‘The Deuce’ Season 1, Episode 3: Making It and Faking It

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Season 1, Episode 3: ‘The Principle Is All’

In my recap of the pilot episode of “The Deuce,” I likened the relationship between Vinnie and Frankie to the one between Harvey Keitel and Robert De Niro in “Mean Streets,” Martin Scorsese’s 1973 film about low-level hoods mixed up with the local mob in Little Italy. Vinnie is Keitel, the responsible one, and Frankie is De Niro, the charismatic screw-up who constantly makes his friend pay for his sins. A shot in this week’s episode bears out the comparison: Frankie’s stroll into his brother’s new bar with a waitress under each arm recalls De Niro’s entrance to “Jumpin’ Jack Flash.”

But after three episodes, the Vinnie-Keitel analogy doesn’t hold quite as well. Yes, Vinnie is burdened by his brother’s debts and endangered by his screw-ups. We saw that tonight when a burly Irish gangster, infuriated by Frankie’s having busted up his machines with a crowbar, pulled a handgun on Vinnie at the bar. But Vinnie doesn’t share Keitel’s anxiety or guilt, and he’s not the type of guy who would hold his hand over the flame just to feel a lick of Hell’s fire. He never seems angry at Frankie, even though he’s scrambling so desperately to make payments on his brother’s gambling debt that he’s gone into business with the mob. He’s charmed by this irrepressible rapscallion. And because both roles are played by James Franco, it’s almost as if he’s charmed by himself.

There are hard edges to “The Deuce” and surely more to come later, once some of these dangerous characters go into the movie business together. But watching James Franco giving James Franco the business is an absolute pleasure. Eighteen years ago on “Freaks and Geeks,” Franco played a high-school dope of such extraordinary magnetism that he could get away with anything. He may be older now, but that rascally smile of his remains intact, as does the preternatural confidence of a man who knows he can talk anyone into anything. Vinnie should be sweating bullets over the enraged Irish gangster, or over his Faustian bargain with the Gambinos, or over his temporary residence in a by-the-hour hotel for hookers and Johns. He should be furious at Frankie for running up more debts in a card game while he’s taking out a wall for the new bar. And yet he’s disarmed. No one can stay mad at James Franco, least of all James Franco.

The opening of the Hi-Hat bar provides an instant gathering place for the entire cast of characters — prostitutes and pimps, gangsters and corrupt cops, and perhaps some of the bar’s former clientele, provided they can take their daiquiris without umbrellas — and positions the Martino brothers as the leaders of their illicit community. That so many different parties, many of them natural adversaries, could convene under one roof is a testament to Vinnie’s glad-handing affability. The brutal final scene of the debut episode lingers: What will Vinnie do when he’s confronted by the ugliest realities of this world? Will he continue to allow someone like C.C. to pass by, secure in the knowledge that someone like Vinnie won’t do anything to stop him? And will there be a price for his inaction?

Our other main character, Eileen, continues to be enchanted by the movie business, which she hopes might be her ticket out of the pimp-free entrepreneurship that finds her witnessing a stabbing and fielding answering-machine messages from a client with the clap. Ruby (Pernell Walker), a.k.a. Thunder Thighs, takes Eileen to a makeshift studio on 49th Street where men pay $40 each just to watch a pornographic film being shot. When Eileen complains about the amateurish lighting — one appearance in a porno and she’s suddenly Gordon Willis — Ruby shares the shocking news that there’s no film in the camera. It’s better for the cast and crew to pretend to make a movie than to actually produce one because the vice cops will descend upon them.

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