David Simon on The Deuce series finale: "We literally wrote the last scene first"

Rolling Stone

"The last scene of the show was the only one we had written in our heads when we started the project," says Simon." It came from talking to the original Vincent (played by James Franco) not only about his life in Times Square, but what had happened to all the people that he was telling us stories about. All the anecdotes, when you would ask, 'What happened to her? What happened to him?' none of them ended with, 'She married a psychiatrist and they’re living in Scarsdale.' There was a lot of attrition, and a lot of dislocated people, and there was some sense on the part of the guy we were with, who was in his sixties at the time, of having outlived most of the people he had come up with. So there was a sense of nostalgia mixed with regret and loss that was pretty powerful for (co-creator) George (Pelecanos) and myself."

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• Co-creator George Pelecanos says The Deuce's original plan was dropped because it took away the element of suspense
• For a show—and for a final season—so haunted by decline, decay and death, The Deuce finale is surprisingly sedate
• Among The Deuce's most impressive achievements was how it conveyed such affection for this world, even as the cast and crew were depicting all the ways in which it could be terrible