Deadwood Was An Awesome Show
Feb. 15th, 2011 12:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shipperxI noticed a couple of days ago that HBO had put the first 7 episodes of "Deadwood" on OnDemand (and that it was going to expire today). It's been ages since I've watched "Deadwood" so I decided to re-watch those episodes.
Damn. That was a really good show.
Seeing it again after having watched the entire series gives you a chance to catch and/or see things you didn't the first time. I remember when first watching being so distracted by Al's villainy that it's a surprise to go back and to see how early there were signs of a very complex character. In fact it's possible to look back and appreciate how nuanced all the characters are. Every character has their own agenda, their own plans and machinations, and -- more than I realized at the time -- a significant number were actually lovable beneath the filth and debauchery.
Wild Bill Hickok was always awesome, but in retrospect it's so easy to see that he came to Deadwood to die (not counting that as a spoiler since it's history. Other non-spoilers: The Titanic sank, the allies won WWII, and Jesus died). And poor Calamity Jane. All that bravado (and rampant alcoholism) and yet there's a good heart under it all. The first time around I missed her line about her past that strongly indicates that she was sexually molested as a child. I remember loving Doc early on, and --re-watching-- it's easy to remember why. It's amazing how many of these characters I came away with good feelings for. They were all broken outcasts of one sort or another and they made a community out of the wilderness.
Which is another thing that's more clear in retrospect than was immediately clear at the time, the point of Deadwood was about community and civilization. Primarily the way that 'civilization' is only a very thin veneer over the exact same stuff that's blatant in 'less civilized' society (and maybe for all it's uncouth, dirty, unwashed horror and violence... it's honest in what it is. It's not whitewashed). We don't get 'better' we just hide it beneath slicker veneers. What is good, is simple human decency.
So we start out with Al Swearingen, so cunning, canny, and scary. He is king of this place without laws and he runs the outlaws. He's full of machinations... and plans for the territory to be absorbed by the country. He wants his claims legitimized. And we have tigh-ass Seth Bullock who has his own set of rules. He is a 'righteous man,' but early on Doc points out that righteous men can do as much damage as the unrighteous, if only to prove their righteousness. Seth and Al are quite yin and yang with one another. Al has his odd moments of humanity and Seth is not above his times of sin. Power balances shift back and forward (with occasional truces) between them when they have common goals.
I saw on wiki that Cy was brought in by Milch to represent business, and I can see that. Al is intimidating because he's a man of action. Cy is damn well scary but in a different way. He's cleaned up and suited... but that doesn't mean that he's not every bit as brutal. He just hides it beneath better clothes... which, I suppose is the forerunner to Hearst who is wealthy and 'conservative' in his outward dealing and is in the end the scariest muther-effer of all. By the end, we cling to Al as the beast we best understand.
As Deadwood becomes civilized it never becomes less dangerous, it's that more and more of the danger sinks beneath the surface. In early Deadwood the filth was out in the open, by the end... it was being corporatized.
And can't leave out the girls. It does start with all the women being victimized in some way -- Jane as outcast, Trixie and Joanie as prostitutes, Alma having been pretty much sold as chattal to her husband. But, the truth is there was a lot of victimization. The girls in the saloons were basically in white slavery. Society women were married off for financial reasons. And yet for all the victimization, none of these women would settle for being victims. They fought it in the ways that they could. Alma is no fool (even if her husband is). And neither are Trixie or Joanie. And, though it didn't happen in life, I always felt that Jane got a happier end in Deadwood (albeit, that wasn't initially intended at the end).
On a prosaic level, re-watching it's clear to see that the plotting was tight and efficient. You can see subsequent plots being set up before the last plot climaxes, so that they seem to happen organically. The timing doesn't seem random. Everything is set up to build both plot and character.
As I said, looking back (and through the dense cloud of swear words), it was a really damn good show.
One thing that also struck me are how good the opening credits were and how meaningful. We start with a wild horse running free in the wilderness coming closer to the town and "civilization" and in the end the image of the wild horse in the town center dissolves and disappears in the muddy reflection of a building of business (that is in fact a place of prostitution...) It speaks very much of the meaning behind the show.
