Great episode. So what character will Garret Dillahunt play in season 3?
I wasn’t expecting Wolcott is make an exit, and Andy gutting Cy also was a surprise (so is Andy really a minister or is it another con?)
Loved Charlie and Jane dancing, along with the Doc and Jewel (as in last season’s final episode).
Now when does Season 3 start?!?!?!?!?!?!
not soon enough!
That was an AWESOME episode. Tons of resolution without any of it seeming overly rushed or compacted (except perhaps the date of the wedding).
Anyone else flinch when Wolcott’s body fell down right behind Mose?
Yep. But I didn’t figure out who it was until I saw the hat on the ground.
And as a total aside, anyone else notice that Dan was on CSI: Miami last week? He looks different with a pony tail! (Several Carnivale actors have been on the original CSI – so I wonder if CSI: Miami will be some off season work for our Deadwood cast.)
What a great episode. They managed to resolve a lot of story lines in a satisfying way, while still including some surprises and and some kernels for season 3.
Gerald McRaney was terrific as Hearst. His scene with Al was almost heartwarming in how naturally the two men took to each other. They were peas in a pod, those two. I hope we see more of McRaney next season.
I loved everything about how they wrapped up the whole SFC affair. Wu kicks ass and it was nice to see Al take his side.
The wedding was nice. It came off as happy, even for Alma.
Don’t mock God in front of Andy. :eek:
That sure came out of nowhere.
Somehow I think Cy will survive, unfortunately. It seems like Doc Cochran has better luck saving the evil Deadwood denizens than the good ones.
Wolcott’s end was also a bit sudden, perhaps even anti-climactic, but I think it was true to the character and believable.
All in all, a very entertaining final episode. I can’t wait until next season.
One of a few unresolved plot lines: What ever happened to the N. General? Did he and Hosteteler just run off to Oregon or something?
So: San Francisco cocksucker is gone; Tolliver may or may not be done in. Wolcott is gone. Swidgen has apparently made a deal with Jarry and with Hearst, who turns out to be not quite so understanding of Mr. W’s “problem” as was thought. Just about all the real baddies are out of the picture; romantic dilemmas remain. Nice roundup, but still leaves us desperate for Season Two.
Will Alma consummate her “marriage?” Of course, for now she can plead her delicate condition. This nicely leaves Ellsworth as a very wealthy man, since he now presumably owns at least half the Garrett mine, which has a sort of justice to it. I don’t think there was a pre-nup letting Alma retain sole ownership! Did anyone else notice she was a bit reluctant on the “obey” part?
I would think Mrs. Garrett, now Mrs. Ellsworth is likely in a much better legal position now in any legal matter now that she has a husband again. Property laws would likely favor men over women at that time.
I had to use a freeze frame to see who got hanged, but I was pretty sure it was Wolcott since he was writing his letter with a rope next to him.
Awfully inconsiderate of Hearst to start renovating his room while a wedding was going on downstairs.
Damn, what a great finale. It had a Godfather II vibe toward the end, with Al making his deal in private while the things he orchestrated played out across the camp. The final shot of Al, looking over the city from his balcony, could not have been a more perfect closer.
Ian McShane has created the best character I have seen in years, TV or film.
Soooooo many great little character moments in a terrific episode (and a rare TWoP A+ episode grade) in no particular order:
Tolliver having the stones to blackmail Hearst over Wolcott’s killings and demanding 5% of the Hearst Deadwood claims, although evoking God as his intermediary was kinda crass
Wu, the masked assassin, leading Al’s boys on the kill run. Wu cutting off his hair and declaring himself an American and pledging his loyalty to Al. Just great.
Ellsworth’s rant about the lavender gloves.
Richardson in a suit!
Merrick getting felt up by a whore while he’s taking a wedding picture.
Ellsworth dancing with his new family
EVERY. SCENE. with Al. Could he be more quotable? “I’m so fucking pleased, Johnny, I trusted you to go out and buy meat.” “Declining years spare us no end to indignities – my latest blessing is a fucking horse apple up my asshole.” “Say “cocksucker,” Wu.” “That’s a gift, for the bride, from the child’s former tutor in absentia.” “Every so often there’s a love match.” “Don’t you have a home to go to?”
8.) Wolcott’s hanging.
9.) Bullock’s wife finding her son’s sprouting sunflowers.
10.) E.B. holding back a fart. E.B. falling over on his ass. E.B. propositioning the satchel.
Third season can’t come quick enough.
Definitely loved the final episode. Too many good things to list, but a few that come immediately to mind this morning…
Loved the nod to last year’s finale with the brief glimpse of the Doc and The Gimp dancing again.
Wu slicing off the ponytail was good stuff.
Definitely jumped when Mr. W reached the end of his rope.
Cy pleading “Don’t let me die!” What a frigging weasle. Exactly what I would have expected from him.
Jane digging at her new found undergarments.
The Gimp confiding to “selling a piece of pussy” to get the gun for Trixie back in episode one in order to preserve something of great sentimental value.
This really is some of the best TV. Ever.
