『A Young Woman’s Journey of Freedom, Confrontation, and Growth』
🎥 Series Overview
🎬 Title: The Deuce (2017–2019)
🌍 Country: 🇺🇸 United States
🎞️ Genre: Drama / Crime / Social Realism
🗓️ Production & Broadcast: HBO, Total of 3 Seasons
⏳ Runtime: 8–10 episodes per season
📢 Director: David Simon
🖋️ Writer: George Pelecanos
📺 Platform: HBO, HBO Max
👩💼 Cast: Margarita Levieva – Abby Parker
Paloma Guzman – Pilar
🧩 In-Depth Story Exploration (Spoilers)
🌆 Rejecting Privilege and Falling Into the Streets
HBO’s The Deuce depicts the sex work industry of Times Square in the 1970s and the early rise of the porn industry, capturing alongside it the era’s climate of women’s movements, the growth of gay communities, and sexual liberation.
Within this landscape, Abby Parker’s narrative follows her rejection of her affluent family background as she becomes a bartender and gradually transforms into a radical leftist feminist. Her relationship with Pilar becomes an essential subplot reflecting Abby’s evolving identity and political convictions.
💔 The End of an “Open Relationship” with Vincent
Before Abby becomes involved with Pilar, she had been living with Vincent Martino, one of the Martino twins, in what they defined as an open relationship.
- Early relationship: Abby stepped into the world of “The Deuce” through Vincent, working as a bartender, interacting with women on the streets, and awakening to feminist ideas.
- Deepening conflict: Over time, Vincent compromises through his financial entanglements with the mafia, while Abby pursues radical social movements and justice. Their open relationship becomes a device that reflects how they can no longer give each other what they need. While Abby may have remained connected to Vincent sexually, she increasingly longed for a mental and political counterpart.
💖 Meeting Pilar: Political Alliance and Sexual Awakening
Pilar is an artist Abby meets within her leftist/arts activism community, fulfilling needs Abby could no longer satisfy within her relationship with Vincent.
- Shared beliefs: Pilar possesses a radical political and artistic perspective, rejecting upper-class hypocrisy and championing the “authenticity” of street art. Through her interactions with Pilar, Abby finds an outlet for her political convictions and intellectual hunger.
- Sexual exploration and liberation: Abby and Pilar’s relationship becomes Abby’s pathway to moving beyond the framework of heterosexual relationships and exploring intimacy with another woman. Their relationship gives Abby a new sense of sexual identity and liberation. The series even shows Abby becoming so absorbed that she tells Vincent not to come home because she is “busy with someone else”—a clear sign of her immersion in this new relationship.
🌐 The Clash Between Idealism and Reality
Although Abby and Pilar’s relationship played a crucial role in Abby’s exploration of her sexual identity, it ultimately does not evolve into a long-term partnership and ends due to Abby’s diminishing passion.
- Completion of identity: While Abby’s relationship with Pilar helped her affirm her sexual fluidity, Abby and Pilar fundamentally came from different class backgrounds and lived different lifestyles. In the end, Abby leaves Vincent and chooses to walk her own path outside New York, symbolizing her becoming a fully independent individual.
- Era context: Their relationship reflects the 1970s–80s New York climate of increasing sexual fluidity and women actively exploring their sexual autonomy. Abby’s queer relationship symbolizes how the era’s counterculture and feminist movements expanded into sexual realms.
The romance between Abby and Pilar served as a transitional and pivotal milestone in Abby’s journey away from her wealthy upbringing and Vincent’s mafia-entangled world, and toward discovering her authentic political and sexual identity. Through this relationship, Abby ultimately leaves behind the chaos and compromises symbolized by “The Deuce,” choosing her own direction.
🌟 Abby as the Moral Compass of “The Deuce”
Abby Parker served as the moral compass of “The Deuce.”
- A critic from within: Even while immersed in street life, she continuously sought to criticize and improve its systems of violence and exploitation.
- A possibility of hope: While most characters in The Deuce become victims of their environments or resort to compromise, Abby uses her education and privilege to maintain her ethical standards and eventually achieve full autonomy. Her final decision (leaving New York and becoming a lawyer) illustrates that personal will and ideals can indeed prevail, even in chaotic times.
🎯 Personal (Taste-Based) Rating
💕 Love Scene Intensity: ♥♥♥
⭐ Rating: ★★★
Comments
Post a Comment