 First, the good news. HBO and “Deadwood” creator David Milch have agreed to two two-hour movies in 2007 to allow Milch to end the show properly. The network had originally agreed to do six more episodes, but Milch wanted a clean break from the “day in the life” format that each episode has represented thus far. So expect the two movies to cover more time, like a normal film. Now, the bad news. This season is over, with much tension, but without much resolution. Sure, Hearst left camp, but I was expecting some sort of a fight, considering that Hawkeye showed up with his seventeen and a half men and Wu showed up with a group of Chinese. Swearengen seemed content to allow Hearst to leave peacefully, as long as he didn’t put up a stink about which whore was actually killed as punishment for Trixie’s attack last week. Had Hearst pressed Al about the whereabouts of the real Trixie, Al would have gone at him with his knife. That’s quite the display of loyalty for Swearengen to show one of his former girls. Someone had to take Trixie’s place, and the unfortunate one was Gin, Johnny’s favorite. Johnny didn’t take too kindly to it either, and this storyline has the potential to play out in 2007. But my guess is that he’ll get over it and his loyalty to Al won’t be an issue any further. Bullock’s temper flashed a couple of times in this episode, but Hearst let his outbursts pass without punishment. Maybe it was enough that Bullock was going to lose the (fixed) county-wide election, or maybe Hearst saw the writing on the wall and just wanted to get out of camp in one piece. Either way, he meant to leave Cy in charge of his holdings, but Cy doesn’t seem to want that, even though he agreed to the deal. Out of frustration, he killed Leon and then pulled out his pistol to take a shot at Hearst before the magnate left camp, ultimately scaring the shit out of Jeanine before heading back into his saloon. The relationship between Jane and Joanie continues to develop and the two are starting to act like an old married couple. Jane continues to turn to alcohol whenever she gets frustrated, so it will be interesting to see if she’s able to kick the habit with Joanie’s help. But the surprise star of tonight’s show was Charlie Utter. He was on fire throughout – first, with Hearst at his hotel door and later on in the day in defense of the proper order of the voting line. Don’t get me wrong - Al’s speech to the Chief’s head was terrific, but one expects that from him. Even though Charlie has had a few good rants in his day, his performance tonight trumped them all. I still don’t know why Milch introduced the theater troupe, as they did not have a major impact on any of the important storylines of the season. Brian Cox is a fine actor, and I was waiting for him to make a move on Hearst in the hotel, but I was once again disappointed in the result. In the future, maybe the purpose of their presence will become clear or maybe they’ll just fade into the background – only time will tell. So Hearst has left camp leaving Cy in charge, Alma has sold her stake, Bullock is no longer the sheriff and Trixie dodged a serious bullet. Deadwood is in a state of flux and Milch has the challenge of wrapping up everyone’s storylines (or at least most of them) in just four hours. HBO has cancelled a few good series lately – “Deadwood” and “Carnivale” are gone and “Rome” was on the chopping block before getting a year’s reprieve – so I’m wondering if this particular business model is working for them. They’ve put out some of the best TV in the last few years, so let’s hope that this stormy weather will blow through.
|
What a colossal disappointment. Utter was great this episode but, damnit, where’s the fight? There was this supposed “calm before the storm,” but there was never any damn storm. I was wrapped up in every episode this season, but that’s because I kept waiting…and waiting…and waiting for something big to happen. Hell, even Ellsworth’s death was anticlimactic — he’s talking to his dog in his tent one minute and he’s got a bullet in his head the next. Boom, that’s it.
This season was one big tease. I’d like to think these two movies will help erase some of this disappointment (I’d really like to think that, actually), but I’m afraid to get my hopes up. Each week I thought we’d finally get the payoff they’d been hinting at all season, and it never came.
I can see why you are disappointed. The show has been building towards this all season and this is how it ends? With Hearst riding out of town?
If Milch really didn’t know the series was ending when they shot this episode, then I understand the finale. He didn’t want to kill off Bullock or Swearengen (for next season) and he couldn’t very well kill off Hearst, as he went on to be a senator. If he had known, I’m sure there would have been more blood. In fact, the scenes with Cy felt like they were added to inject some violence into that final scene.
