The Knick will surely go down in history as one of the most compelling and fascinating TV series of the Second Golden Age. When Steven Soderbergh “retired” from moviemaking he moved to Cinemax and directed every episode of the turn-of-the-century medical drama series to dynamite results. The show was gruesome, thrilling, devastating, and darkly funny all at once, and Soderbergh’s direction and camera work was downright groundbreaking. He shot everything with one camera, covering all the action in fluid, POV movements that put the viewer right into the heart of the series. Which makes this recent The Knick news sting even more—Season 3 ain’t happening.

When The Knick Season 2 finale wrapped up two seasons of story in a shocking manner, Soderbergh revealed that he envisioned rebooting the series for Season 3 and letting a new director come in to tell a new two-season story—and beyond:

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Image via Cinemax

But that was last summer, and Soderbergh has now wrapped a new project for HBO called Mosaic, a new feature film called Logan Lucky, and is developing a film based on the Panama Papers. And in speaking with TV Line, The Knick co-star Chris Sullivan revealed that Season 3 is a no-go—the show is over:

“Yeah, I’ve heard it’s done. They were gonna try [to do a third season], but I’ve heard it’s done.”

This is a bummer, but the Season 2 finale does work perfectly as a series finale so it’s not as if the show was abruptly cancelled. Moreover, the concept that Soderbergh derived for future seasons is an evergreen idea, so I suppose it’s possible he could pick it back up in a few years if Cinemax is game.

For now, we’ll just have to let two nearly perfect seasons of television be it for The Knick. That’s not a bad run.

Update: Cinemax makes it official in a new statement (via TV Line):

“After a critically acclaimed two-season run of THE KNICK on Cinemax, we will not be going forward with additional episodes of the series,” said Kary Antholis, president, HBO Miniseries and Cinemax Programming. “Despite our pride in and affection for the series, as well as our respect for and gratitude towards Steven Soderbergh and his team, we have decided to return Cinemax to its original primetime series fare of high-octane action dramas, many of which will be internationally co-produced.”

 

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Image via Cinemax
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Image via Cinemax
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Image via HBO