Deadwood (#16)

The power of a second chance and Shakespearean swearing.

The first time I heard about Deadwood, I was for sure NOT IN on it. Everyone kept telling me that it was “like Shakespeare, but in the old West.” I mean, that’s interesting … but the fact that EVERYONE was saying it was somehow repellent to me. But people I like couldn’t stop praising it, so I watched an episode … and was completely turned off. People seemed to be swearing for the sake of swearing, I couldn’t follow the plot - and that was it. I was out.

And then, a few years later, I’m not even sure why but I decided to give it another chance - and was completely swept up in it. It’s a good reminder that just because you didn’t like something at first, sometimes we just aren’t in the right place for something - but we could be later.

Deadwood takes place in the late 1800s, following Seth Bullock (Timothy Olyphant) as he moves to this developing town of Deadwood, South Dakota to open a hardware store and put his days as a marshall behind him. (As you may guess, that last part is easier said than done.)

Deadwood is only nominally a town, it’s really a camp near a gold mining area - and as such, has attracted all sorts of shady characters. That most notably includes Al Swearengen (Ian McShane), who runs a saloon/whorehouse and essentially the town - as Deadwood is, at least before Bullock shows up, a lawless place.

Showrunner David Milch actually wrote a lot of the dialogue in iambic pentameter, which certainly aids the references to Shakespeare. There’s a lot of citations to the Bible, interspersed with more foul language than perhaps any show before or since. There is a LOT of violence and the gore isn’t spared, and the characters are often very casually racist, misogynistic and rife with many other moral failures. It’s rough sledding, to be sure.

Pain or damage don’t end the world, or despair or fucking beatings. The world ends when you’re dead. Until then, you got more punishment in store. Stand it like a man—and give some back. - Al Swearengen, “E.B. Was Left Out.”

The period this takes place was brutal, as was life in these mining areas where one can go from a pauper to wealth overnight. The show isn’t for everybody, but for those who do like it, they often love it. Here’s an article saying that it’s the best drama of all time which is a bit higher than I have it. (I’ve ranked it my 16th favorite show, regardless of genre.) That said, this quote from that article is really well put:

Deadwood is about why society is necessary, why we keep coming together and building communities and villages and whole civilizations. But it is also about the inherent deception at the heart of most societies, about the fact that, to keep things rolling along, we need to tell bigger and bigger lies, which cover up more and more horrifying things. Deadwood doesn’t try to defend or pillory this fact of human nature. It just describes its existence.

The two leads, Olyphant and McShane, are preposterously good - to the point that I literally will watch anything they’re in. (Spoiler alert - at least one of them will show up on this list in a future writeup.) But look at the other actors who are part of the show: Molly Parker, John Hawkes, Brad Dourif, Robin Weigert, Kim Dickens, Powers Boothe, Titus Welliver, Brian Cox, Sarah Paulson, Ricky Jay, Anna Gunn, Jeffery Jones…some of those names may not be immediately recognizable but you’ve seen them all before and they’re all terrific actors.

(My favorite story with this is with actor Garret Dillahunt, who was in a few episodes near the start of the series as one character who (like many others) dies. Apparently, David Milch liked him so much that he just decided to bring him back - not as the same character but as an entirely new character with a fuller beard and better wardrobe. And everyone just rolls with it.)

I won’t pretend the show is for everybody. Certainly, the language - not the swearing, but the actual language that all the characters tend to use - is complex and for many either confusing or just a flat out turnoff. Somehow, when you are watching the show, the actors pull it off. Seriously.

Seth Bullock: You and I are gonna talk.

Otis Russell: You don't account for my preferences, Mr. Bullock?

Seth Bullock: I will beat you here in the street.

Otis Russell: First-rate thinking. My daughter's agent beats her father in the street, how better to condemn Alma to deepened suspicion as to her role in her husband's violent death and widen suspicion to include yourself? Shoot craps, Mr. Bullock? Were you bullied, Mr. Bullock, when young and incapable? Now you see wrongs everywhere and bullying you feel called to remedy. The bully who oppressed your youth isn't at the table with us, perhaps he's long dead. If you will view the present with more clarity, perhaps you'd recognize that I'm not victimizing my daughter, but merely asking for a small portion of the ample proceeds from her veins. Alma is hurt only in your particular view of things. And while I'll sign no guarantee not to return, or against any future claim on her compassion, realize I do hate it here. And if you inhale and expel pure righteousness, my olfactories are keen to the smell of shit. Having heard all that and knowing, as you must, the injudiciousness of making an enemy of a man who could testify truthfully that, five minutes before her marriage, he heard his daughter wish her prospective husband dead, and who won't shrink from lying as to what she admitted to him on his arrival in this cesspool, as to her complicity in her husband's murder, I suppose you'd best take your swing.

But it’s also VERY funny at times, heartwarming and the characters, as flawed as they are, often have very believable arcs.

Jack McCall: Should we shake hands or something, relieve the atmosphere? I mean how stupid do you think I am?

Bill Hickok: I don't know, I just met you.

Deadwood lasted three seasons, and the last one really didn’t have a true finale - it wasn’t clear when it ended that it would be the end. That said, for me it was quite satisfying and moving. For many, it wasn’t enough - and a Deadwood movie came out many years later. That’s not part of the series, and isn’t part of the ranking here - and in truth, I didn’t need it, nor was I blown away by it. Perhaps, like the series at first for me, I wasn’t ready for it.

Many shows on this list I have here because they were well done in all respects, and certainly Deadwood checks all those boxes. But it’s also a triumph in the sense that I don’t know how anyone conceives of a show like this, and then makes it happen.

If you’re keeping track - and I have grave concerns if that’s actually happening - here’s where we are so far: