Spoiler alert: this recap is for people watching The Deuce on Sky Atlantic in the UK. Please do not add spoilers from later episodes.

Chris Alston has a story to tell Sandra, but we viewers might have already been given a sneak peek. In summary, here’s the scoop: the mob are moving to make more money from sex. In conjunction with the police, city hall and their friends in the legal profession, the Mafia are easing obscenity laws and removing prostitutes from the streets. The upshot? The manufacture of porn, which is not a great payer for a prostitute and altogether cuts out the pimp, becomes the biggest show in town.

There is another alternative for the women of The Deuce and, as Larry Brown observes, that’s “the ho house”. The mob are set to clean up there, too, thanks to their involvement in Vince and Bobby’s new establishment (and presumably some other ones, too). It’s clean, it’s safe and it’s off the streets, but again it’s less money for the pimps and their girls.

Let’s not pretend that anybody involved here is innocent, nor are many of the characters sympathetic. It’s hard to feel sorry for Larry, for example, when his pimpmobile is impounded. But, as The Deuce settles into its skin and the impression grows that this drama is David Simon on top form, we see The Wire creator’s righteous obsession coming to the fore; power and the structures that preserve it.

As I’ve mentioned in previous recaps, The Deuce regularly fixes the camera on its female characters as they are lost in thought. Perhaps they’re gazing into a mirror like Candy, or staring moodily across a smoke-filled room like Abby. At the end of this week’s episode, we are provided with another such moment as the camera focuses on Darlene. She is sitting on a bed in Vince’s brothel listening to the noises from the compartment next door. In the final seconds she looks over her shoulder, through the camera and past the audience. What is she thinking? Perhaps she is reconsidering her decision to say no to porn, perhaps wondering if the potential embarrassment is not better than the indignity of a place like the one she is in. Maybe she is wishing she were with her old regular, watching black and white movies. We don’t know, but what we do see is her powerlessness. Of the chain at which the mob (and the politicos) are at the top, the prostitute is at the very bottom.

Candy knows her place – “I looked up the definition of prostitute: it’s someone who has sex for money” – but she is not content with it. From day one she has seen the porn scene as her way to get off the street. Since being beaten viciously by a ‘client’ she has resolved to give up prostitution altogether, but this week she remains frustrated. Despite the changes in the law and porn director Harvey Wasserman’s decision to finally put film in his camera, there are not enough movies for her to make rent. And what’s more, Harvey seems reluctant to let her in on his business. (Lesson number one in keeping hold of power in a capitalist society? Maintain control of the means of production.) His best offer to Candy is to present her with the number of an escort agency, not dissimilar to Vince’s new offering, except this one is run by a woman. It’s prostitution but it’s safe. Oh, and the woman takes a cut.

This is no doubt a blow for Candy and it appears that she is stuck. Not only can she not return to the street, she can’t return to her family, either. We see her scram from her mother’s house when a man – her father, perhaps? – suddenly returns home. If it is her father, this might lend credence to Rodney the pimp’s suggestion last week that she was a victim of abuse. Even if not, it’s clear that Candy needs imminent change and things currently appear bleak. But with the money that is about to come on the table through porn, surely Wassermann can be persuaded that having another pair of hands behind the camera and in the editing “suite” is to everyone’s advantage.

Notes and queries

• “The big moolie is the brains of this operation.” So says Rudy Pipilo of Mike, the man brought in as an enforcer for the Hi Hat but someone who keeps revealing hidden depths, such as an interest in fables and a talent for interior design. Sure it was crazy Frankie who came up with the catchy title of the “masturbatorium”, but Mike’s idea for private booths in which punters can “view” porn could well be a serious money maker.

• On a side note, I’m getting more into Frankie and the whole Franco double act. This may be because he no longer seems like a simple Joe Pesci-style liability written simply to get his brother in trouble.

• Likewise, I’m starting to conceive of the possibility that Vince’s relationship with Rudy might not end with a bullet to the head in an alleyway. The gangster makes a good case as to why is so keen on working with the more sensible Martino brother. It’s because Vince doesn’t lie. Of course Rudy could be lying himself and he may yet turn to intimidating Vince, but it does strike me that the mob would prefer to have at least some people with whom they could have a straightforward working relationship. Otherwise all would be chaos. As with the relationship between pimp and prostitute, this is another way in which The Deuce seems ready to consider things differently.

• Not much Abby this week, which is fine by me.

• Kudos to CC turning up on the porn set, wrangling a 140% uplift on Lori’s agreed fee and wearing his ultimate Mack gear while doing so, cane included.

• Colour me blind, but I have only just learned that the Karate Kid, Ralph Macchio, has got himself a job on the vice squad.