Alma (which means something like nuturing) looks at Ellsworth as the help - which of course he is. So I think she wants to turn him down, but not at the expense of losing his services. Good help is hard to find - just ask Al.
Alma is probably hesitant to enter into another marriage with a man not of her choosing. She has said that Brom was arranged for her to marry.
She’s likely not going to find anyone better in Deadwood. Who else would there be? Woolcott is single. He seems like a good catch. Sol is single, but he’s spoken for, sort of. Steve? Tom Nuttall? Al?
Perhaps she is waiting to go to Deadwood’s annual speed dating event. The problem is that in the 2 minutes everyone gets with each person, one person wastes all the time trying to come up with the formal introduction.
No, not really. A Victorian woman wasn’t expected to give an immediate answer-- some etiquette manuals suggest proposing in a letter to give the lady time to compose her answer in private after due contemplation.
Haste was considered somewhat indelicate, if not outright unseemly. For young ladies still under the care of their parents, mom and dad had to be consulted before any answer could be given.
In that case, why was Trixie so pissed that Alma had not answered yet? She was the one who pushed Ellsworth into asking again.
The second series is not yet on Sky UK so I’m not reading these threads, but I’ll ask just one question: Does Calamity Jane appear again? She must be the best acted female character I have ever seen on a TV programme.
As Jane herself might answer, “F*ck yes, she sure do”
P.S. Watch for Jane’s brief but spectacular ‘entrance’ scene in the beginning of the first episode of the 2nd season. She has some eloquent things to say to the driver of a coach, its passengers, and its horses, as it drives by on its way into Deadwood.
You’ll say “Jane - welcome back to Deadwood!”
I cut Alma some slack. She’s a former junkie, she’s pregnant and dealing with all that hormonal shit, plus the dire social implications, and she’s lost her lover. I bet Ellsworth’s cutting her some slack too - he has lived with a pregnant woman before, so he probably knows she’s not totally in control of herself.
I was wondering if perhaps Trixie had been an illegitimate child herself, and experienced the social backlash in a small community, and thats why she’s so concerned.
I just watched it again, and it seemed to me Steve the Horsefucker said “Back’s broke,” referring to William. (Curse you, Deadwood writers!) In the preview, the way Martha’s reaching toward his head and looking at his face makes me think he’s not dead yet
At first I thought there was something creepy with Steve, but upon re-watching, I see there was no opportunity for him to have done anything with/to William during the bike ride, and probably the payoff was to get back in Seth’s good graces.
Through the magic of HD DirecTV, TiVo and close captioning=ON, I can tell you what Steve said. He said, as he was getting up holding his back, “Think my back’s broke.”
I watched the scene with the horse, Horsefucker Steve, and young William a few times in slow motion, as if it were the Zapruder film. When Steve sees the horse coming at them, he pushes William off the the side, then throws himself on top of William, clearly acting to protect William at his own peril. The horse seemed to have stepped on Steve. I can’t say whether the horse came in contact directly with William - the editiing didn’t show that, and the scene was intentionally blurry.
I don’t think Trixie could be called a stickler for etiquette.
Alma would be thinking from a middle-class perspective in which etiquette, morals and social behavior were so deeply ingrained that she wouldn’t even have to think about the correct action to take-- it would be almost instinctive. (Much the way you say “excuse me” when you bump into someone-- you don’t even have to remind yourself.)
Trixie never had that training/socialization. In her world, you ask for something, and you get an immediate response without social niceties.
Ever notice how whenever Alma is in a scene with Martha, Alma is wearing deep red? Almost, one might say, a bright shade of SCARLET? In this last episode Alma walks into the hardware store wearing SCARLET. Meanwhile Martha, Sol, and Seth are wearing greys and muted green.
Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn. 
Alma’s red dresses – isn’t that the third red outfit she’s worn this season? It does put some color in her face.
Any thoughts on why Wolcott was so determined and anxious to report the Cornishman’s death to the sheriff? I don’t get that at all.
My guess is because they had to do it eventually, and since the messanger was to fetch Doc as well, he told him to go to Bullock first so as to greaten the chances of the man dying.
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I gotta get me this!
First, I think Dan Dority was saying that he wanted the baseball scores “more prompt,” not “in bold print.” It must take quite a while for the scores from back East to get out to Deadwood, which is why Dan was getting impatient.
I love Al and Alma working together. I don’t know why. I’d also enjoy watching Miz Iz become Woo Pig Special. Despite his threats, are we not seeing a kinder, gentler Al this season? He hasn’t knifed anyone that I can think of.
I too thought Steve was being creepy to William. He was trying to boost him up onto the bike as Tom went by, and he was behind him, pressed up against him. Then, he told the boy to keep his secret about what happened when he was boosting him up to the bike. Sounded like he was getting a little frottage going with Bullock’s stepson, just like he did with Bullock’s horse. Steve had a sleazy glint in his eye… But I could be wrong.
