White Shoes And White Horse: The Knick Season Two Trailer

By Less Lee Moore

I only knew of Steven Soderbergh’s TV drama The Knick by name but it was a series of tweets from filmmaker Aaron Moorhead (Resolution, Spring) that got me interested in it.

Set in the New York City of 1900, the show follows the exploits of the doctors, staff, and patrons of the Knickerbocker Hospital, a place that actually existed. I was a huge fan of E.R. for the first ten years but I had no idea how much further The Knick could expand the somewhat tired trope of the medical procedural until I started watching it and was immediately hooked. The show deals with way more than just scientific advancements or lack thereof (one of season one’s episodes deals with the burgeoning popularity of the X-ray machine).

The Knick proves the Thomas Hobbes idea that life is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.” The world of The Knick is a messy, nasty, awful one full of messy, nasty, awful characters. That’s not to say that there aren’t good people portrayed on the show; there are. Yet the rampant classism, sexism (women couldn’t yet vote), and racism (keep in mind, the Civil War had only ended 40 years before and Jim Crow was in full swing) are enough to turn your stomach, perhaps even more so than the medical procedures.

Although the only cast members I was familiar with going in were Matt Frewer and Clive Owen, they was enough to intrigue me. As it turns out, the rest of the cast is fantastic. Clive Owen has secretly become one of the most incredible yet underrated actors around. If you’ve seen him in The International, you’ve seen what I call The Clive Owening: his ability to shift from sympathetic to absolutely, tragically insane within seconds. It’s impressive and his character on The Knick, Dr. John W. Thackery is someone you will both love and hate. He’s got competition, though, from Dr. Algernon Edwards, portrayed by the wonderful André Holland.

Now we have a short promo trailer for the highly anticipated second season of the show. It doesn’t give us a lot of information but it sure is pretty.

The new season of The Knick premieres on October 16 and the first season was released on home video on August 11, so there is plenty of time to catch up.