TV Review: THE KNICK: Season 1, Episode 7: Get the Rope [Cinemax]

Cinemax’s The Knick Get the Rope TV Show Review. The Knick: Season 1, Episode 7: Get the Rope was equally exciting and sobering. The tension, the non-stop action was excellent television. The raw spotlight on the racism of the time was hard to watch. [Like watching Roots for the first time, you just can’t believe the level of ignorance was that vast!]

This chapter began with the stabbing of officer Phinny Sears (Collin Meath), who had mistaken a man’s gal for a prostitute. Both were black and Sears a white Irishman…the scene, as well as what we know the racial politics were at the time, set us up for a nail biting episode. A mob of white’s hunted down and sought revenge on the entire black community. There wasn’t a moment where these folks pondered lawfully seeking and punishing the one and only culprit…they used the incident to take out their racial hatred, and that they did.

Dr. John Thackery (Clive Owen) had already turned a corner in last weeks showing, yet it was still extraordinary to watch him in complete solidarity with Dr. Algernon Edwards (Andre Holland) throughout the entire racial ordeal. To this point, he offered up his own personal stash of liquid cocaine for a patient down at the “blacks only” clinic.

We also watched Tom Cleary (Chris Sullivan) stop a beating and then scream at a cop, “Whose side are you on? [I think Chris Sullivan’s Tom Cleary is a revelation of an interpretation of character…he is brilliant. And I really liked the feeling that we were actually watching these characters true colors come out. No longer bound by societal handcuffs and backward practices.]

It was a whole new world at the Knick, and must have felt like the twilight zone for Dr. Everett Gallinger (Eric Johnson) when he walked in and saw Edwards in the operating theater with Thackery. Gallinger tried to complain to Bertie Chickering (Michael Angarano) about the situation, who promptly shut him down. [A kind of triumphant “yeah” escaped my lips in this moment.]

As patients and doctors needed escape through Edwards’ basement clinic, the secret was now out…and everyone got a glimpse of the great work he’s been doing. Thackery stood by against any detractors…and Cordelia Robertson (Juliet Rylance) was especially impressed.

Edwards and Cordelia finally let us in on just how close their relationship has been in the past. [I am clear, this was not a first kiss…it was however sexy and perfect that it was on his examination table in the basement clinic.]

The most decadent, perhaps even long awaited scene of the evening was that of Thackery and Nurse Elkins (Eve Hewson) encounter. I thought he was going to drive the relationship toward sex, but instead it was at her invitation. T’was a bold choice, a drug addict as your “first”…when he offered his drugs to enhance her experience, I was equally titillated and repulsed for her.

I cannot say enough about this series. It has proven to be an epiphany for Cinemax.

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