Just finished Deadwood!

Cafe Society
21

Just wanted to bump up my thread by saying I got my parents to watch the first episode of Deadwood when they visited me last week, and they were instantly hooked. They ended up watching the first six episodes while they stayed with me (they were up here less than three days!), and I hooked them up with the rest of the DVDs to continue back at home. Apparently they just finished Season 1 and loved every minute of it.

They’re both teachers and American history buffs, and obsessed with depravity and danger and drama because they know so little of it in their own lives. I’m stunned my neurotic mother doesn’t mind the language and violence, but she’s ridiculously into it. She loves Sol and Trixie and is concerned for their future with Al in the picture, and my dad likes all the upstanding heroic figures like Bullock and Doc Cochran. I feel like I’ve done them a great service.

I’m tearing through Rome and Carnivale now, and I intend to share those shows with my parents as soon as I’m done… at this rate, they’ll be finished with Deadwood within a week or two!

22

Cool that mom and dad appreciate the show! Betcha they’d love The Wire too.

I hate to think what my TV life would have been like without HBO over the past six or seven years. And TV on DVD? Life is good. TV wise, anyway.

23

We’re currently half-way thru Season 3. The wife and I blew thru 1 and 2 during the holiday season. I’m having problems with it, but since I seem to be the only one, I’ll just shut up.

24

Gatopescado, go ahead. It’s okay to criticize. Or open a new thread if you think that’d be better.

If I remember right, there was a fair amount of criticism in the weekly Deadwood threads.

25

I made it through about 10 episodes from Season 1 before pulling the plug. Actually, I almost gave up around episode 7 or 8, but then the introduction of Veronica Mars – teenage whore temporarily re-piqued my interest. But in the end, I found it too depressing, especially with the constant mud in the streets and highly unsympathetic characters. Also, I had reached my lifetime limit on the number of times I am allowed to hear the word “cocksucker”.

26

My husband and I just finished Deadwood last week! Took us a couple of months (we’re slow), but we loved every minute. I think that the first season finale might be the best episode of television ever. Damn, it was good.

Al Swearengen is simply fascinating to watch. I think we grow to see him as human because we’re allowed to see him at his most vulnerable. Nothing is behind closed doors–we’re there to see him when he’s talking to a head in a box, when he’s getting some lovin’ from his whores, and when he’s dying from the gleets. Something about that really amazed me. He’s this big powerful scary guy, but we’re following him into the bathroom, you know?

We were very disappointed at the unresolved ending, though. I’m dying to know what ended up happening to these characters. To have it end with Hearst basically winning sucks big time.

27

Okay, here goes…

Lazy writing. Can’t think of anything worth watching? Stick in a half-hour of “cocksucker, fucker, fuck” and rod getting shoved up Al’s prick.

Timing. Everything happened in one or two days. Al healed up faster than Jesus Christ. Yet, Tolliver was bed ridden for 6 weeks.

Rehash storylines. Al’s whore wanna leave. Al gets hurt, whore nurses him. Cy’s whore wanna leave. Cy gets hurt, whore nurses him.

Charecters introduced, went nowhere, then killed off. What a waste of time. Examples: The “kids” looking for thier father, who were there to rip the town off. They had no plan, got killed, went nowhere. Waste of time. Mohs (the guy who killed his brother). That whole thing went nowhere. The orphan. BIG DAMN DEAL the first season. Why didn’t anyone follow up on that whole thing? I guess nobody cared anymore. Contrived, strained dialog. I have a *fucking good * :stuck_out_tongue: vocabulary, but still gave up trying to figure out what they were getting at after the first season. The fuck and cocksucker I understand.

Then, I made the supreme mistake of watching the “special features” on the DVD set. Listening to the creater wax philisophical made me want to puke. Do people in Hollywood really think this highly of themselves? Did this guy really think he was making “something important”?

Favorite parts: Ass-pipe directer insists that “Mr. Lee” act “oparatic” (with much fanfare), then 30 seconds later admite he has never seen opera. Nor wished to.

So, you want your actor to act in a style you have never seen nor wish to? How will you know if he succeeds?

The rest of the “feature” basicly has the cast saying how they had no idea of what the hell Milch was talking about but, “that it worked”. :rolleyes: “Hey, William Sanderson! I liked that ‘Larry/Darryl/Darryl’ guy you did on Newhart! Do that again, but say Cocksucker alot!”

Started okay, went down fucking hill fucking cocksucking fast. Cunt!

28

Yeah, Al and Cy were foils for each other. I think the cool part is that Al’s and Cy’s whores both do leave. The difference in how says it all about Al and Cy.

We learned how evil Cy was to Joanie, how cruelly he was willing to manipulate her. That set up her flight, her doomed Chez Amis, and eventual redemption. He pushed her too far with those orphans. Again, in contrast to how Trixie left Al… where he was pushing HER out the door.

Another redemption story. Deadwood is all about the redemption.

What kind of follow up did you want? Alma took that child on as a reason to live, and sadly, even she wasn’t enough sometimes. The kid was important to her motivations and affected her relationship with Al.

Also, I really think this show is about a bunch of freaks and misfits finding a demented and dysfunctional family of sorts in each other. That, to me, was what was beautiful about the show. Alma/Sofia (and later Ellsworth) was one example of wounded, damaged people making a family. It worked for me.

I agree with you there. Just listen to Milch talk about the execrable John from Cincinnati if you really want to learn to hate him.

You really didn’t like Al passing the gleets? I thought the tension and release of that storyline was palpable. I really felt his pain and how it was carried by all the people who loved and depended on him. One of the best moments of the whole series IMO. Not for everyone, though, I can imagine.

29

I’m ambivalent about this. Sometimes it bugged me, that they couldn’t just say things straight out instead of leaving us to restructure sentences, ponder meaning. But most of the time it worked. There was a nice mix of plain talk amongst the Shakespearean stuff. Plus a lot of humor, and more quotable lines than I’ve found on any other show.

Rubystreak spoke to one of the themes of the show, but on the pragmatic side, nothing came of the massacre of Sophia’s family because there was no law in the territory and everyone was told Indians did it. When Mose killed his brother there were no witnesses. Seth couldn’t prove anything. Miles and Flora? Frontier justice for thieving and assault.

The look of the show – the mud and dirt and blood – was definitely depressing, but like the language, it was balanced when you saw the characters relate to each other with sympathy and kindness, despite the sordid surroundings.

30

I saw Deadwood as Western-noir during that first season. The mud and dirt everywhere as you said, the dingy saloons, the unforgiving lawless frontier, the scams and crimes and overwhelming corruption and sudden violence. But unlike most noir stories, Deadwood turned out to be a lot more hopeful, with everyone rising to the occasion, working together, bettering themselves, and helping each other. The cliched “can-do American spirit” won out more often than not, and the overarching themes of personal redemption and creating order out of chaos and anarchy elevated the show beyond the standard noir elements.

31

Except for Cy – Cy’s heart stayed small.

32

Its much better than network TV, and no commercials.

33

The story structure itself is better too. With most one-hour TV shows, all you really need to do is watch the last 10 or 15 minutes. The first 45 minutes is set-up for the inevitable resolution. Unless it’s a season finale, which means there’ll be a ludicrous cliffhanger.

But you can’t watch that way with shows like Deadoowd or The Wire. There’s meat all the way through, not just at the beginning and end of an episode.