The Knick

In the series premiere of this medical drama set in a 1900s New York City hospital, accomplished Dr. John W. Thackery is named chief surgeon and is pressured by a major benefactor to hire a black doctor as his top assistant.

Already fuming over the hospital's faulty new electrical system, Thackery tasks Herman Barrow, the Knicks' crooked superintendent, with delivering more corpses so that he and his team can test out novel surgical procedures.

Thackery weighs performing surgery on a former flame and orders Gallinger and Chickering to experiment on pigs. Barrow goes the extra yard to square a debt. After a bad day at work, Edwards expresses his frustrations at a local bar.

Algernon forces Thackery's hand during surgery, which irks Gallinger. A recovering Abigail regrets her involvement with Thackery, and Sister Harriet and Cleary make a couple of deals. Meanwhile, Bertie receives a scolding.

Barrow can alleviate a debt if he treats a wounded man and urges Capt. Robertson to buy one of Thomas Edison's new inventions. Meanwhile, Algernon tries a new approach to hernia surgery.

After testing a new procedure, Thackery and Bertie vow to reverse a series of failures in the operating theatre. Euphoric after helping Speight, Cornelia is than enthusiastic about her status as the future Mrs. Phillip Showalter.

The stabbing of a cop by a black man stirs up racial tension on the street and in the Knick, forcing Thackery and Edwards to take action. Barrow fears for Junia's safety. Meanwhile, Cornelia is impressed with Edwards' ingenuity.

Already on edge, Thackery worries that Dr. Levi Zinberg, a Jewish surgeon and inventor, will steal his spotlight at the next New York Surgical Society presentation. Gallinger tries to get Eleanor to move past her grief.

A late-night crime sheds unfavourable light on the Knick, forcing Robertson to come up with hush money. Lucy goes to extremes to get drugs for an increasingly desperate Thackery, whose plea for an advance from a seller falls on deaf ears.

In the season finale, refusing to collaborate with Dr. Zinberg on blood-transfusion research, an increasingly paranoid Thackery pushes himself to the limit to "solve the riddle" and beat his rival.