Watching Deadwood for the first time and have a question - Page 2

Oh, absolutely, that a presence as potent as Wolcott doesn't overwhelm the other characters and in fact reinforces the entire thematic heft of the show is just reason number 72 that Deadwood is the greatest thing since ever.

One thing Wolcott does that I've never seen any other character do is be able to stand back and comment on his own self destructive fucked up spiral with intelligence and a sense of humor. He's removed from everything, even his own psychological collapse.

According to Dillahunt, Milch originally had planned for him to play Hearst! What the hell would that have been?

Well, he wanted Al Bundy to be Swearengen, didn't he? Alt-reality Deadwood must be quite the weird show.

Funny this should get bumped as I got the complete box set for xmas and have just hit the halfway mark on the show. I'm not reading this thread for fear of spoilers, but here are some scattered thoughts thus far:

McShane's operating on a kind of once-in-a-lifetime iconic level and somehow it doesn't seem fair to compare other performances to him.

I love Dourif here because he's the last person you'd think of to play one of the most good-hearted characters, and the combo of his trademark intensity and the doc's moral decency makes for a unique character. It's a bit of a shame he doesn't get many plotlines of his own; he's a pretty static character, thus far anyway.

Sanderson is a blast to watch and this might be his definitive role.

Keith Carradine is in the show for a ridiculously short space of time but makes such an impact during that time that it still resonates when the characters refer back to Wild Bill later on.

Ray McKinnon's story as the Reverend gave season 1 a lot of its soul, and that last conversation between him and Bullock and Sol was a heartbreaker. The way he went out was a great character moment for Al.

Also have to give props to Garret Dillahunt, because I just read that he played both Walcott and Jack McCall, and I never even noticed.

Olyphant looks pretty cool, but is a touch wooden eh?

Even with reassurances that it's not entirely left hanging, the fact that I know there's no true wrap up to the show casts a bit of a melancholy shadow over the whole experience. The main arc of the show - showing the development of an unaffiliated ramshackle camp into an integrated american town - is something that should really be followed to its natural end, and reading about how the Gem burned down shortly after the timeframe of the series hints at a likely finale (Trixie might even have foreshadowed this at one point). But I'm not at the end yet so I'll have to wait and see how I feel about it.

All in all it's a fucking awesome show, in the running for the best of all the big HBO dramas.

Olyphant's seriously my only complaint sometimes. He's not awful, but there's just something about him strolling around snarling through his teeth at everyone that becomes grating.

Also, bought the box set Wednesday on Amazon for $75, just got it yesterday. Guess I can get around to finishing S3 now.

See, I actually love that about his performance. Like Stiglitz in Inglourious Basterds, he's--as someone posted--a pitbull on a dental floss leash. In Bullock's case, however, it's his sense of justice and decorum that stops him from snapping that leash. And, so, he walks the streets of Deadwood, seething at the stupidity and evil he sees around him and the supposed woodenness of Olyphant's performance is--at least in my eyes--a deliberate choice.

I buy that because Olyphant is not a wooden performer in other stuff. I do think the dialogue comes a little harder for him than for others (like, oh, McShane), but I would also say the showrunners adapted to Olyphant's characterization early on, and shifted the mantle of central character to Swearengen sometime about halfway through Season 1.

On this rewatch, I'm thinking they should have used the Doc more. Dourif is excellent. But with this ensemble, how do you pick? In fact, my only real complaint about Season 3 is that the spend too much time with the wrong characters (the acting troupe, Con Stapleton, Steve the Drunk) in lieu of their best, like Doc, Cy, or Sol. It's like going to a basketball game on the night they decide to bench the marquee players in order to give the rookies time to develop.

I'm kind of in the middle. While I agree there is not the total immersion in the character you get while watching McShane or Dillahunt perform, I also think the stiffness is totally intentional, integral to the character, even. And I would add that there is a kind of theatricality to Deadwood that often has an intentional distancing effect, which gives the lack of complete naturalism in Olyphant's performance a little bit of latitude.

Also, I got the box set for Christmas, and am digging into the show for the first time since I finished deason 3. A few episodes in is all I need to reaffirm that nothing I've seen on television save The Wire touches this level of writing.

I can buy these explanations. Time for a rewatch! After I finish everything else, I mean.