Damn. That was a really good show.
Seeing it again after having watched the entire series gives you a chance to catch and/or see things you didn't the first time. I remember when first watching being so distracted by Al's villainy that it's a surprise to go back and to see how early there were signs of a very complex character. In fact it's possible to look back and appreciate how nuanced all the characters are. Every character has their own agenda, their own plans and machinations, and -- more than I realized at the time -- a significant number were actually lovable beneath the filth and debauchery.
Wild Bill Hickok was always awesome, but in retrospect it's so easy to see that he came to Deadwood to die (not counting that as a spoiler since it's history. Other non-spoilers: The Titanic sank, the allies won WWII, and Jesus died). And poor Calamity Jane. All that bravado (and rampant alcoholism) and yet there's a good heart under it all. The first time around I missed her line about her past that strongly indicates that she was sexually molested as a child. I remember loving Doc early on, and --re-watching-- it's easy to remember why. It's amazing how many of these characters I came away with good feelings for. They were all broken outcasts of one sort or another and they made a community out of the wilderness.
Which is another thing that's more clear in retrospect than was immediately clear at the time, the point of Deadwood was about community and civilization. Primarily the way that 'civilization' is only a very thin veneer over the exact same stuff that's blatant in 'less civilized' society (and maybe for all it's uncouth, dirty, unwashed horror and violence... it's honest in what it is. It's not whitewashed). We don't get 'better' we just hide it beneath slicker veneers. What is good, is simple human decency.
So we start out with Al Swearingen, so cunning, canny, and scary. He is king of this place without laws and he runs the outlaws. He's full of machinations... and plans for the territory to be absorbed by the country. He wants his claims legitimized. And we have tigh-ass Seth Bullock who has his own set of rules. He is a 'righteous man,' but early on Doc points out that righteous men can do as much damage as the unrighteous, if only to prove their righteousness. Seth and Al are quite yin and yang with one another. Al has his odd moments of humanity and Seth is not above his times of sin. Power balances shift back and forward (with occasional truces) between them when they have common goals.
I saw on wiki that Cy was brought in by Milch to represent business, and I can see that. Al is intimidating because he's a man of action. Cy is damn well scary but in a different way. He's cleaned up and suited... but that doesn't mean that he's not every bit as brutal. He just hides it beneath better clothes... which, I suppose is the forerunner to Hearst who is wealthy and 'conservative' in his outward dealing and is in the end the scariest muther-effer of all. By the end, we cling to Al as the beast we best understand.
As Deadwood becomes civilized it never becomes less dangerous, it's that more and more of the danger sinks beneath the surface. In early Deadwood the filth was out in the open, by the end... it was being corporatized.
And can't leave out the girls. It does start with all the women being victimized in some way -- Jane as outcast, Trixie and Joanie as prostitutes, Alma having been pretty much sold as chattal to her husband. But, the truth is there was a lot of victimization. The girls in the saloons were basically in white slavery. Society women were married off for financial reasons. And yet for all the victimization, none of these women would settle for being victims. They fought it in the ways that they could. Alma is no fool (even if her husband is). And neither are Trixie or Joanie. And, though it didn't happen in life, I always felt that Jane got a happier end in Deadwood (albeit, that wasn't initially intended at the end).
On a prosaic level, re-watching it's clear to see that the plotting was tight and efficient. You can see subsequent plots being set up before the last plot climaxes, so that they seem to happen organically. The timing doesn't seem random. Everything is set up to build both plot and character.
As I said, looking back (and through the dense cloud of swear words), it was a really damn good show.
One thing that also struck me are how good the opening credits were and how meaningful. We start with a wild horse running free in the wilderness coming closer to the town and "civilization" and in the end the image of the wild horse in the town center dissolves and disappears in the muddy reflection of a building of business (that is in fact a place of prostitution...) It speaks very much of the meaning behind the show.
