Deadwood, 5/16

Cafe Society
1

Is there really no Deadwood thread yet? OK, I’ll step up. In no real order:

–So Bullock doesn’t really love his wife, he only married her because she was his brother’s widow, and the son isn’t his. Is that historically accurate? It sure puts a twist on his attraction for The Widow Garrett.

–Trixie loves Al, obviously. She laps up the few crumbs he throws her, like the touching, “Don’t go trying to off yourself again” as if it were a declaration of undying devotion. I guess that’s battered woman sydrome. However, it was as much affection as we’ve ever seen Al show anybody, so maybe in his warped way he loves her back.

–Does Sol have a shot with Trixie? Should he even take it if he does? I wouldn’t want to step in the middle of that, and Sol seems like a nice guy.

–The doc is a grave robber. I am not surprised. I think he’s my favorite character on the show-- did he actually shed a tear when confronting the passed-out-standing-up Jane?

–Speaking of Jane, god, I really felt for her when she said to Charlie, “I can’t go to where he’s buried when I’m drunk, and I can’t stay sober…” and asked him to give Bill a message for her. I do wish she’d be nicer to Charlie though. The jacket looked FINE on him.

–Sparks between Charlie and Joanie? Or is she strictly a lesbian?

–Cy Tolliver is an even bigger bastard than Al Swearengen, if that’s possible, and I think it is. How incredibly cruel he is. What is his deal with Joanie? Does he really want her to go out on her own, or is he just stringing her along/giving her enough rope to hang herself with? How terrible was it when she saw that girl’s dresss in the pigpen?

–Poor Eddie. He’s gay and now Tolliver is taunting his qualms about the murder of the two kids by saying that he wanted to fuck the boy. And then he gives him the ultimatum about just getting over his upset and being cheerful again or else. Cy wants to be able to do whatever sociopathic crap he wants and when anyone dares show a sincere emotion, he threatens them. What a monster. I see serious problems between him and Eddie in the future… Eddie will probably lose but Cy needs to be pig food soon himself IMO.

–EB is the mayor, ewww.

–The preacher has what? A brain tumor? A lesion on the brain? Can the doc operate on that? Is the preacher going to start acting out on his delusions? He’s really starting to creep me out.

–Deadwood is going to be incorporated into the Yankton Territory, which should be interesting…anyone know anything about that, historically?

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If the Reverend has a brain tumor or lesion on his brain, he’s likely a goner under the medicine of 1876.

He might not fare much better today.

The doc being a grave robber wasn’t surprising. In the first episode he was fascinated by the bullet wound that Trixie inflicted on a customer. There weren’t a lot of cadavers to go around.

To be precise, there was no “Yankton Territory”, Yankton was just the capital of the Dakota Territory from its formation in 1861 until 1883 when it moved to Bismarck. The Dakota Territory split into North and South Dakota when they became states in 1889.

3

The difference between Cy and Swearingen is that Swearingen is simply amoral, willing to do what needs to be done to get ahead, whereas Cy is actively evil. There’s a hint of humanity down in Swearingen’s soul somewhere, but Cy is twisted.

4

Perhaps someone can clarify something for me: In last week’s episode, I thought that Swearingen had hired the assayer to falsely state that the mine was no good. Swearingen’s right-hand man had a converstaion with Ellsworth at the mine that I thought was something to that effect. Then Bullock comes home with a hunk’o’gold. I know that Swearingen had said something to EB about keeping Bullock around to “take some bullets” for him since business would probably pickup because of the Sioux treaty but I can’t quite get a fix on what’s going on.

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BTW, is it me or does this show get FUNNIER with every episode?
Swearingen had me cracking up this whole episode, particularly his exchange with the dim-witted guy about taking over Persimmon Phil’s job.

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It wouldn’t surprise me if this was accurate, the show has been pretty accurate over all. But the historical info I’ve found on Seth Bullock says that he brought his wife to Deadwood and that she became one of the leading social figures in the community, starting ladies’ clubs and the like.

The real Bullock had a reputation for moral character, so much so that Teddy Roosevelt (who met and befriended Seth sometimes after the events of the HBO show) sent his own kids to summer with Bullock because he thought that Seth would be a good role model for them.