*looks at queue/stack of DVDs/books, sighs*

McShane is amazng, but I don't think Dourif has ever been better than his stuff from season one. That's some pretty lofty competition.

Re: the stiffness.

In season one Bullock's rigid, joyless sense of propriety and justice is set in direct contrast with Swearengen. It's basically old school moral righteousness vs. an amoral master of temptation. One of the things that's so great about the show is that this conflict, and its resolution, is where most stories would begin and end. Deadwood took it further by making Bullock somebody who, while essentially a just man, is also repressing what he really wants. Al has no problem taking what he wants, but he's got to come to the realization that in order to accomplish that he has to work with these people. Eventualy they both have to make compromises, and, obviously, this is the basis of community.

Then, when Hearst comes along, his monolithic empire, his need to acquire and conquer is set in direct opposition to Al. Who, despite being "morally challenged" still has an essential humanity to him. Al is the lesser of two evils, the devil you know, so to speak. Despite his dubious business practices, he provides people with things they want. Whereas Heart's MO is antithetical to the very idea of community.

It's either in one of the audio commentary's or a later interview with Milch, but he said that Olymphant performed exactly the way Milch pictured Bullock in his head as he was writing. So I imagine it's very deliberate on his part.

I seem to recall reading that Milch considered Bullock to be nearly a psychopath, but instead of letting that aspect of him go, he uses the "law" to unleash it. Sort of how everytime he is pissed off about something or other, he goes out to find someone (like Steve the Drunk) he can bully around "legally" o legitimately or whatever.

Also, a certain scene involving Hearst's ear makes every second with Bullock worth it.

That was always my take on Bullock, that he was, to his core, a deeply violent man but also a moral one, and was only able to find an acceptable outlet for his aggression by couching these impulses together, and becoming a sheriff. Rewatching it, it seems like the single thing that motivates everything he does is anger. He's made a life out of channelling it in a moral direction.

The exception is his relationship with Alma, wherein he seems to find some sort of respite. Although it's so fucked up in every other way it just ends up making him angrier.

That's interesting. I definitely don't consider Bullock a psychopath. He always struck me as very unhappy and quick to anger, which was a recipe for somebody who had trouble controlling his temper once it was unleashed. But I always viewed most of the violence (at least the most severe examples) as just a part of that life*. I go back to the fight with the indian. He hits the guy's head on the rock repeatedly until he passes out, but then wants to bury him the proper way. Or, in the first scene of the series, when he could just shoot the horse thief, or give him to the mob because his time as marshall is over, he insists on a "proper" hanging. There's that killing impulse, but it's tempered by something that psychos don't really have.

* though I definitely concede the second part, about Bullock occasionally using his badge to let out his aggression.

edit- I like Arjen's take on the character.

But that's just the thing, its not just he hides behind the badge in that cop show kind of way, but that he channeled/controlled the violence inside him to be expressed through what the "law" is (which is very interesting, considering everything Milch is going for with the series). It's like a compulsion for Bullock, and those scenes you mention, its clear in both that its pure anger that propels Bullock to "hang the thief under color of law" and to properly bury the Indian.

I think Rome is better, but Deadwood is great.


The Earps just serve to remind the audience just how much of a bad ass Bullock is. Bullock is a the classic sheriff that is as deadly as anyone, but never get the fame that others got.

Yeah, you know how badass Bullock was in real life? Nobody less than Teddy Roosevelt considered him a best friend and brother in arms.

And it's in defence of Alma that he's driven to the only acts of extreme violence that he can't cover with being lawful or just. Though he was contrite about beating the everliving shit out of Alma's father after he cooled down.

Actually, the beating of Alma'a father kind of falls under the Frontier Justice banner. It's Bullock's attempt to get Al and Dan to kill him afterwards that really shows Bullock at his worst. He does get super contrite about that.

Bullock is a great character. My biggest problem is buying that he could just not be remotely prepared for his wife's arrival. I get that she came earlier than expected, but considering he explicitly invited her out there, it seems out of character for him to be just totally befuddled by it.

He befuddled by her because she was his dead brother wife. He married her with out really knowing her.

I'm talking about the cognitive dissonance of falling passionately in love with Alma and writing loving letters to his wife about how excited he is for them to get there. When she actually arrives, he behaves like he never expected this day to come. It's an honest reaction, but maybe not for Bullock.

He is also freshly concussed when she arrives.