Hope Lies on Television — Luck, David Milch and Humanity
By: Adam Bat
Tags: Blu Ray, Contributor, Cinema, Contributor Thursday, Christmas

In a follow-up article to one of his best-received pieces, Edwin Davies returns to the land of Luck.

Back in March, I wrote an article about how Luck, the HBO horse racing drama created by David Milch and executive produced by Michael Mann, represented a potential model for future television shows in an age of increased serialisation by focusing on the importance of creating sublime moments, rather than focusing on overly elaborate, season-long arcs. It was an article that proved spectacularly ill-timed, since mere hours after it was posted, HBO announced that Luck had been cancelled, even as production was underway on what would have been its second season. As the one and only season arrives on DVD and Blu-ray this week, I wanted to take the opportunity to write about what made the show so special, and why it is worth checking out despite knowing that there will be no more to come.

Before getting into why the show is great, it is important to talk about how, or more importantly why, it ended. Unlike Milch’s previous shows for HBO, Deadwood and John From Cincinnati, the show was not cancelled due to a combination of low-ratings and high costs. Admittedly, Luck was not a hit by any stretch of the imagination (and even the critical response to it was initially much more muted than one might have expected given its pedigree). Neither was it a particularly cheap show to produce, largely because the elaborate races that formed the centrepieces to most episodes required a lot of time and energy to film, and on account of the sprawling cast, a common fixture of most Milch shows.

However, thanks largely to the arrangement that was reached between Milch and Mann, whereby Mann ensured that Milch stuck to a rigorous production schedule and was not able to indulge his propensity for improvisation and last-minute re-writing (a tendency that led to Milch being fired from NYPD: Blue, the seminal cop drama that he co-created in the 1990s) costs were kept relatively low for a high-end cable drama, with little of the spiralling costs that doomed Milch’s previous efforts. Furthermore, the ratings were steady, if unspectacular, and the reviews went from quietly reverent to borderline ecstatic as the season progressed. HBO committed to a second season largely on the potential the show displayed, and the cast and crew went straight into production on the second season before the first had even finished airing.

That’s when horses started dying.

By most accounts, the crew took the greatest pains to ensure that the horses used in the show were treated well and cared for properly, but even with all the precautions possible, they were unable to prevent the accidental deaths of three horses. Considering the negative attention that the show received as a result — not to mention the very real and serious concerns about whether or not future accidents could be prevented — led HBO to cease all production.

The deaths are undeniably tragic, but seemed especially so considering that much of Luck was concerned with the beauty of horses in motion. It was the greatest tribute to the equine form since “My Lovely Horse”. From the Mann-directed pilot through to the season/series finale, the show was often defined by the majestic and haunting race sequences that were central to the narrative and thematic core of the series. All the disparate misfits that made up the milieu of the show’s race track setting were drawn together by the races, for both monetary reasons and for the sheer beauty of magnificent creatures in motion, and the gorgeous cinematography made each race a joy to watch. The accidents tarnished the legacy of the show by forever associating it with something that was the antithesis of what the show itself often celebrated. In light of the events and publicity surrounding them, HBO did the right thing by cancelling Luck, but that doesn’t make the cancellation itself any less regrettable.

With that out of the way, the question now becomes what is Luck actually about? The series is ostensibly about the efforts of Ace Bernstein (Dustin Hoffman), a career criminal who has recently completed a prison term, to exact revenge on the people he blames for his imprisonment, including his former partner, played by a fiery and terrifying Michael Gambon, through a complicated scheme that involves taking over the Santa Anita racetrack in Los Angeles. Using a horse belonging to his friend Gus (Dennis Farina), Ace starts to become immersed in the world of horse racing, as well as fascinated by the horse itself.

It’s that last aspect of the show that proves central to what is so mesmerising about it, and what establishes it as a David Milch show. In much of his work, and particularly the work he has done with HBO, Milch has shown a keen interest in depicting the way in which communities coalesce and form around common aims or belief. Over its three seasons, Deadwood was as much about the growth of the eponymous town as it was about any of the people who lived in it. As the show grew and developed, so did the town itself, which became gradually more civilised as it changed from being little more than an outpost to a thriving township.

This was also reflected in the changing dynamics between the characters, as Seth Bullock and Al Swearengen went from being enemies in the show’s first season to begrudging allies by the series’ end. The characters set aside their individual concerns in order to better serve the community that has grown around them, like an oyster from a speck of dirt. A filthy, degenerate oyster, maybe, but it certainly became something greater than its beginning or the sum of its parts would have suggested.

Milch uses a similar technique in Luck to one he employed to great effect in Deadwood; using a recognisable figure from genre fare to introduce audiences to a complex, insular community. In Deadwood that character was a terse, straight-talking, straight-shooting lawman who will do anything to see justice done, in Luck it’s an aging gangster. Yet Luck sidelines its generic elements — primarily Ace’s revenge plot — very early on; once it has served its purpose as a means of getting the audience to the racetrack and introducing a host of characters there, it is put on the backburner for much of the season’s first half. This allows the focus of the series to shift to what Milch is actually interested in, which is the collection of jockeys and trainers, agents and gamblers who live their lives for every single race.

In every one of Milch’s shows, his casts form a microcosm for humanity, and as dark and violent as they can sometimes be, there’s an underlying optimism to them; amidst the grime and blood of a frontier town, civilisation can slowly form; with the help of a mysterious visitor, estranged family members and enemies can experience something transcendent; in spite of the desperation of a racetrack, broken people can witness something beautiful and become whole, if just for the length of a race. Luck embodies that spirit throughout, most notably in the form of Ace, who undergoes a startling transformation as he becomes fascinated by horses.

Considering how unsparing the show is when it comes to depicting the daily grind of working or living at the track, Luck is a surprisingly tender series, one which understands how people want to be better than they are and hope to find salvation through some external source. It also understands how, if perceived a certain way, something seemingly normal can become sublime. There are several quiet moments in the show where characters stare into the eyes of horses, and in that instance seem to reach a personal epiphany, as if they suddenly realise who they are through those moments of reflection. Such moments are never over-played, but they are quite powerful, and underline the almost mystical air that hangs over the series.

Milch and his collaborators strive to make Luck embody two seemingly opposed ideas: earthy realism in depicting the realities of the track, and an almost spiritual sense of wonder at the purity and beauty of nature. It’s a delicate balancing act that the show only really gets right five episodes in, but once it does, it’s unlike any show the medium has seen. It also highlights what a shame it is that we’ll never see just how the show would have developed over the years, but that makes this unique, singular season all the more precious.

Edwin is the editor of A Mighty Fine Blog, and can also be found on Twitter.