Deadwood
I thought there was a full thread devoted to this but a search yields only references to it in other threads (enough to make me realize a few people on here watched it).
I just finished all 3 seasons in a little under a month. Fuck. Such a good show. I resisted because I’m really not a western movie/show type of guy.
But wow. Just so good on every level. The writing. The acting. The sets. Everything. Some notes/high points from my end:
-Al Swearengen, obviously but so much more so when he became more of a conflicted villian (I don’t think anti-hero is the right term, more so a noble scoundrel) and especially when Hearst came to town.
-Hearst. I can’t believe Gerald McCraney (sp?) is this good an actor.
-Swearengen doing his deep thinking while being…..occupied by one of his hookers.
-Charlie Utter whenever he stepped up to anyone.
-Every Wu/Swearengen conversation ever.
-Every awkward conversation between Bullock and his wife.
-Al destroying Hearst’s henchman in his office towards the end of season 3.
-Richardson and his praying with the antlers.
-Farnum
-“We ought not to finish this conversation, or we will fight and you will need to handle the store while I convalesce.” Star was such a great chill character.
-The street fight between Dority and Hearst’s goon. So badass.
I can’t believe they ended the show like they did and cancelled it cold. I remember the outcry at the time and figured it was just people being stupid. But seriously, one of the great indignities of modern television. Especially since effing Entourage is still on the air.
Comments
Agreed! Everything about this show was incredible, except for the way it ended…especially since “John from Cincinnati” sucked so hard.
I love Deadwood. Flat-out love it. Watched it during broadcast, had my heart broken when it was canceled, and have watched it a couple more times to cement my notion that it’s one of the greatest things to ever grace a screen big or small.
I can’t say enough good things about Ian McShane as Swearengen, the way he casually tosses off that sardonic and romantic self-interested flair is never ever ever dull. But I love how the show messily doles out heaping, generous scenes to all the different actors standing around the periphery. William Sanderson’s E.B. Farnum morphs into this iambic-pentameter-spewing Shakespearean fool. Tim Olyphant is all rage and fire. Carradine is a great, sad, heavy historical figure. Powers Booth is so fucking Powers Fucking Booth that you’d think he taught crocodiles how to smile. Brad Dourif’s monologue against an indifferent God is one of the best speeches in the show.
My two biggest thematic loves on the show: the long arc of a developing civilization and the power of language. The setting slowly morphs from a mud-caked hole where every man carries a gun and can easily defend his own interests as he tears a living from the ground to a microcosm of a developed civilization where the extras in the background of shots in the third season cower in terror while godlike power-brokers glower down from their balconies high in the sky. I love that evolution and how it’s lovingly developed every step of the way. And the language, the way every person speaks uniquely and creates a web of relationships soley based on the way they talk to others. I think my favorite example of this is when the contract/legalese-obsessed psycho Walcott rebukes a man he’d steamrolled earlier and refuses to refund him a cent:
Including youth, Mr. Manuel? And why not beauty? Not credibly restored, perhaps, but as a new non-negotiable term? Would you not have, too, your brother Charlie resurrected? Would you stipulate your envy of him being purged? Surely, you insist that Charlie retain certain defects – his ineffable self-deceptions, for example, which were your joy in life to rebuke, and purpose, so far as you had one. I suppose you would see removed those qualities which caused you to love him, and the obliviousness to danger which allowed you to shed his blood.
That shit’s fucking poetry.
One last point of agreement: I also snorted sarcastically and rolled my eyes when “Major Dad” lumbered in as the ominous George Hearst the characters had been whispering about all season. Gerald McCraney ended up creating one of the most terrifying and monstrous villains of all time, his performance is a towering achievement.
Your bullet points are a perfect list of all my favorite things about the show as well. Particularly Wu, Richardson, and Utter. I also loved Keith Carradine’s short-lived portrayal of Hickock in season one. Justin has also already covered my additional point, which is Powers Fucking Boothe.
I rarely re-watch anything but I’m seriously considering it with this show since I think I missed so much stuff with the speeches and languages and plot nuances.
If I had to level one criticism it was that the whole sub-plot of the theater troop in season 3 was so out of place and added absolutely nothing to any of the other plots or narrative arcs. Perhaps it was slated to be fleshed out in season 4 more thoroughly, but on it’s own it just sits there as this big turd in a punch bowl. Which is a shame because Brian Cox is also a monster of a good actor and given the right character would have been a phenomenal addition to the show.
Also, speaking of Powers Fucking Boothe, the first time I ever remember hearing of him was when I was 10 and he starred as Jim Jones in a tv movie about the whole Guyana cult mass suicide. I remember seeing commercials for it and reading something about it in TV Guide and the whole concept of the story scared the crap out of me. So I will always equate him with that scar on my 10 year old mind and his badassery has not subsided since then.
Also, Southern Comfort which also features Mr. Caradine.
Badass X2
Just so you know, I’m avoiding this thread cause I’m still on the first season. I’m afraid of spoilers.
Thanks for letting us know.
I will likely return to it later and find something to argue with you about.
There will be no argument. If you’re not hooked after the first scene of the series ( the hanging), there’s something wrong.
You’re right, the theater troupe in season three is a waste of time… it didn’t add anything the first time I saw it and subsequent viewings (after the sad cancellation) just make me think that the quickly approaching end would have been better served by a different subplot altogether. Brian Cox is always fun to watch, but he could have arrived in Deadwood alone without all the attendant pointlessness and that weird dying guy who looked like Ben Franklin.
Still, I always loved that David Milch would indulge his show-running duties in obsessing over weird shit in the sidelines of the universe he’d created. Sometimes this would pay off.
If there’s any doubt over the guy being some sort of insane literary genius, this New Yorker profile will put it to rest.