The House Next Door

I think the covering too much ground you're referring to Matt may be an issue of the ultimate form of Deadwood, that is a serial. Milch, despite his unquestionable literary background, still seems to me to have his head most in the televised serial form. Given how damn smart and interwined it is, I often find myself forgetting this.

The Wire is, really, more of a televised novel, and thus not likely to write checks it can't cash. Deadwood, to use a lame metaphor, is a juggler with twenty different plates in the air. I don't think they've actually dropped any yet, but they do occasionalyl scramble to keep them all up. Cheers!

James: Good point, though this season feels more like a serial to me than One and Two, which did have a novelistic coherence.

PS -- and I am kicking myself for not mentioning this in the Ledger review -- Sunday's episode is credited to W. Earl Brown, a.k.a. Dan Dority. A fine job, too.

I had some of these thoughts during Season Two, so not quite as much of a surprise to me. Though, I haven't yet gotten the DVD set of two (too bad HBO's sets are so damn expensive, plus The Wire 3 just came out and Rome 1 tommorrow), and the condensing effect of boxed sets sometimes give a different feel.

The narrative drive of Hearst's goals of amalgamation and capital this season has kept this season feeling tigther for me. If the main plot, if a show like Deadwood could be considered as having a main plot, wasn't so strong, I might have less patience for the more meandering threads. Cheers!

In "Tell Your God to Ready for Blood",Al himself acknowledged a certain similarity between himself and Hearst--"He runs his business like a despot"--but articulated the difference as being that Hearst lacked a sense of proportion. There's some logic in that.

As to the covering too much ground issue, we may be seeing the results of killing the fourth season, threads and characters introduced that might have taken on greater importance later.

The episodes written by the show's colorful supporting cast often come across as the most impish and laugh out loud funny of the series. Let’s not forget season one’s “Mr. Wu” by former cast member Rickey Jay, which I had the distinction of using the word “cocksucker” 39 times in one hour. After wallowing in the muck and mud for months out of the year, you can’t blame the performers for trying to introduce some levity into the proceedings.

Excellent points brought up Matt, and I’m especially glad you pointed out some of the plotlines that feel less than justified thus far. I personally have been growing restless as the build up to conflict with Hearst has been slowly (very slowly) ratcheting forward, the show continues to pile on subplots only to resolve them almost immediately with little to no fanfare. I’m still scratching my head as to the purpose of the Wyatt brothers’ short stay in town and would love for more to have come from Odell and Hearst angling for position. But no doubt about it, this was the first “fun” episode in a while. It’s such a great ensemble but I’d been hankering for an Al-centric episode for a while now.

I think my hands down favorite moment of the episode (if not season) was Con Stapleton wooing Cynthia Ettinger’s character through her hotel door, with a piece of parchment in hand. Lacking a nearby light source in the dark hallway, he must run to a window to read the rest and returns with (or words to the effect of) “let me let loose my male stallion from my he-stable.” I’m just a sucker for a good dick metaphor I guess.

And not to quibble, but was the expression “homosexual” used back then?

It seemed to me that this episode was exceptionally fast-paced for the series. It usually seems to take a more leisurely pace, but this one moved.

One thing I have noticed about Al, or at least, the evolution of Al, is that unlike a bully -- which Hearst is, and Al was -- he is a man of strength because he imparts the wisdom of his strength to others. In this episode, most notably, it's the counsel he gives to Alma Garrett Ellsworth to continue a defiant walk down the street. She then finds the strength to tell her husband of her intentions, and finds enough strength to do this despite his objection.

The most famous example of this is of course the great speech he gives A.W. Merrick, after he slaps him in season 2 and tells him all you can do is take punishment like a man, and then start dishing out some.

Hearst doesn't offer his strength to others - it would, in his view, sap his own prowess as the alpha male. The more pragmatic Al is able to incorporate others under his umbrella through protection, but allowing them to protect themselves (even the raw feelings that have resulted at times, such as when he embraced a new crony in Silas - and how Dan reacted - have been smoothed over.) Notice also that his biggest, loudest conflicts early in the show were with the characters that each had an independent strength from him -- Bullock, Trixie, and the Doc -- but they're among his closest confidantes now, even though he can still roar at them from time to time.

Great site, Matt - I look forward to these reviews every week.

Deadwood remains a miracle of television. Having a little knowledge of the actual history of the place is a dangerous thing, which is a good thing, because Milch's freedom to embellish and conflate keeps viewers guessing. Milch has gone so far down the road in making Hearst every bit as monstrous as his geologist that it's hard to imagine a satisfactory denouement of his large share of the storyline that would not confound history, or redress all that has come before in the series.