Jammer
Good episode, but as I feared, it felt too rushed. Now I’m certain that I wish they would have paced this out over the last two or three, rather than having the big season ending bang up in one hour. Doing it that way just makes it feel too much like, “Okay, now it’s time to resolve these 5 problems; each one gets 10 minutes.”
Didn’t feel that way to me. I thought it would, but it really didn’t.
The episode made very effective use of montage during the exchange of wedding vows and again during the wedding reception and touched on several concurrent actions around the camp: Hearst in his hotel room upstairs, Bullock’s wife, Al’s negotiations, Wu’s assassination of Lee, Cy’s stabbing, Mose’s recovery, Wolcott’s suicide. I thought the tactic clever and the pacing smart.
I expected they would do it, and thought that it was a cheap way to pack a “season ender” when they could have developed everything far better over two to three episodes.
That said, since they had to do the formulaic thing, they did at least do a decent job of it.
Agreed on both counts, sir.
This is one I’ll definitely have to watch again. It was fast-paced; apparently I looked away for a few seconds and missed Cy getting it (which he richly deserves). The only thing that seemed rushed to me was the wedding, but then, considering Alma’s condition, the sooner the better. And it was nice to see practically everyone having a good time afterward. I am disappointed at the short “season.” Started in, what, mid-March, so it’s been less than three months. HBO’s other series don’t have such short seasons, do they? (I don’t watch any of the others, so I don’t know.) It’s cruel – they get us addicted to these wonderful characters and their stories and then cut us off, and now we have to wait until next March?
When Wolcott was writing at his desk I saw the rope in the foreground and said to myself no good will come of that.
Is it me or is E.B. offically around the bend? He’s been acting stranger and stranger but when he was lying on his ass in the mud it seemed like he was telling Herst that he was crazy and he knew it.
Richardson in a suit snort
Nice parings at the end, Seth going home, Doc and Jewel, Charlie with both Jane and Joanie, then Al with his best friend The Chief in a box.
My favorite line was Jane off camera as the Elsworth’s got into the wagon. There was a lull in the music and she shouted out “We ain’t done fucking dancing” (or something really close to that.)
One of the joys of this season was watching Al just run tactical rings around Cy. When the season started, they were near-equals, both running large saloons and having their fingers in various interests in the town. By the end of the season, Al had made allies of the newspaperman, became the power broker with Yankton, has the Sheriff on his side, has secured the whoring contract for Heart’s men and eliminated Heart’s own people (with Hearst’s support!), and has struck up a friendship of sorts with Hearst.
In the meantime, Tolliver has become increasingly marginalized, and as the season ends he’s stumbling down the road stabbed, while his saloon falters, his best madam has left him, and he knows he’s been pushed to the side.
And even more interesting is how Al did it. He did it by being less ruthless than Cy. He did it by restraining his greed, by playing straight up in most cases. A telling scene was the writing of the founding document of the town - Al gave up $50,000 because he had the sense to understand that if the founding document showed a bribe, it would undercut the legitimacy of the entire venture and open the door to further problems down the road. So his own interests led him down the straight and narrow. Cy, on the other hand, would never have had made that choice. In contrast, Cy tried to make a shabby power play against a man infinitely more powerful than himself, because shabby power plays are about all he knows and he’s not capable of adapting to changing conditions the way Al is.
Great episode.
An all the more extraordinary turn of the game for Al considering that he was out of commission with kidney stones for several weeks and had to play catch up. Watching him get himself up to snuff on what was transpiring in the camp, the way he was so quickly able to snap to events and situations even without direct information (like the way he sussed out what was going on with Wolcott and Cy), to work out all the angles, make the right alliances and make the right deals was like watching an athlete in his prime. Tolliver never knew what hit him.
Another trait that Al has and Cy does not is the ability to generate some genuine trust and loyalty in those who work for him. Al’s lackeys, thugs they may be, still love him and are loyal to him for reasons beyond a steady income. Cy’s lackeys don’t give a shit about him. They may fear him but they don’t have any affection for him. I believe Tolliver would lie in his office suffering with kidney stones for an awfully long time before anyone knocked down the door.
I think even Trixie and Joanie, who have analogous roles in the lives of their respective pimps illustrate something in the way they’ve reacted to recent crises. Trixie’s instinct (to Sol’s chagrin) was to run back to Al. Joanie’s instinct was to run away from Cy.
Al also a far better ability to make alliances with other powers. Wu, Hearst and even Bullock all trust him on a basic level to honor their agreements, even if (like Seth) they don’t particularly like him. Nobody trusts Cy. Where Al can rely on his word and a nod, Cy has to rely on intimidation and blackmail.
It’s a fascinating contrast. Back in the first few episodes of season 1, Al Swearengen seemed like the most evil, ruthless person in Deadwood. Now he’s only about 4th or 5th on the evil scale and he’s become a sort of dark protagonist. i find myself rooting for him even though I know he’s a pimp and a cutthroat. By contrast to some others he’s Abraham Lincoln.
What were exchange rates like back then, i.e. what did EB actually get for his hotel? Is he a millionaire now? I suppose the other question is how much it would cost to live on the frontier. In a town like that, I suspect inflation would be a factor.