'The Deuce' Season 3 Episode 6's best moment is Eileen's epiphany about women feeling like they are 'walking around with a price tag'
'The Deuce' season 3 episode 6 titled 'This Trust Thing' has many things to speak about, but Eileen Merrell (Maggie Gyllenhaal)'s epiphany about women and how they are objectified is one of the best scenes of the show. It begins with Eileen watching a waitress at a diner, where she sees this woman being ill-treated by guests who try to put a price on the waitress to gather how much money would put the waitress on the menu for them. The waitress goes along with the flirting just to make sure that she gets her tips and this, when Eileen hears from the waitress is the most important thing in her life right then, it turns a switch in Eileen.
Until then, she was working on making a film that would serve as a platform where women from all walks of life taking the job of a prostitute are portrayed with no judgments. She wanted her next film to show audiences a side of the profession that would enlighten them about the choices these women had to make. After this moment, however, everything changes. Eileen wants to make a film that would show how any woman in this world, similar to the waitress, walks around with a price tag. This she believes is partly because of the way that Eileen sold herself, and later showed men that they can put a price on women through pornography.
She explores this whole idea of a new movie with Harvey and that's when she asks him why do pornography makers call one particular shot a "money shot"? This shot is when makers add a particular shot in their film where a man is allowed to ejaculate on a woman's face. Eileen wonders if by doing this, they have become a part of the vicious cycle that objectifies and abuses women. Her speech was so impassioned that Harvey finally agreed to invest partly in the film.
Another scene, also featuring Eileen sees her confess, for probably the first time through the seasons about everything that she had faced from when she was all of 15-years-old. From how she got pregnant with her son Adam, to how her father had abandoned her for shaming him, it all comes out when she has a reading with a couple of actors. She wants the female lead to think of everything that Eileen went through, to channel it all so that she can perform better. It is interesting how all of Eileen's work is spun from a tough personal loss, that of her mother.
This episode also happens to be the one where Eileen has probably given up on her son Adam as well because he didn't turn up for his grandmother's funeral. When he calls Eileen up to get some seed money for his business, Eileen tries to understand why he would miss the funeral, but when everything that he says sounds like an excuse, she hangs up on him. All of these pent up feelings take a hold of her when she writes the script and it would be fascinating to know how things turn out for her movie.
The next episode of 'The Deuce' will air on Monday at 10 pm ET on HBO.