The chickens of gilded-era capitalism come to roost in as many configurations as are possible.
Just how soap-operatic are Soderbergh and writers Jack Amiel and Michael Begler willing to go?
This episode sees its characters ground up especially in the gears of their own patriarchal systems.
Visually, the episode’s centerpiece is the Knick’s much-alluded-to charity ball, played at once as a sprawling comedy of manners and a jawdropping pictorial spectacle.
The Knick’s second season has seen Soderbergh turn his camera on different strains of pedagogy afforded by the turn-of-the-century milieu.
Steven Soderbergh’s camera seamlessly stitches the hospital’s constituent parts together in what appears to be real time.
“Wonderful Surprises” is so over-stacked as to make each scene work purely as exposition.
A clear effort is being made by Jack Amiel, Michael Begler, and Steven Soderbergh to make the new season as dense as possible.
The Knick is such a well-constructed series that the characters’ dialogue can’t help but reveal one prejudice thrown at the expense of another
It’s hard to avoid feeling like the same issues of dramatic proportion and temporal flow that dogged the first season remain.
The Knick provides a wealth of nuanced history of early 20th-century medicine and social mores.
As immersive as it is overstuffed, The Knick’s season finale opens on the anxious face of the hospital’s secretly pregnant benefactor.
Director Steven Soderbergh’s gift for unfussily blocking The Knick’s scenes is made awesomely apparent in the opening.
The change in seasons is a terrifically smart maneuver, even if it allows for some fairly obvious hopscotching.
“Get the Rope” may mark the first time Soderbergh’s dazzling, inventive shooting style just can’t support the dramaturgy.
Director Steven Soderbergh’s handling of the meningitis case is both technically and dramatically virtuoso.
The Knickerbocker Hospital’s putative mission to help New York City’s neediest gets its most interesting stress test yet in “They Capture the Heat.”
“Where’s the Dignity?” doesn’t lack for drama or tension; it’s just much better stacked than its predecessors.
The Knick remains one hell of a panoramic contraption, and Clive Owen’s starring turn as Dr. John Thackery is one of the show’s major draws.
The lurking anti-subtlety of The Knick’s pilot picks right back up in “Mr. Paris Shoes.”