From True Detective to Top of the Lake, TV doesn’t generally do nuance when tackling the sex industry. Sex workers are most often reduced to caricatures – the mute victim who exists solely to be either killed or saved, or the “happy hooker” who’s chosen sex as a vocation.



So it’s no wonder David Simon’s latest drama The Deuce, set in the New York sex industry of the 1970s, launched in the US to such rapturous acclaim this weekend. Critics praised its “clear-eyed attention to detail” and “intelligence”, while Variety went so far as to call it a “worthy successor” to Simon’s most famous work, the critically adored The Wire.



But for all the pre-show hype about James Franco playing identical twins, The Deuce places women centre stage. And ensuring these women were not portrayed, in any way, as broken, was crucial. “The female characters are fully rounded,” says one of the show’s writers, Lisa Lutz. “They might make some bad choices, they might have some terrible experiences, but they are not silent victims.”

Along with novelist Megan Abbott, in April Lutz joined The Deuce’s writer’s room – already populated by crime writers including [the programme’s co-creator] George Pelecanos and Richard Price. And this strong contingent of women, not just among the writers but the producers and directors too, goes a long way to explaining that nuanced, complex depiction of female characters.

The show constantly plays with audience expectations. An early scene sees confident pimp CeCe pick the seemingly naive Lori straight off the bus from the Midwest. Taking her to his car, he attempts to dazzle her with his big city style, giving her the whole “You’re in New York now baby” shtick. Far from being bowled over, she responds with a sarcastic eye-roll, snarking: “Shit CeCe … is this New York City, or did I fall off the fucking Greyhound in Cleveland?”

Lori, queen of the snappy comeback … The Deuce. Photograph: HBO/Touchstone Pictures

“I read that scene and thought I’ve got to write for this show,” says Abbott. “I loved how it took something we’ve seen before – the innocent girl out of her depth in the city – and turned it on its head.”

That’s not to say The Deuce shies away from the tougher moments. CeCe might tolerate Lori’s snappy comebacks, but his abusive treatment of the other women in his stable makes it clear that the laidback charm is little more than a facade. Similarly, when the sweet-natured Darlene smartly turns her clients’ failings to her advantage – convincing one regular to pay her double because they’ve watched a movie rather than had sex, meaning she’s been gone twice the time – her hustle is born of desperation: she knows her violent pimp Larry won’t accept her earning less or dropping her guard to be kind.

“There are scenes which might be difficult to watch from a modern perspective,” says Michelle MacLaren, who directed the opening and closing episodes. “One of the first things George [Pelecanos] said to me was we want the 1971 version of this show, not the present-day one. We had to remember this is the pre-Aids era and certain things we take for granted now, attitudes towards women and sex, were not looked at as clearly in this time.”

Executive producer Nina Noble, a long-time collaborator of Simon’s, admits that this difference in attitudes made her unsure how the series would be received. “It’s a fine line between wanting to explore the reality of the women’s situations and yet also wanting to shy away from that reality,” she says. “We knew that, like The Wire, the key to success lay in the details.” Despite the writers’ extensive research, talking to many sex workers, especially people who worked in that era, Noble wasn’t sure how people would respond: it is a challenging watch. “The key to it is that it’s never sexy or titillating. We’re not trying to turn people on.”

‘We’re not trying to turn people on …’ Sandra and Darlene in The Deuce. Photograph: Sky Atlantic

It helps that in addition to being unflinching and well-researched, The Deuce also has a dark and bawdy sense of humour. In the opener, Simon and Pelecanos smartly invert another trope when Maggie Gyllenhaal’s entrepreneurial Candy finds herself dealing with an overeager teenager. It’s a story we’re used to seeing from the male’s point of view; the coming-of-age ritual gone humiliatingly wrong. Instead, The Deuce gives us a short, sharp economics lesson from Candy. This isn’t five minutes in heaven, it’s business – and just because a customer is easy doesn’t mean he gets the chance to go again. “It’s not afraid to show characters cracking jokes or being amused by the situations they find themselves in,” says Lutz. “That felt true to life, that even in terrible situations people often find something to laugh about.”

Abbott agrees. “We didn’t want every episode to just be grim and hopeless for the women, because that would be unwatchably sad. But at the same time, if we made them all Holly Golightly’s, tripping through their experiences without a care, it wouldn’t work either.”

Most crucially, the sex is never glamourised. “Whenever a sexual transaction – one in which money changes hands – occurs, it is shot in a very matter-of-fact way,” says MacLaren. “This is a series that deals with misogyny, the objectification of women and the commodification of sex. For those themes to resonate, we had to shoot the action honestly.”

It is that refusal to sugarcoat the story which gives The Deuce its power – and has led to those stellar reviews. “It offers a total immersion into this complicated world in a way that is both entertaining and interesting,” says Noble. And like all of Simon’s best work, it refuses to provide easy answers.

“There is definitely a version of this show where there are no female writers and all the women are victims or perfect,” says Abbott. “But that show wouldn’t have David Simon in charge.”

The Deuce continues in the US on HBO on Sundays at 9pm and starts in the UK on Sky Atlantic on 26 September at 9pm.