But the writers have confounded expectations before, and with this episode, the writers as well as the characters seemed to have regained some sense of balance and mastery as they hunker down and await. . . .

There are too many good characters with good stories to wrap up in a manner they deserve, at least within the compromise-abbreviated HBO season four plan. Not only will all of this large cast servicing cause the fabric of the show to become stretched, strained and frayed, it will rush even those moments that are otherwise perfectly realized.

So we too await developments. Someone's gonna get it on Sunday, but whether it will be Hearst burning the town down or stuffing its ballot boxes remains in equipoise (not really consistent alternatives). If Hearst is true to his character as drawn, at some point his love for the color will cause him to regain control of himself. But we now have gathering off-stage Wu's men and army troops in the supposed employ of Hearst. General Crook in the offing to head off the misuse of the army? To allow army troops to become paid-for puppets, a neat, parachuted-in voting block, strains credulity, as does a Honk Kong action film showdown between Wu's and Hearst's forces.

I can think of no other television show I've ever watched where I felt such a sense of apprehension (fear?) for the characters, even unto mining the coming attractions for hints that some may remain upright.

Al likes to be a mentor, as long as the pupil doesn't surpass him (witness Johnny and Wu's pictograph).

Andrew: "And not to quibble, but was the expression “homosexual” used back then?" I wonder the same thing, Perhaps the House's resident OED affiliate can answer that.

I tend to think not. I just checked a Webster's Dictionary published in 1956, and it wasn't in there.

Of course, a couple of weeks ago, Jewel gave the finger, so I think there's room for anachronism if Milch thinks he'll get a salient point or a good gag out of it.

Way to to go W. Earl! When I noticed that he had penned the ep, it made me curious about the writing process on a show like Deadwood.

Obviously an individual writer can't write whatever he/she wants (if so, I would have thought we would have seen Dan D gettin' some last night).

How does it work? Is he given a treatment noting the story points that must be hit? And just how much room is there for interpretation by an individual who writes a single ep?

When I noticed that he had penned the ep, it made me curious about the writing process on a show like Deadwood

Bill, check out Deadwood's Member Boards at HBO, specifically the thread titled There Once Was a Feller Named Earl, where you'll see some posts by BigEarlB clarifying this very topic:

http://boards.hbo.com/thread.jspa?threadID=300001145&tstart=5&mod=1155593558623

BigEarlB is none other than W. Earl Brown (Dan Dority) who wrote last night's episode.

Unfocused sub-plots, schmubplots - I just finished watching this episode and I can't remember the last time I had so much fun with my clothes on.

I've been hedging and hawing up until now, Matt, but these past several weeks have finally won me over to your side -- DEADWOOD really has blossomed into the greatest television show ever. (Yes, even better than FISHING WITH JOHN!)

What's been moving me so deeply lately, and and I feel like it's sorta revolutionary, is that in this season we've got the regular gang of drunken foul-mouthed cut-throat scoundrels, and suddenly they must band together to fight off the greater evil -- and at nearly every turn their best offensive move is some public display of civilized behavior or compassion.

From Bullock's letter to Alma's defiant walk through the thoroughfare, these are moral victories -- simple assertions of basic human decency that not even an all-powerful monster like Hearst can snuff out.

This week seemed specifically designed as a way to mock the audience's blood-lust - and what a riot it was to see Ellsworth bound and fuming, and Bullock too angry to even speak - as we realize that Al's sneaky, insidious "all's-well" appearances are far smarter and more effective.

(I fear "How's the fuckin' back there, pal?" is soon to become a way overused catch-phrase in the Burns household.)

Okay sure, Al got to sink his teeth into a great torture-murder scene (him pointing to the corpse and simply saying "Wu" was pretty fucking iconic) but at the same time it struck me as fairly business-like and emotionless, insofar as Swidgin throat-cutting goes.

Of course, Al leading the camp against Hearst is one of those "only Nixon could go to China" situations that only a show this delightfully complicated would dare come up with.

I dunno, I'm just so madly in love with this trajectory of embarassing and infuriating Hearst by the whole of Deadwood acting as upright, civilized and functional as possible -- I can't recall ever seeing a plot turn as complex and emotionally satisfying as this one has been.

