We had a showdown in the street, a hanging, Doc taking care of the guy Trixie shot, Wild Bill and Calamity Jane coming to town, Bill and Jack McCall playing cards, Al and E.B. fleecing Brom Garrett. We met Rev. Smith, Seth and Sol got their bidness started, the Metz family was massacred and then we had another showdown in the street, Dan kills Tim Driscoll, and Alma takes dope.
All spiced with the most wonderful dialogue ever.
Back to the OP:
Is this the first time we’ve seen a woman going to the bathroom on TV? I can’t think of any others. It’s rare even in movies.
Another threshold crossed? I don’t care to see it again, but it does add realism.
I liked it. I’ve always liked Bill Paxton for some reason. He’s not a great actor, but he brings a sense of realness to his characters that I like. I felt sort of sorry for the writers. They had a great gag in the opening scene, with the hundred dollar bill and the appearance of prostitution until the polygamy reveal. Alas, its balloon was busted by a whole lotta pre-show hype, not to mention the opening credits which clearly show all concerned sitting happily together at the table holding hands.
Watch the first episode again. The dialogue isn’t nearly as good as it is even in the second episode (Which was filmed nearly a year later so Milch had a lot of time to refine the style). It’s just meandering, not poetic. You can also tell that they hadn’t really built the Deadwood set yet (it being a pilot and all) The town seems like a tv show town not the bustling real live town in later episodes.
True, we don’t have any of the wonderful monologues that Al did later, and it was an episode or two later where we got E.B.'s soliloquy as he was cleaning Driscoll’s blood of the floor, but we had Ellsworth’s “fucked up flatter than hammered shit” intro. Enough for me. I love the pilot.
Not so. Given that every marriage after the first one (excepting cases of divorce) is null and void in every state in the union, the crime of bigamy is typically defined by purporting to marry more than person at a time. Utah’s bigamy statute (Utah Code section 76-7-101) does this explicitly, and also throws in cohabitation to close that potential loophole as well. To wit: “A person is guilty of bigamy when, knowing he has a husband or wife or knowing the other person has a husband or wife, the person purports to marry another person or cohabits with another person.”
(This had to be pointed out to me.) Did you notice the name of the fast food place the girl who played “Deb” from “Napoleon Dynamite” worked at?
This is going to be like “All the President’s Men” and what Deepthroat said:
“Follow the money.”
Conjecture 1: Bill had to marry Nicki in order to get the stake from her dad. He really just wanted Margene.
Prediction 1:Nicki’s spending will drive Bill into borrowing more from her dad, with evil consequences. Nicki crying after making that huge buy over the phone may be remorse over knowing that this will happen. I.e., it was a setup all along. Either her dad knew she couldn’t control her spending or is ordering her to spend like mad.
But, what does “purport” mean in that statute? If Bill tells one of his junior wives, “We’re going to go through a ceremony and we’ll be married in the eyes of God, but we won’t have any marriage license and you know as well as I do we won’t be married in the eyes of the law, because I’m already married to Barbara” – is he “purporting” to marry her or not?
And is it “cohabiting” if he stays at her house one night in three?
Actually, according to this – http://www.hbo.com/biglove/cast/character/rhonda_volmer.html – Rhonda Volmer is still Roman Grant’s “bride-in-waiting” or “bride-to-be.” Presumably she’s betrothed to him and will marry him when she reaches . . . whatever is the lowest permissible age for marriage in this sect.
He came out the front door of the 2nd house. To keep up the appearances of normalcy, he should have cut through the backyard to the first house and gone out the front door there.
I thought it an interesting set-up that had to do more work than it had time for. IMO the show picked way up about the halfway mark. (Plus – Lily Kane bonding with Mac! head spins)
It’s interesting to see Amanda Seyfried in that role – anyone who looks like that is going to have plenty of temptation to forsake her moral code.
One think I’m not sure will come off is Bill’s fud with Roman. Maybe Roman can make some trouble for him, but Roman’s married to a fourteen year old. Mutally assured destruction.
But Bill is just as afraid as Roman is of attracting the authorities’ attention. More, as he live in the 'burbs and is maintaining a facade of non-polygamous family life, and has more to lose by public exposure.