Just finished Deadwood!

Cafe Society
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I’ve been tearing through Deadwood on DVD over the last two weeks, and just now finished the last episode. I’ve also been using the SDMB’s search function to seek out and read the original threads that were started after each episode first aired. Wow, what an amazing series. So many amazing characters, good and bad, and such masterful fucking writing. I’m just disappointed that the series finale left so many unanswered questions, and it seems unlikely that David Milch and the cast will get back together for the long-rumored movie to wrap up the loose ends. (I read about bad blood between Milch and the great Ian McShane, culminating in Milch saying the show would have been a bigger success if he was able to cast his first choice, Ed “Al Bundy” O’Neil, as Al Swearengen. What a different Deadwood that would have been!)

My favorite shows of all time are Buffy and Angel, followed closely by Arrested Development. I now rank Deadwood alongside those three as one of my all-time favorites and very likely one of the best shows ever. Did anyone else get into it late, thanks to DVDs? Anyone want to relive their favorite cocksuckin’ moments, quote their favorite lines, pay tribute to their favorite characters? Any thoughts on what might have gone down in the movie?

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Al’s “fellatio soliloquies” about his childhood were probably my favorite moments. I also loved all of the exchanges between Farnum and Richardson and between Jane and the ****** General Fields, and has any western series or movie ever had a villain you wanted to kill more than you did Hearst?

The rumors of a movie or series of movies (to air on HBO, not theatrically) keep resurfacing. Milch last said (a few weeks ago) that the set for the show was demolished but that it’s not a problem as Deadwood burned down several times, so he’d set it after one of the fires.

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Richardson cracked me up. Despite being “simple,” I got the impression he was smarter than he let on, particularly to Farnum. I loved his interactions with Aunt Lou, and felt awful for him when he took the stage on Amateur Night to juggle, but Farnum dragged him off.

Hearst was a horrible fucking cocksucker, yes. And the worst thing is, from his first appearance in the Season 2 finale, one could easily get the impression that he was a good guy, and would probably get along well with Al. Boy, did that all change! Tolliver was also a bastard who needed to die, and I cheered long and hard when Andy Cramed stabbed him.

In fact, the fights were some of my favorite parts of Deadwood. The fight between Dan Dority and Captain Turner remains one of the most brutal and intense I’ve ever seen in a movie or show, and the Bullock/Swearengen brawl early in Season 2 has to be up there as well. I also enjoyed the one-sided, yet cathartic beatings Bullock gave Alma’s good-for-nothing father and Charlie Utter gave Francis Wolcott.

In all of fiction, literature, and pop culture, I’m a sucker for any stories about former enemies putting their differences aside to team up against a common foe. This happens quite a lot in comic books, and happened quite a bit on Buffy and Angel as well. But most of Seasons 2 and 3 of Deadwood were all about this, with Al (originally the most evil and vile cocksucker we’ve ever seen) getting slowly humanized and made more sympathetic, as even more evil and vile cocksuckers moved to town. By the end, he was definitely one of the good guys, a la Don Corleone, and it felt good to root for him, Dority, Burns, and Adams alongside Sheriff Bullock. Al is one of the most dynamic characters I’ve ever seen in a work of fiction, and Ian McShane did an amazing job portraying him.

As far as minor characters, I really liked Merrick and Blazanov (especially as they started getting ballsier toward the end of the series), and good ol’ Tom Nuttall from the Number Ten Saloon. He seemed like such a jolly and well-intentioned guy! Of course Doc Cochran and Sol Star were always great, and I only wish they had more to do in the final season.

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I was amazed at how the series built and grew the character of Al Swearengen. In the first ep of the show, he’s got his foot on Trixie’s neck and you think, “What a complete, irredeemable bastard!” By the end of the series, he is like the demented father of a dysfunctional family that respects and needs him, and him them. You’re actually rooting for the evil sonofabitch.

What I wish is that we could have seen him lose Deadwood, because inevitably, he was going to, and it would have been moving and tragic. I can only imagine it in my mind, but it was foreshadowed that Deadwood would burn and Al would lose everything.

The acting in this show was awe-inspiring. There was no weak link, all the way down to the small roles and minor characters. Richardson was also a favorite of mine, but it’s hard to pick who I liked best because whichever character I think about, I love. Doc Cochrane comes to mind too, and Trixie.

I think the death of Ellsworth was the single most painful moment of fictional TV I have ever watched.

I miss that show, man.

ETA: Anyone know details on the “bad blood” between Milch and McShane? I thought it was tacky as hell for Milch to say he wished he did Deadwood with Ed O’Neill; also I can’t imagine that at all. McShane was perfection in that role and deserved 3 Emmy Awards IMO.

