The Knick
Season 1
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The Knick S01E01
Part 1
Nov. 18, 2020, 7:39 p.m.
Johnny?
Johnny, it's seven and a half.
You said seven and a half?
The Knick.
North on Mott, east on 11th.
Bowery is faster, sir.
Won't have a long wait for the trolleys crossing.
I don't want faster. I enjoy waiting.
Mott north across Houston.
Yes, sir.
Please save my baby.
Gentlemen,
after two uneventful pregnancies,
Mrs. Warren presented in her eighth month
with what is assumed to be a case of placenta previa.
The hope had been to delay any procedure
for the benefit of the fetus.
But circumstance has forced our hand.
Dr. Thackery and I have
rehearsed the newest techniques extensively
and feel confident that the speed necessary for success
can finally be achieved.
Surgical knife.
100 seconds.
100 seconds.
100 seconds.
I want the students to take note that Dr. Christiansen
is entering on the medial line just above the pubis.
We must be careful to extract the fetus quickly
and in such a manner so
as not to release pressure on the rupture,
thus exacerbating the hemorrhage.
As you can see, there is significant blood in the cavity.
Vacuum, Everett.
Though it's difficult to see, it seems the fetus
has migrated through the rupture
upward toward the abdomen.
We need to lengthen the incision and get the baby out now.
Jules.
Nurse Monk, knife. Knife.
Bertie, cauterize.
Her pulse is weakening.
I have a leg. Pull the fetus down and out.
It's trapped in the cord.
Forceps clamps, umbilical scissors.
Bertie.
Come on, Thack.
Scissors.
You're free. Tube it.
More vacuum, Chickering. Put your back into it.
Her pulse has become eccentric.
We still have time. Clamp that artery.
Invert that section, Thack.
There's the bleed.
We can still close the rupture.
Warren's needle and gut.
Dowell's needle and silk.
Good.
Her pulse is faint and fully eccentric.
She's pallid and her lips are blue.
Pedals. One, two, three.
Almost.
Almost. Almost.
There.
The bleeding stopped.
Nothing.
It seems...
it seems we are still lacking.
I hope, if nothing else...
this has been instructive for you all.
We'll solve it.
How many more, Thack?
"And many strokes, though with a little axe,
hew down and fell the hardest timbered oak."
Thus spake Thack the Wise.
Jules.
The procedure failed. You didn't.
Thank you, my friend.
Isn't it a knobby one?
It's just the proper style.
Fuck it all.
Your god always wins.
It is the longest unbeaten streak
in the history of the world.
Yet J.M. Christiansen fearlessly took up arms
in that battle to oppose inevitable,
throwing himself in at an enemy that has never known defeat
and, as sure as I'm standing here, never will.
One could not be blamed for wondering
if J.M. came to see
his life's work as a fool's errand.
A rube finally realizing
that the game he's been
playing will be forever rigged against him.
But my dear friend J.M. was a fine man
and certainly was no fool or rube.
He and I spent our lives tilting at the very same windmills.
So why have I not lost hope like he did?
Because those windmills at which we tilted
were created by men to turn grindstones
that transformed the Earth's bounty into flour.
From such humble beginnings
grew the astonishing modern world in which we now live.
We cannot conquer the mountains,
but our railroads now run through them with ease.
We cannot defeat the river,
but we can... we can bend it to our will
and dam it for our own purposes.
We now live in a time
of endless possibility.
More has been learned about the treatment of the human body
in the last five years than was learned in the previous 500.
20 years ago, 39 was the number of years
a man could expect from his life.
Today, it is more than 47.
Eventually the train tunnels will crumble.
The dams will be overrun.
Our patients' hearts will all stop their beating.
But we humans can get in a few good licks in battle
before we surrender.
Catherine.
I will not stop pushing forward into a hopeful future.
And with every blow I land,
every extra year I give to a patient...
I will remember my fallen friend
Jules Michael Christiansen...
and know that at the very least,
something, however temporary...
has been won.
Lovely eulogy, Dr. Thackery.
The Knick
Season 1
TV Series | The Knick | Contents page