You never can tell what a tv show will do but it doesn’t appear historically that Bullock was unfaithful to his wife and they seem to have had a good marriage. I think the show was moving away from any potential Seth/widow romance by having Seth inform her that he was sending for his wife. It was an understated scene, he was really telling her that there wasn’t going to be anything between them regardless of a mutual attraction. It would be natural for him to be lonely (and horny) in a place like Deadwood without his wife, especially a wife that he barely knows, but my impression was that he feels a sense of of moral obligation to honor his marriage regardless.

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That cracked me up too.

“I just walked out of my own room in horror at his fucking dim-wittedness…He’s going to be in the wilderness…he has to be able to sustain a fucking thought, follow a fucking direction.”

Then the guy comes down and asks Al if he can tell the other guy (who is standing right there) about his new position with Al. Al tells him to “keep him in the dark,” which totally confuses the kid. :smiley:

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Are people losing interest in this show? I had to start the thread, and not a lot of people are posting to it. Has there been a drop-off in viewership? I think the show is still just as great as it was in the beginning.

I think this is definitely true. All of Al’s scumbaggery flows from his desire to protect his interests, both business and personal. While he is quite ruthless when someone is threatening him, he seems rather philosophical and reflective at times. His whole speech to Trixie last night about “don’t be afraid, don’t be afraid” of the Yankton delegation was very human and revealing. Also, I don’t think we’ve seen him be gratuitously cruel to anyone just for kicks (though he is universally sarcastic and insulting, but as with Jane, I wouldn’t think that should be taken personally by anyone). A good example is the little girl: sure, he was going to off her, but once she was no longer a threat to his finances, he just let her go. What would Cy have done?

The odd thing about Cy is that, unlike Swearengen, he professes openly to have feelings about certain people, even love them, such as Joanie, Eddie, and the dude who had smallpox, Andy. That makes it even more scary when he totally, self-righteously fucks them over. Not only that, but he relishes their pain, rubs salt in their open emotional wounds, and THEN gets angry when they show signs of depression or of being upset. What is his deal? Is that his way of feeling like the alpha dog, pissing in everyone’s flowerbed and then making them smell the flowers, because he can?

Does anyone have a bead on what he really plans to do with/to Joanie? When Eddie asked the town council about women owning brothels, Cy got very pissed off, which leads me to believe he’s jerking Joanie’s chain. In the preview, Eddie said he was going to rob Cy. Poor Eddie will probably be pig food, and I despair of what will become of Joanie. Cy seems to cause severe mental anguish to any within his inner sphere. Yeah, he’s got Al beat in the evil department, because at least Al restricts his evil to business-related topics.

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Ruby, I don’t think people are losing interest; just slow getting around maybe. :slight_smile:

I think we figured out from discussion in last week’s thread that Al actually wanted the gold to be found, because it would help prove to Seth that Al’s an upright guy. Seth’s good opinion and a possible future alliance with him are more important to Al than the gold claim.

It was a bit confusing, because Al did say something to Dan about “Don’t whoop and holler and lead him right to it”. I took that to mean Dan should be careful and not be obvious that they knew about the bonanza, because there’s the motive for killing Brom.

Did ya’ll notice the Mayor getting a hand job in the Gem? He’s really gonna enjoy being mayor. Does that mean that you don’t get a private room unless you’re paying for “real” sex?

All the recent shows have had scenes with mirrors. I’m not sure if it goes back to the first episode or not, but it’s starting to look like a signature.

Johnny Burns is just a hoot, we were rolling.

I’m sorry to see Jane take off, but it’s almost painful to watch her when she’s on a toot. Especially after seeing her sort of bloom when she was caring for Sofia and helping the Doc.

It’s fun comparing the two bad guys. If Al hadn’t ordered the hit on the orphan squarehead, I’d feel better about liking him so much. Nothing at all to like about Cy though.

Speculation for next week? Why are people drawing straws to go see Mr. Wu? Are they afraid of him?

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You pretty much missed it. E.B. wanted to kill Bullock and Alma. About this time the riders returned with the small pox vaccine and mentioned the heathens (Native Americans) where agreeing to peace again. This changed everything for Al. Al realized that soon Deadwood would be coming into the union and they would need some upstanding citizens. This is where Bullock (ex lawman) comes in and to a lesser extent Alma (rich widow from a wealthy family). We see Al coaching Dan on how to find the gold (make a bit of a production out of it, don’t just walk right up to it) as Seth walks in. Later we see Al and Seth making peace in The Gem. Throughout the episode, E.B. is having fits because he can’t have part of the claim any more. Like I said, you pretty much missed all of that major story arc. :wally

Ruby, my girlfriend and I are definitely still watching. In our eyes it’s beating Sopranos every week.