Charlie Utter left due to his enraged disgust with Wolcott. Think about it: Wolcott killed 3 whores with no punishment and is threatening Joanie Stubbs, Charlie’s friend. Wolcott, of all people, had possession of Wild Bill’s last letter to his wife. He was most definitely implicated in Mose Manuel’s brother’s death and the subsequent transfer of property rights. Charlie just couldn’t take it anymore. He’ll be back, though. Bill’s buried in Deadwood, after all.
As for Alma, let’s think how miserable she must be. Dragged to Deadwood by her idiot husband, who gets himself killed and strands her there, though he did manage to leave her a profitable gold claim that she has no idea how to work. Enter Seth Bullock. She takes in a foundling child, has to kick opium, and rely on the kindness of strangers who scare her and freak her out. She’s been accused by her in-laws of killing the idiot husband, which leads to serpent in her den, Ms. Iz. She falls in love with Seth Bullock and gets knocked up, only to have his wife and stepson/nephew show up unannounced to ruin the one scrap of happiness she has. She feels sick all the time. Then, she gets a proposal from a man she never thought of that way and on whom she relies. This undoubtedly has made her feel vastly uncomfortable, more aware of her need for Ellsworth, and of the shameful precariousness of her position. Then, Ellsworth wants her to go to the store with him and be in a room with at least 3 people that make her want to jump in a hole and die. You expect this poor woman to be sunshine and flowers? Is it so wrong to want people to tell her when they’re coming over when she feels uncomfortable in her clothes and is randomly barfing? C’mon, guys.
Yes, Ellsworth deserves to be treated well by Alma, but I think he understands her better than some of the viewers of the show do. I feel bad for her. She is in Hell right now.
As for Trixie, she’s fast becoming one of my favorite characters. I think the Ellsworth proposal idea was brilliant regardless of if Alma says yes (and ultimately I think she will and she’ll grow to appreciate him-- he ain’t Seth Bullock but he’s a damn sight better than Brom Garrett). The way Trixie the Whore navigated her way out of her constrained pseudo-relationship with Al into one with Sol where she’s learning a valuable trade and having a relationship of equals is amazing. She also has a good deal of compassion for other women, in her own vehement way. She reminds me of Doc Cochran, another do-gooder who seems so very pissed off even at his kindest.
What a great show. It just keeps getting better and better.
I sniped about this a couple of weeks ago. In my opinion, it’s the most blatant flaw in the show’s costuming accuracy. There’s no way a middle-class widow of only a year would be wearing red. Even in the more relaxed atmosphere of Deadwood, Alma would have at least still been wearing “half-mourning.” (Widows were expected to wear black for at least two years.)
All for Miz Iz meeting Wu’s pigs. As for Al. I think the kinder gentler is off the mark. What we have seen is an Al laid up half of the season and has been carefully laying plans to take care of Wolcott, Cy & the Bella Union in one swoop ever since.
You’ll get no Alma pitty party here. Yea, she’s been through a lot of crap but so’s everyone else. She has been the one character that has tumbled in popularity this season. The money has gone to her head - she’s a bitch. Needs to get out of that damned room and get some fresh air for a change.
I think Al has a lot to do with her getting her foot in the door at the hardware store. He sent her there to be his ears & eyes as to what was going on.
The Deadwood paper would have a hard time getting any baseball scores in the paper because, as we can see, the telegraph is just being installed. So they would have to have the scores sent in through the Postal System or some other type of messenger.
I was looking through the papers of 1877 (Chicago Tribune and NY Times). There was not an NL team in New York in 1877. It got kicked out of the NL the year before for not finishing its season. But there was a team in Brooklyn, although it was called Hartford. The NY Times would run box scores for home games involving the Brooklyn Hartfords. Other games would just get a brief report, like “Boston defeated Chicago 4 to 2”. Also college games or semipro games or amateur games would all be listed together.
In 1877 the National League was only a major league because years later it was able to assert itself as one. But at the time, it was just another baseball league.
I don’t think the issue for Alma is finding good help…it would be finding ANY help if Ellsworth was out of the picture. If she drives him away in rejecting his propsal, who is she going to find to take care of her interests in Deadwood?
The only reason she’s even in the position she’s in now is because Seth was able to keep Al at bay last season. Now that the Hearst faction is in camp, bringing with it the the question of the legitimacy of the claims, there’s even more pressure on her position. Without Ellsworth to manage her claim, she’s fucked. There isn’t one person in camp who is willing and able to do it, that wouldn’t screw her blind.
On another subject, I can’t believe Cy hasn’t yet made his play on the telegraph operator. If Al gets access control of the telegraph, he’ll be two steps of Cy at every turn.