This
might prove a difficult series to talk about.
Andrew Rannells appears in several episodes of this period drama and,
while it’s clear that it’s highly serialized (i.e., tons of stuff happened last
season that I’m not privy to,) I’m mostly able to follow the various plot
threads continued here. That said,
there’s a sizable cast and I don’t know too many characters’ names, even if I
can distinguish between most of them onscreen.
Let’s try it and see what happens, eh?
The
series centers around New York’s Knickerbocker Hospital at the turn of the
twentieth century. The main plots, as I
understand them: the hospital recently
lost its chief of surgery (who’s been hospitalized himself for addiction,) and
a very experienced, highly-intelligent Black doctor wants to become the
replacement – to the shock of the board, naturally. There’s also a former nun who’s in jail,
stowaways on ships carrying bubonic plague, and a young woman recently released
from an asylum, plus a side plot in San Francisco involving a woman who’s
disconcertingly under the thumb of her father-in-law and, by proxy, her
husband.
There’s
some interesting stuff here, but it’s pretty slow-moving and many of the plots
feel kind of scattered. Obviously, I’m
at a disadvantage, not having seen the first season, but while I follow what’s
going on, I’m having a hard time keeping track of how it all fits
together. However, I like Dr. Edwards
(the would-be chief of surgery) and Cornelia (the put-upon woman in San
Francisco) and how their plots deal with race and gender in the early 1900s in
a fairly nuanced way. Word of warning,
though, this series is not for the
faint of heart. They go all in on the
old-timey surgical procedures, and there are some seriously gross scenes in
this episode, including one involving a lot of pus that I had to look away
from.
Save
Rannells (of course,) I’m not familiar with most of the cast. The big exception is Clive Owen as Dr.
Thackery, the addict who’s left the hospital, and I also recognize André
Holland, who plays Dr. Edwards – I first noticed Holland in Moonlight, and he appears in A Wrinkle in Time, too, as Mr. Jenkins.
Rannells
plays the impressively-named Frazier H. Wingo, the architect hired for the
construction of a new hospital, which breaks ground in this episode. The new hospital project gets a bit of
screentime but not much, and Wingo himself is only in one scene. As such, there’s little to say about him at
this point. At first glance, he seems
no-nonsense and carries himself like someone who’s good at what he does.
Anyway,
moving on to first impressions!
Recommend?
In
General
– Possibly. I like a number of the
themes. We’ll see what I think a few
episodes from now.
Andrew
Rannells
– Too soon to tell – we’ve hardly seen anything of him yet.
Warnings
Graphic
images, violence, sexual references, drinking/smoking/drug use, and strong
thematic elements.
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