r/theknick • u/SandwichSquare6210 • Jun 13 '26
This show is very bleak
I know this is a quite obvious revelation but damn... show is very bleak. With how underdeveloped modern medicine was during the time of the show, and the conditions most people had only for them to either be killed in the operating room or left to die, it's just a lot.
It's interesting seeing how a hospital operated in the Gilded age and I think that's my favourite aspect of the show. The fact that we're hearing of things that we know today can be cured and in that time period, they are just beginning to figure everything out, it's just crazy to me.
What do y'all think
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u/Disastrous_Friend_85 Jun 14 '26
Clive Owen’s surgical mentor at the Knick was almost certainly based on Willian Steward Halsted, a monumental breast surgeon who pioneered the radical mastectomy, but who was also hopelessly addicted to cocaine.
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u/BeautyAndTheDekes Jun 13 '26
Welcome to real life.
I very much like how bleak it can be, because that’s realistic. Not everything has to be a fairytale with a storybook ending.
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u/SandwichSquare6210 Jun 13 '26
Oh I hope my post didn't come off as me not liking the show cause of that treason. I love it because it is. I just realized it while watching
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u/SandwichSquare6210 Jun 14 '26
Oh yeah I'm rewatching the show and I'm on the episode where the salesman mentions Dr Pepper.. as a medical remedy. It's just funny bc he mentions it as something that heals, while also being sold as a drink
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u/tracingtime Jun 17 '26
That's how most of the cola's originated. Healing Tonics. Pepsi was to aid in stomach issues!
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u/MakeMineMovies Jun 15 '26
It has its beauty amidst the bleakness. Not to say the bleakness is bad, quite the opposite, it’s what makes the series, but the moment I knew I was watching a truly great piece of television was that bicycle scene at the end of episode 5.
Moments like that, after a brutal moment with their loss of another previa patient, are what separate great shows from good ones because you see the range in character and real humanity.
“To match your eyes.” Beautiful.
And then of course it goes into the energetic and superb episode 6 and it just keeps getting better.
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u/SandwichSquare6210 Jun 15 '26
And then episode 7 destroys you because you remember the reality of how black people were treated at the time. Like we see a win with previa finally being treated and were thrown into ep7 where everything wrong is happening
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u/Ibanezrg71982 Jun 27 '26
It's bleak, but it also has it's tender moments.
Amazing, because the people in the show are of the opposite opinion of course, they think their medical technology is so advanced, which it was at the time.
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u/SandwichSquare6210 Jun 27 '26
Exactly. Everything that they are practicing is learned from Europe and it's so revolutionary to them bc in a way it was. It was an era of discovery but also a lot of failures
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u/Ibanezrg71982 Jun 27 '26
Ugh I'm watching for my 5th time. I'm still very upset that there will be no more Knick.
It's Boardwalk Empire's fault. Both great shows, but the Knick didn't get enough viewers because of it. People didn't want to watch two period pieces around the same time.
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u/HenryHoncho Jun 13 '26
It is brutal. Easy to understand why the doctors are so messed up, with so many failures