That's a Wrap

This is a downbeat but very well made episode with some quite haunting moments.

Contrary to what a previous (insane) reviewer stated about the scenes involving the character Lori, this storyline is by far the most compelling for me personally. This is a harrowing arc that has clearly been heading somewhere bad for quite some episodes now. She is brilliantly portrayed as trapped in a lifestyle of cheap exploitation and her only crutch throughout has been cocaine, so this should only come "out of the blue" to someone who either has not understood or not paid attention. Fair play to the writers for showing the harsh realities of what could become of someone living in this circumstance. Outstanding performance by Emily Meade.

I am less enamoured with the plight of Vincent and Abby's relationship, but the scenes involving the both are well made. I partly agree with another reviewer talking about Abby's moment of preaching, but at the same time I appreciate that the writers have a different perspective on prostitution industry and it is their prerogative to let their opinion come through characters like Abby. At the end of the day this is fiction.

Eileen has some memorable scenes and Maggie Gyllenhaal is great as ever.

As always the visuals are amazing.

For me it is a 9.5/10, but I rounds upwards.

I lived in midtown in my late teens and so much of this show resonates for me. But I am sorry this episodes' speech by Abby is just bizarre. The murder rate and major violent crime rate in midtown was skyrocketing at the time and EVERYONE wanted the pushers, crack addicts who would stab people for pocket change, and the prostitution which included trafficking of kids, OUT of there.

They weren't any businesses, including a tavern's "friends and customers" and NO ONE would have applauded anyone who asserted they were. And no one called the homeless at the time "homeless.: They were called "bums" winos" and "bag ladies" and right or wrong everyone with either a business or home in midtown wanted them out too.

I am not making a moral judgement but this artificial and frankly bogus and utterly unrealistic scene in a show that I love because of its gritty realism was way out of place.

I really like the rest of the plot lines, but that part felt like it was written by someone with no familiarity with Manhattan of the period. It was as if someone magically transported some over the top SJW into the middle ages!