As a series finale? Not satisfying - but as a season finale, I thought it was pretty good. I’m going to give Milch the benefit of the doubt and I expect great things in the four hours next year.
The only way I can reconcile the anti climactic ending was if these characters and events are based on actual history. That being the case, I would love to know the follow through of the major characters and events to present day.
Wikipedia has a pretty comprehensive list of the characters on the show, some who were real life residents of Deadwood, and some filler characters.
It looks like Seth Bullock, Al Swearengen, Sol Star, E.B. Farnum, George Hearst, Calamity Jane, Charlie Utter, Martha Bullock (who, in real life, was Seth’s childhood sweetheart, not his brother’s wife), A.W. Merrick, along with some of the minor characters, were all real-life residents of Deadwood, while the rest are presumably fictional.
Note: Wikipedia is not always 100% accurate. You can read about the real-life residents by clicking the link above the description of their character.
Good stuff, Eli. Hadn’t even thought about looking up the show on Wiki. I’ll have to read through those bios more carefully, though I did check out Al’s and Bullock’s. I would love to know more about what their relationship was like in real life. I think they became much more buddy-buddy on the show than they did all those years ago.
Yeah, from what I skimmed, it seems they were completely adversarial - as in, Bullock’s jurisdiction stopped at Swearengen’s front door.
Swearengen died penniless trying to catch a train. I can’t see the show’s Al going out that way.
Yeah, I saw that too and immediately had the same reaction: no way HBO Al goes out like that.
Unfortunately, looking at all of this tells you that the chances of the main players getting killed off is about zilch. Maybe Milch (zilch…Milch…) cares more about showing us some of the things these guys survived than he does putting bullets into main characters to excite his audience.
That’s why I though Leon’s death felt shoehorned in…I think he knew some of the characters had to die - it is a season finale, after all.
Poor Ellsworth.
What the hell was Cy’s problem?
He was all pissed off that Hearst asked him to be his man in town. I think he wants to be his own man, not someone else’s employee.
That said, it was a strange reaction. Hearst approached Cy about this a long time ago, so I’m not sure why he was so shocked about it.
At least we got to see Janine’s ample bosom. It was funny how she pulled them out when Cy turned the gun on her.
does anyone know when they will release the season 3 dvd’s. And also, will they also have the 2 2 hour movies with it.
Benelli - If you want to be notified when DVDs are set to go on sale, go to videoeta.com and look for the show in the drop down menu. Press the “Go” button and it will take you to the page for that particular release. Sometimes there’s a release date, and sometimes there isn’t. But in that case there will be a link that says, “Notify me when you know the exact DVD release date.” You can enter your email address, and they’ll notify you once the release date is set.
If the two movies are still in the works, HBO will air them before releasing them on DVD, so it’s doubtful that they’ll be on the S3 DVDs, though you never know.
Hunch,
Based on history we know that Deadwood suffered two major fires about 20 years apart that burnt just about everything, including Swearengen’s saloons both times around, to the ground. He chose to rebuild after the first fire, but after the second fire he called it quits which is when his life took the downturn that it did and he turned into the penniless alcoholic transient that was shot hitchhiking. They show him drinking an AWFUL lot, so you can definitely see the future alcoholic aspect of him as historically accurate.
Since the series is taking place in the late 1870’s that places them squarely right before the first fire, which I’m sure Milch was planning on having Hearst be the one behind having Deadwood burned to the ground by his Pinkerton thugs as soon as he leaves. He promises at some point earlier in the season how much he hated the town and was going to destroy every last bit of it, so I’m sure Milch was going to incorporate the fire as his being behind it.
Also, if the series had continued, I’m sure the second fire would have been incorporated in season six or seven with Hearst getting the last laugh against Swerengen by torching his newly rebuilt saloon down (which was considered the finest whoring established ever seen after Al rebuilt it) down a second time and driving him into poverty.
Whoever said earlier that HBO’s Al would never end up like that, think again. I’m sure Milch would never stoop to have any of the main characters contradict history by killing them off before their real and known life is done. And if there’s one person that could see to the end of HBO’s Al Swearengen, it would be a historical behemoth like that bastard George Hearst.