I wasn’t sure if Seth was telling Alma that he might be semi available or if he was just explaining why there was no way for it to work. It just doesn’t make sense that he asked her to stay last week. She would be bound for New York now otherwise.

Al is going to be getting jealous of Sol real soon I’m thinking. Just when he made peace with Seth, those hardware cocksockers are going to keep being a pain in his ass. Trixie is just dependent. I think Al actually has feelings for her.

Regarding Cy and Joanie, I think Joanie is Cy’s favored possession or pet. He wants her to be happy, but he also wants her to be his. That’s a problem since for Joanie to be happy she needs to be away from Cy. Powers Booth (Cy) definitely has evil bastard nailed. It seems like he might have pushed Eddie too far.

I liked how Joanie let Charlie know about the meeting without embarassing him by being obvious about him being excluded. That was a nice touch from her. The characters are all so twisted. She’s the same person that shot a young woman in the head the day before.

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I just don’t see Seth and the widow getting involved romantically. Seth has too much of sense of propiety for that. Marrying his widowed sister-in-law is an example of that.

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I agree with this, but there is still the fact that he asked her to stay. That would be a totally selfish and even stupid thing to do if he had no intentions on following up on his interest.

Btw, I thought it was kind of funny that Doc’s skeleton finally came out of the closet. I’ve been saying that he was hiding something for weeks. The question is, does he now try to operate on the preacher?

13

It’s 1876, what can the Doc do for the Reverend? Is he going to do some trepanning?

Actually, he probably will and we’ll have to see it.

14

We saw Doc’s interest in the human brain in the first episode. I’m not saying that Doc will operate (in fact, that would probably be very cheesy), but I can see him being very interested in doing an autopsy. That will most likely be a few more episodes though. It looks like the preacher is going to get to be a raving holy man for at least a week.

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I love this show. Everything out of Al’s mouth is pure gold. That one about all the piano is good for is so “the hoopleheads can yodel about their point of origin” just cracked me up. The man is a genious.

Haj

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There are only 3 more episodes (they made 12), so the Doc better get cracking.

Looks like the minor characters will get bigger parts

Episode 10 is titled “Mister Wu”
Episode 11 is “Jewel’s Boot is Made for Walking”
Episode 12 is “Sold Under Sin”

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I can see the doc helping the Rev. Smith kill himself, probably before too much more time passes.

Spoiler follows:

The real Rev. Smith was found dead on the road, of a gunshot wound, about six weeks into the time frame – that’d probably be mid to late September. No one was ever accused of shooting him.

How awful must that be, thinking that your flesh is rotting. No amount of telling him it’s not will make any difference.

I’m looking forward to repeat viewings this week; lots of interesting interactions.

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Yep. From the next week previews, it seems that he calls Seth and Sol ‘devils’ for some wierd reason (though in true HBO fashion, it could be a total throw off).

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E.B as Mayor? What a hoot! :smiley: Al is going to knock E.B. off that pedestal sooner that E.B thinks, IMO. And interesting development of Cy. When he and the Bella Union first came in, I was thinking he’s a nicer, though self-interested, counter to Al. But as the weeks and weeks go by, Al seems to be the one helping the place out most, while Cy just keeps degrading into an utter psychopath. It’s really amazing from the first 2 shows… they’ve made Al seem like an average guy. And most of it, I think, is the contrast with Cy, who is one sick fuck.

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Nothing makes a murdering thief look good quite like a crazy murdering thief . . .

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Cy seems to be responding to the lack of law enforcement. I got the impression from his conversation with Eddie that he’s not in the habit of killing people. He mentioned smacking the girls around, that’s all. Eddie was shocked about Flora and Miles, so at least we know Cy doesn’t normally torture and murder the youngsters.

It’s going to be interesting, to see what the writers do with Eddie, with homosexuality in that time. I don’t know a damn thing about it, but it seems that Cy equates homosexuality with pedophilia. Was he just trying to raise Eddie’s ire, or was that what people thought back then?

How does he possibly think he can get away with robbing Cy?