Third season of HBO's The Deuce sucks (spoilers)

[AmeliaG]

It always bugs me when good shows decide to get all morality play after having done at least one good season. (See Weeds, Breaking Bad, etc.)

I thought earlier episodes of The Deuce were nuanced and really humanized the characters, so it was possible to understand even when disagreeing with a character.

Maybe the story of porn in New York in the 80's was more of a bummer than the story of porn in Los Angeles in the 80's. I remember hanging out with one of the editors of Screw and a NY domme in Vegas, like a zillion years ago (although later than when The Deuce takes place), and they were bagging on the AVN Awards porn chicks in their prom dresses. Their sarcastic commentary was hilarious, but I still liked the prom dresses. Maybe there was a huge disconnect between the two coasts and where porn came from in two different places. It felt like, even when they were drawing on real life, it was with a focus on the awful. For example, they had someone play Andrew Dworkin and give her anti-porn speech, but there was no Susie Bright counterpart. Lori Madison is probably partly based on Savannah and, while the fictional porn star came to the same sad end as the real life one, the real life one had a mad glamourous life first.

Seriously, season three of The Deuce was Hard To Watch, based on the book Stone Cold Bummer. I guess they would like to win some awards, but I loathe tearjerking for the sake of tearjerking.

What did other people think of it? Depressing but realistic or just really focused on the negative?