Hamilton

Rating: TV-MA

Running Time: 59mins

Airs: Sundays at 9pm on HBO Canada (Canada)/HBO (United States)

Someone who you may not expect finally bites the dust while someone else is tempting a similar fate in an otherwise tame penultimate episode.

The start of this episode sort of addressed the end of last week’s with Vincent, Rudy, Tommy, and Black Frankie picking up a man who they believed responsible off the street but in reality, he was some lower level man who knew nothing about any hits. The others were ready to kill him, however, he was able to convince Vincent then the others to let him live.

In exchange for Rudy’s inconvenience, Matty the Horse presented him with the opportunity to buy a cut of Lori’s movie career. However, in order to truly succeed, they would have to buy out C.C.. Rudy and Matty offered C.C. $15,000 for which he eventually accepted. Before she was set to go to L.A., C.C. wanted to get all he could out of her. He may have been gone but she wasn’t used to him not being around. C.C. acted like he was over Lori, however, he wasn’t quite done with her yet as he still wanted his cut from Candy’s movie that she was putting the final touches on while still facing some opposition.

Ashley continued her overzealous sex worker outreach so much so that she was warned by the others that her work may be angering the wrong people and may get her in trouble or worse but she didn’t seem to care. Dave had enough. The pimps had a conference about Ashley and what was happening to them. They wanted to do something about Ashley but C.C. thought otherwise, however, Rodney seemed to be cooking up a plan of his own.

Goldman shared his Deuce cleanup plan to Alston, mostly consisting of replacing sex business with more legitimate ones. At the end of the day, Goldman picked up a man who he slept with before heading back home to his family. Goldman may have been gay but he was still devoted to his family.

In other news:

• Paul was spending time with his actor/stripper friend.
• Darlene’s friend from school offered to help her find a job.
• Frankie picked up an older woman at Vincent’s club.
• Candy wanted to take her son on vacation after she was done with her movie.
• Larry was faced with a girl from his past.
• Vincent asked his father (Armand Assante) for some relationship advice.

Finally, C.C. had been looking for Frankie in order to secure his cut for Candy’s movie and found him at Bobby’s parlor. The three went to a back room to talk. The movie hasn’t been released so they didn’t have any money. C.C. wanted an advance. His attitude was getting on Bobby’s nerves so he stabbed C.C.. Things got physical between them until Frankie struck him several times with a hammer and finally killed him.

Overall, this was another good episode that worked a little by setting up next week’s season finale by seemingly wrapping up the Lori and C.C. subplot by killing off C.C. at the end but there will surely be some fallout from this. The next big development here was the battle between Ashley and the pimps. Her work was inevitably going to attract the wrong attention and something will inevitably happen and maybe it will next week, however, it would be a shame to lose a character that has been through a lot over the course of the series. The rest of the subplots were just little odds and ends that didn’t really amount to much. It will be interesting to see where everything goes as well as the release of Candy’s movie which will presumably be in last week’s season finale as well. This has been a much better season so far so hopefully it will end on a good note.

Score: 8.5/10

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Keith Noakes

The EIC of the coincidentally-named keithlovesmovies.com. A Canadian who prefers to get out of the cold and into the warmth of a movie theatre.