Steven Soderbergh had a terrific idea for his series “The Knick,” that never came to pass. The plan was, after Season 2, to spin-off the turn-of-the-medical drama idea to different filmmakers and set it in different locales, with new concepts of early doctors working with the material they had at the time. While that didn’t work and the series was canceled (though it might arrive in the future via Barry Jenkins), Soderbergh arguably adopted the same anthology series idea and applied it to “The Girlfriend Experience,” which took his original 2009 film idea—about a high-end Manhattan call girl who provides emotional and sexual relationships at a high price while juggling the challenges of her life—and applied them to different settings and notions about transactional sex, sexuality, control and more. Season 1, directed by Amy Seimetz and Lodge Kerrigan, centered on a law student (Riley Keough) who has a secret life as a high-end call girl. Season 2, also directed by Seimetz and Kerrigan, splintered into two stories, each director directing one, Kerrigan’s in the world of DC politics and dark money, Seimetz’s about female trauma set in the world of a woman in witness protection.

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