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You can’t leave out the scene where Bullock arrests Hearst and drags him off to jail by his ear. One of my favorites and that definitely humiliated Hearst.

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How about the Bullock/Swearengen fight, right off the balcony? That was hardcore. Both those guys were tough as hell.

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Admittedly I’m not that familiar with the series, but in one of the recent “Your Favourite YouTube video” threads, someone posted a link to Deadwood Pancakes which I found quite hilarious.

(Language is NSFW!)

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Looks kinda spoilerish ahead, so I’ll just go ahead and post that I’m up to ep 8 of season 1. Loving it.

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How awesome would it be to hear a presidential candidate – any presidential candidate – invoking Tom Nutall’s immortal words, “those who doubt me suck cock by choice.”

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I rank Deadwood #2 after Twin Peaks as the best series in the history of TV. Every episode had me mesmerized. The dialog was brilliant and the casting was flawless.

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I’d rank it second too, Haj, only I’d put The Wire in first place.

I think Deadwood’s pilot was the best ever. I still marvel that Milch managed to introduce all those characters in an hour. He didn’t just introduce them – he fleshed them out.

Here’s the link to transcripts. It’s been posted in the other threads, but maybe new fans would like to check it out.

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Great series but I was very disappointed in the ending. Bullock would never have go along with what they did to appease Hearst. Pure character assination.

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Oh, I should note that I watched the DVDs with the subtitles turned on. Not distracting at all, and it helped me pick up parts of that beautiful, florid, Shakespearian dialogue that I might have missed otherwise. I highly recommend it, especially for new viewers.

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And all the sadder since he was played by the special guest Doper Jim Beaver aka jumblejim (scroll down for jumblejim’s first post). :frowning:

I didn’t know that about Ed O’Neill. I’m so glad they went with McShane. I hate to typecast, but Swearengen would always have been the more evil and more successful great-grandpa for whom Al Bundy was named. (Does anybody have a hard time envisioning Al Bundy cutting the throat of a whore really?)

Also, the minister with the brain tumor- that was some great acting. My two main disappointments with the series:

1- the romance twixt Doc and Jewel was never continued after their dance (when it was revealed Doc was “as nimble as a forest creature”)

2- the series ended before Brian Cox (easily on my short list of favorite character actors) became really central to the plot (clearly they were going somewhere with him and his troupe but never got there, and consequently they only took time away from the other plots)

Other favorite moments in the series:

Farnum performing cunnilingus on the carpetbag full of cash

The canned peaches

Al putting on his Sunday clothes and his Sunday manners for his meeting with Alma (with a “no hard feelings” to the little girl he tried to have murdered and the great line “I like that fucking black Darjeeling”)

The Dority/Turner fight already mentioned (damn, that was intense)

Al’s oddly tender mercy killing of the minister

Nuttall’s first bicycle ride

The realization that Dority was the same actor who played Cameron Diaz’s retarded “franks and beans!” brother in Something About Mary

That wasn’t a character, it was a whore. :wink:
I think the only alternative would have been for somebody to kill Hearst, and since that was impossible since he was a historical character they had to do something equally drastic. (True, Swearengen/Bullock et al were historical characters to, but not as vital to U.S. history.)

Has anyone ever seen a picture of the real Al Swearengen? I’ve seen pics of all the others, but apparently no “positive ID” pics of Al survive. From what I gather he made his TV counterpart look like Mr. Rogers.

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And one of my all time favorite TV quotes:

William Sanderson (aka Farnum aka Daryl aka many others) could tell me my house was on fire and that by the way I have prostate cancer and I think I’d laugh. He’s always cracked me up. (Trivia: he always acts with a quarter in his ear for luck, and he passed law school/the bar in his native Tennessee to have an acting fallback but never practiced.)

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Could you have been born, Richardson? And not egg-hatched as I had always assumed?

I just love how Richardson stole every single scene he was in.

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There are a couple of alleged photos of the real Swedgin on this page. In the one on the bottom he does kinda sorta resemble Ian McShane.

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I think what made that scene memorable was Ellsworth’s monologue to that little dog just before he was shot.

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And that it was so sudden. We’d known the guy for years and BAM, that’s how it ends. What drove it home was how sweet Al was to Alma after it - that’s when you know it’s for real.

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Jim Beaver posted over at the HBO Board that when Milch broke the news that his character was being killed, Jim asked “Does the dog survive?”

I hated to see Ellsworth die, but I hated losing Rev. Smith even more. He was the soft heart and conscience of Deadwood.

The first season is my favorite. Wild Bill, Rev. Smith, Jack McCall, General Crook, Alma’s wastrel father, Silas ("You look like your mother fucked a monkey!), Miles and Flora, Al having to choose which druggie to sacrifice.