Maybe this is unfair. But the flip side of The Deuce having such contemporary resonance as a work of art is that it’s impossible to decontextualize the series from topical events. What’s frustrating, too, is that Franco’s characters (the twin brothers Vincent and Frankie Martino) are easily the least compelling part of Season 2, which is oddly structured, patchily written, and—in some moments—incandescent in its portrayal of a sex worker turned porn director (Maggie Gyllenhaal) discovering her artistic power.

Season 1 introduced “The Deuce,” the stretch of 42nd Street in Midtown Manhattan that hosted a flourishing sex trade in 1971, when the series began. Gyllenhaal’s Candy was a sex worker trying to leave the industry while evading the domineering pimps who worked the area: C. C. (Gary Carr), Larry (Gbenga Akinnagbe), and Rodney (Method Man) among them. Franco’s Vincent was a bartender who became instrumental in the establishment of mob-run massage parlors, while Frankie, Vincent’s twin brother, was a gratingly cocky ne’er-do-well and a compulsive gambler who seemed to exist only to get Vincent into trouble.

‘The Deuce’ is the rightful heir to ‘The Wire.’

By the end of the first eight episodes, Vincent was well and truly ensnared in the business side of the sex industry, while Candy was making moves into directing porn. Season 2 jumps forward in time five years, but little has changed, including the actors’ apparent ages. Candy continues to act and direct porn while dreaming up more ambitious creative projects. C. C. and Larry exploit women on film sets instead of on the street. Frankie is so gallingly immoral and incompetent that it often feels like Simon and Pelecanos are searching for a way to write him off the show via an infuriated mafioso or two.

The first season worked as a comic drama about a specific place and moment whose influence would outlast its heyday. The second, at least from the first four episodes made available for review, is a riveting story about porn’s golden age that’s padded out with flat writing, loose story ends, and inexplicable subplots. Some of the scenes featuring Candy, the porn director Harvey Wasserman (David Krumholtz), and the actresses Lori (Emily Meade) and Darlene (Dominique Fishback) are incredibly rich; it’s then jarring to see the show butt in with detours about Frankie trying to take over a dry-cleaning business, or Paul (Chris Coy) deciding which kind of marble to purchase for his new club. Never has Simon and Pelecanos’s commitment to ensemble storytelling felt so frustrating.

The Deuce’s clunkier interludes only look more so given that Gyllenhaal is doing career-best work as Candy, in such an extraordinary performance that everyone else pales by comparison. On set, Candy is coming into her power, relishing her authority as a director and tapping into what makes her films work. Porn isn’t just about getting off, she tells Harvey. It’s “about the hunger and the terror and the risk. We all fucking risk to connect to each other.” She has an instinctive psychological grasp of why storytelling matters and an ingenuity when it comes to expressing emotion. But she’s also a woman, and that makes her vulnerable. A scene in which Candy realizes exactly how vulnerable, as Gyllenhaal wordlessly projects surprise, pain, thoughtfulness, and acceptance in just a few seconds, is one of the best TV moments of the year.