The scene takes more than a half-dozen significant characters, boxes them into a corner, and forces them to figure a way out. Scenes like these, and most of what follows in “Get the Rope,” are what make TV so gratifying. You don’t even need the dialogue to see how all the character work of the past six episodes was building towards this moment. The quick-cutting close-ups visually reveal how every character acts, both in this given moment, and the times we’ve watched them previous. Barrow’s self-interest is only matched by his impotence, while Edwards smirks at the silver lining that is his underground clinic getting exposed at a time when such a violation is of secondary importance. Sister Harriet keeps a level head (while working in a hilarious STFU to Barrow), Bertie looks for guidance, Gallinger is quietly indignant, Cornelia tries to make the best of a bad situation, and Thack corrals the whole lot of them.
We’ve seen who these people are before the present crisis, we’re seeing them now as they prepare to deal with it, and the rest of “Get the Rope” goes about seeing if their actions match up to our impressions of who they are. What makes everything that follows so great is how unsurprising it all is; everyone acts according to how we expect them to. Whether it’s Barrow abandoning all pretence of responsibility to go check on his mistress (getting humiliated in the process, of course), or Sister Harriet wielding her holy authority like a badass to ward off hooligans, or Cornelia getting her hands bloody as a surgical assistant, every character is true to his or herself as we know them.
“Predictable” is a bum word when it comes to dramas, but it’s also its foundation. Like the punchline to a joke you figure out the second before you hear it, or the moment before impact of an onscreen punch, the real thrill of a drama is getting to know characters so well that we can understand how they will react in any given situation. When we overhear that there’s a cocaine shortage at the infirmary in Little Africa, and the camera hangs on Thack’s reaction, what’s being presented is a false quandary for the character. Yes, Thack is choosing to give from his own personal stash, but we don’t have reason to believe he would ever withhold on a patient in agony. It’s the same reason why he throws himself into the mob when the rioters start attacking the first unsuspecting victim they see: Thack’s nature compels him to prevent pain.
Rather than pulling you out of the narrative by teaching you what to expect next, the inevitabilities of The Knick, or any show, are what compel you to keep watching. When the viewer and a show are on the same page at a plot level, it frees the latter to surprise the former by making the story about more than just a sequence of events. It’s why the pair of scenes at the end of the episode can be both entirely expected plot-wise, and revealing of the thematic depth that flourishes under a logical narrative progression. Edwards and Cornelia advancing their relationship has been almost as heavily foreshadowed as Thack and Elkins, but their couplings are drench in juxtaposition that underlines how different these characters are. An electrically-lit basement stands in opposition to a lamp-lit house; an interracial couple close as family* stands in opposition to a pairing separated by age and experience, not race.
*Convinced as I was that the show was suggesting Captain Robertson is Edwards’ illegitimate father, I’m willing to eat all the crow if it means Cornelia and Edwards aren’t half-siblings. Then again, if that’s the incestuous rabbit hole the show wants to go down, that could be…interesting?
The staging of the two trysts is just as dichotomous. When Edwards and Cornelia finally collide, it’s with a long take. An infirmary bed lays in the background between the two, a lightbulb hanging overhead, as if to say “well, here’s an idea.” They circle around one another, getting closer and closer, yet when Cornelia makes her move, it’s from a greater distance than most heated foreplay is designed to cover. It doesn’t matter to them that she has to crane forward to lock lips with Edwards; they, and we, know what’s going to happen. Teasing out a foregone conclusion can be fun, but “Get the Rope” is anything but patient.