I had a similar question about flipping the bird in Titanic, but according to unreliable Wikipedia:

"The origin of this gesture is highly speculative, but is quite possibly up to 2500 years old. It is identified as the digitus impudicus ('impudent finger') in Ancient Roman writings [1] and reference is made to using the finger in the Ancient Greek comedy The Clouds by Aristophanes. It was defined there as a gesture intended to insult another. It has been noted that the gesture resembles an erect penis.
Ancient Romans also considered an image of an erect phallus as a talisman against evil spells. As a consequence, displaying this gesture to another may not have been a pseudo-sexual insult but rather an insulting statement along the lines of—"I'm going to protect myself against your witchcraft, before you even start" but an even earlier reference is made to ancient farmers using this finger to test hens for coming eggs.
Jean Froissart (circa 1337-circa 1404) was a historian and the author of Froissart's Chronicles, a document that is essential to an understanding of Europe in the fourteenth century and to the twists and turns taken by the Hundred Years' War. The story of the English waving their fingers at the French is told in the first person account by Jean Froissart. However, the description is not of an incident at the Battle of Agincourt, but rather at the siege of a castle nearby in the Hundred Years' War. Adding to the evidence is that by all accounts Jean Froissart died before the battle actually took place; it was therefore rather difficult for him to have written about it."
One should note that Jean Froissart's writings aren't the most reliable and that a similar story is told about the English giving the V sign. This can be further looked into at the Battle of Agincourt."
As for the Agincourt version, "Before the Battle of Agincourt in 1415, the French, anticipating victory over the English, proposed to cut off the middle finger of all captured English soldiers. Without the middle finger it would be impossible to draw the renowned English longbow and therefore be incapable of fighting in the future. This famous weapon was made of the native English Yew tree, and the act of drawing the longbow was known as "plucking the yew" (or "pluck yew"). Much to the bewilderment of the French, the English won a major upset and began mocking the French by waving their middle fingers at the defeated French, saying, "See, we can still pluck yew! PLUCK YEW!" Since "pluck yew" is rather difficult to say, the difficult consonant cluster at the beginning has gradually changed to a labiodental fricative F, and thus the words often used in conjunction with the one-finger-salute are mistakenly thought to have something to do with an intimate encounter. It is also because of the pheasant feathers on the arrows used with the longbow that the symbolic gesture is known as "giving the bird."
The Agincourt theory seems to be the most prevalent in a cursory search, but all would more than predate the events in Deadwood.

I think Milch and company are pretty open and unapologetic about the use of some anachronistic language on the show. The DVD commentary on season one mentions that when E.B. says "Motherfucker!" during his bloodstain-cleaning monologue, Sanderson improvised that one word. They wavered because the word was out of period, but they decided to leave it in because the moment was so good. Since then, I've noticed, the show has used that word on a number of occasions.

Also, regarding the language in general, Milch has been open about the fact that much of the extreme swearing features words that are far more commonly used today (though most were already coined in 1876), to give the modern viewer a feel for how shocking the town's swearing was to contemporary ears.

So a visitor to actual 1870s Deadwood was more likely to hear a constant stream of "Damn", "Goddamn", "Hell", and the like - according to Milch more religious, not so sexual, in nature - than some of our favorite Deadwood phrases, but Milch felt that the actual language employed would have come off a bit archaic and unintentionally silly.

Also, as per the HBO discussion board link Dan Jardine pointed out, W. Earl Brown is very candid about who wrote which parts of the episode -- he takes credit (acknowledging heavy Milch rewriting) for the Gem scenes and much of the Hearst material, credits Regina Corrado with Jane's monologue, and says others wrote the Langrishe scenes and the premise of the episode (Alma getting shot at). Unless I'm misreading his post, he seems to suggest that Milch told him he was running with the episode's script 3 days before filming was to begin!

I've got OED access online. The earliest citation for "homosexual" is 1892.

Andrew: Interesting. I wonder if Webster's removed the word in the 1950s for the reasons you'd expect.

As dense as every scene involving Langrishe in this episode made me feel, I think their opacity served to increase my enjoyment, on levels both dramatic and thematic, of the clear delineation made between the beating and murder Al Swearengen administered in the service of the community and the abuse that Tolliver and Hearst inflicted on impotent underlings in their futile attempts at achieving immediate gratification.

Bret: I've liked the Langrishe/theater troupe stuff a lot, because it puts an additional and very provocative frame around the rest of the season's major actions. However, I do wish the opening of the theater and the first production had happened sooner, so that Langrishe and company could have been more fully integrated into the life of the town, and Milch's "drama shapes/reflects life" thesis explored in something more than an abstract way. But as other commenters have said, this might not be his fault; at the time of shooting, he was under the impression that there would be a fourth season.