HBO’s ‘The Deuce’ Sets Premiere Date For Final Season

Paul Schiraldi/HBO

HBO has set Sept. 9 as the premiere date for the third and final season of The Deuce, the drama series starring James Franco and Maggie Gyllenhaal as porn-industry pioneers.

The return date was tweeted by HBO along with an image of a VHS tape, signaling the series’ leap in time from the previous 1970s setting to the 1980s.

Created by George Pelecanos and David Simon, The Deuce chronicles the establishment of the porn industry in the decidedly pre-Disney Times Square of the early 1970s through legalization, the rise of HIV, the cocaine epidemic and the big business of the mid-1980s, with the changing real estate market about to bring the deadly party to a close.

Franco plays twins Vincent, who as season 2 ended seemed to be transitioning from dive bar owner to budding porn mogul, and hapless, always-in-debt Frankie. Gyllenhaal plays Candy, the former porn actress turned producer and director. 

HBO had previously announced that season 3 will be the final go-round, and that David Krumholtz, Daniel Sauli, Sepideh Moafi and Olivia Luccardi had been upped to series regulars from recurring since season 1.

The Deuce is executive produced by Pelecanos, Simon, Nina Noble and Franco; Richard Price is co-executive producer; Marc Henry Johnson and Gyllenhaal produce.