The characters on The Knick are strange people. I’ve mentioned this before, but it needs to be reiterated: these individuals behave oddly and do things that are not only unexpected but also pretty senseless. For example, Cornelia goes to Algernon’s apartment to sleep with him; I think that it was absurd for her to do that, considering the racial climate that she lives in. Cornelia, were she a real person, would never put herself in that kind of danger; being as she is a woman, she is already in a position of weakness; traveling to the predominantly black part of town to cheat on her husband would pretty much be a death sentence.
Algernon has done things like this too. He allows Cornelia to come to his home knowing the danger, and then refuses to help her abort their child when he knows that would lead to certain death for him, his baby, and, at best, a severe, severe beating for Cornelia.
I bring this up because The Knick has introduced a character that comes out of the gate doing unbelievable things: Opal, Algernon’s wife. I’m sure you’ve seen the show and know the time period, but in case you are wondering, let me set the scene for you: it’s the early 1900s. There you go; scene set. Considering that the last lynching of an African American was done sometime in the 1980s, and before that African Americans were routinely brutalized for as little as making eye contact with a white person, I find it hard to believe that Opal would be this bold in pushing back against a rich white family.
Like, she just came from the UK, which isn’t exactly peaches and cream when it comes to race relations; she’s also worked in France, which has had it’s own difficulties with minorities, to the freaking United States of America, which only forty years prior fought a war over freeing African Americans. I mean, holy hell, Opal! You had to have heard some horror stories about the US! There is no way that any sane person, with any education or brains in their head, would come to New York City and actively tick off rich white people. It makes no sense! Black people in the US are still treated like second class citizens in a lot of places, for Christ’s sake!
That’s not to say that she isn’t right about pushing back against the Robertsons, because she definitely is; for all their talk about “progressive thinking,” (which, to be fair, they are light years ahead of the rest of their friends), they are still mired in racist, misogynistic, patriarchal ideas that shape the way they view and interact with the world. The Robertsons are a step up, sure, but it’s a tiny step that seems bigger because of the barbarism of their peers.
But Opal was interesting, at the very least. She has the potential to sir up a lot of trouble, and that could lead to some very good storylines.
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Speaking of storylines: Abby is saved. Yay!
I don’t meant to be flippant (yes I do) but I find the storylines where Thackery invents a cure for a major disease or comes up with some medical breakthrough off-putting. I don’t like it because this isn’t historical fiction, or at least I don’t want it to be. I want this to be a snapshot of a doctor in the workplace, not the memoir of one who discovered the cure for cancer. It feels like the writers trying to make The Knick more “important” than it has to be, giving it some type of artificial nobility.
Another storyline that got some resolution: Harriet has been freed! Yay!
I feel like these storylines are being resolved very quickly, and I don’t think that’s a good thing. A lot of plot is being burned off, and that doesn’t allow a lot of time for things to breathe. But then again, I don’t really like The Knick and am predisposed to dislike it.
See you next week!
[Photo via Cinemax]
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