TV Show review
January 22, 2018 · 48 min · TV-MA · Ended
Woke Score
Lower is better
Breakdown
These are the editorial factors and ratings behind our score for The Alienist.
Woke representation / casting
Prominent competent female lead Sara Howard who breaks into and leads in male professional spaces, including opening her own detective agency and hiring women; Jewish Isaacson twins portrayed as skilled detectives facing ethnic prejudice; season 1 plot revolves around murders of boy prostitutes in a subculture with visible cross-dressing and homosexuality.
Woke political dialogue
Characters comment on corsets as tools of physical oppression against women, the narrow roles allowed to women, and the corruption of institutions that favor the rich; these remain tied to period observations.
Identity-driven story themes
Season 2 foregrounds Sara Howard's push for professional independence and the plot of mothers losing babies to a hospital system that controls poor women's bodies and reproduction; season 1 gives central space to the victimization of boys in a male prostitution and cross-dressing world.
Review
The Alienist is a period crime drama set in 1896 New York City. A team of investigators led by criminal psychologist Dr. Laszlo Kreizler, newspaper illustrator John Moore, and secretary Sara Howard solves brutal murders of boy prostitutes in season 1 and tracks baby kidnappings linked to a corrupt hospital in season 2. Sara Howard emerges as a central figure who leaves the police department to run her own detective agency and challenges the restrictions placed on women, with season 2 placing heavier emphasis on her independence and the hardships faced by mothers under male-controlled institutions. The series also brings attention to police corruption, class divides, and a hidden subculture of male prostitution that includes cross-dressing.
Western institutional / cultural critique
The story shows police and hospitals serving the wealthy while harming the poor and vulnerable, with yellow journalism exploiting tragedies; critiques of Gilded Age power structures and some social ills appear without heavy modern activist reframing.
Woke character or canon changes
Sara Howard receives expanded agency and leadership in season 2 compared to the source novels; no documented identity-driven swaps of real historical figures or established characters.
Anti-woke backlash and complaints
Viewer comments and recent social media posts criticize season 2 for feminist overemphasis, sidelining the title character for Sara's story, or historical revisionism; scattered labels of "too woke" or anti-traditional bias exist but did not form a major contemporaneous controversy.
Creator track record context
Writer John Sayles has built a body of work around labor struggles, class, and race from a left perspective; casting director Avy Kaufman has credits on multiple projects with strong LGBTQ+ elements; other contributors show milder or no such patterns.
Production
