I was just thinking about the music last night, how they start playing something around the 45-minute mark, when it’s killin’ time.[/quote]
Ha! I think that’s exactly the tune I was thinking of. 45-minute mark sounds about right.[/quote]
So each episode is a mini Godfather? :)
Yup. My wife settled in to watch the first episode with a “Hey, Lovejoy!” as she loves all things Brit. Three "cocksucker"s later…“I don’t like Lovejoy in this.” Oddly enough, she didn’t have as much of a problem with the foot-on-the-neck scene as she did with the language. What is it with women and certain “c” words?
I’ll jump on to the “think the show is great” bandwagon as well. I actually find myself looking as forward to watching this on Sunday evening as I do The Sopranos.
I was really happy to see Powers Boothe in the last episode, and am anxious to see how that whole scenario plays out.
A couple of questions:
Is it just me, or does the Timothy Olyphant character (Seth), seem a little too clean-cut and pretty (for lack of a better word) for the setting and circumstances? I realize there’s the whole “White Hats” vs “Black Hats” concept, and that it’s standard in Westerns for the good guy to be handsome while the villian is, well, not. Maybe it’s just me . . .
Why doesn’t someone just kill Al Swearengen, instead of everyone being so terrified of him all the time? It’s not like he has two or three bodyguards at all times . . . in fact, he seems pretty vunurable for the most part. None of his henchmen seem to be very menacing . . . or even very competent (with the exception of the guy he sent to kill the little girl).
I think that’s part of the point: Al is a king among low men and women, but only among them. Also, keep in mind the spectre of what he is, and how it works. Al doesn’t kill people in broad daylight with witnesses: he or is henchman do so in relative secrecy, with plausible deniability. People who even seem to be on Al’s side (to the casual outside observer) just…disappear. That’s enough to keep the dimmer folk at bay, and enough for the guys like Seth from having enough evidence to make a move against him. He’s a cheap crook, and he uses that to wrok both sides to keep them off his back. It’s genius, if partially accidental perhaps. He’s bad enough for the whores and dim prospectors (even if they think themselves quick, like Mr. Fancy Pants), but harmless enough for the real fuckers - Seth and Bill. If they had the mind, you’re absolutely correct - they could waltz into Al’s saloon and shoot their way up to the man himself and never even worry about reloading.
My favorite part is, I think the REAL bad guy just hit town in the form of Powers Boothe.
Excellent points. I guess I never looked it it (or him) from the point of view of a Deadwood resident.
Thanks Bill.
Remember when a drunken Jane wants to go in there and kill Al? She probably could have, but everyone in that brothel is packing (even some of the whores) she’d have been dead. Also remember, it’s important for even Wild Bill Hickock to have a witness when he shoots someone for “intending him harm”. With no law around, murdering even a snake like Al would get you strung up or shot down.
Plus, who knows how many spies that guy has!
I think the show is about how brutal Al’s world unravels in the face of strong men like Bullock and maybe Powers Booth’s character. The show is going to quickly become the “us versus them” scenario Paranoid Al already thinks it is.
Is this goig to be an ongoing series every year, or is it a one shot thing?
Season two (12 eps) already ordered for.
That’s the big thing cementing Swearengen’s power, I think. Nobody working for him is sure of how close the other guys are to him. And everyone around Al is weak in some way, so he can easily manipulate or bribe them. My one problem with the scenario is that even in a town the size of Deadwood, there would be a few smart people around with the same absence of morals. Seth and his partner, Hickok, and now the Powers Booth hotel owner and the women who seems to be his number-one whore, seem to be the only people in town with brains and guts enough to just shoot Swearengen in the face. That doesn’t seem realistic, especially when you consider the balls required to head west in the 1870s.
I think it’s going to be a whole lot more flexible than that. We’ve already seen Seth make a deal with Swearengen. Hickok’s a bizarre character who, at any rate, will probably be killed before the end of the first season, as the real Hickok bought it in Deadwood in 1876. I’d imagine Booth and Swearengen will wear white hats and black hats by turns as the season goes on.
Fear of Swearengen is what keeps people in line. Remember, people don’t stand up to him because they know better - Cy Tolliver (Booth), Hickock, and Bullock don’t know any better, but at the same time don’t care much either. They are strong people (well the latter two are) - and strong people would have either left or done something else in Deadwood by that time (or been killed one way or another).
— Alan
I just read the first paragraph of Salon article on the dark side of Cowboys like Hickok.
They said spoilers, but shit, I read it anyway. Doh. Everyone’s really going to want to watch this episode though.
:cry:
Did they really have to do that so early?
Yeah, that was a shame. The abruptness of it made it more jarring.
I know it, as Hickok was such a badass. Goddamn I love this show.
I guess the part about the Indian head will be explained in the next episode.
— Alan
SPOILERS
Everything was aimed toward it though. Bill’s ‘babysitter’ left for Cheyenne, Seth got to call him Bill, he passed off the widow’s business to Montana, he said “So long” to Jane …then he looked down to see the chair which would place his back to the door. I am surprised they didn’t pan from Seth’s tears down to the table with Aces and Eights on it.
Still sucks, though.
It does suck indeed.
I liked the scene where the hotel owner was talking to Swearegen and waving his arms around going “maybe a guy might think that people were coming at him from everywhere when they might not be!”
I’m confused as to what the guy waving the decapitated head around had to do with anything though.
Well my initial impression is that I’m not as enthused about the show anymore.
We’ll see how it goes after I wake up. :)
Did anyone else get the vibe that Bill knew he was going to be shot?
His comment to Charlie about “let me go to hell in my own way”, coupled
with the pre-shooting shot of him looking up from his cards as
McGruff (I know that’s not it, but I love the Crime Dog!) walked over
made it look like he allowed himself to be shot, given that he was
had already wrapped up all his affairs and was doing what he loved.
Rather depressing if so, but then Bill was never an inspiring character,
just a great one to watch.
I’m having a tough time locating the cite again (I was looking around, surprised to find that Al Swearengen was an actual resident and bar owner of Deadwood), but apparently legend has it that Bill mentioned to his ‘caretaker’ that Deadwood was going to be his last place of camp, that he did know he would never be leaving there.
After watching the first 3 episodes on Friday and then Sundays… the wife and I are hooked! Awesome show. I’m not gonna tell her what happens historically and ruin it for her. HBO does it again. 8)