Deadwood: Season Three (1 Viewer)

[John Lee_275604]

My only trepidation, Milch has never ever been involved in a movie. Have a lot of faith in him, but curious to know what he can do with a 90-120 minute big screen confine.

 

[MarkMel]

Confirmed!


http://www.avclub.com/article/hbo-has-greenlit-deadwood-movie-230448

 

[TravisR]

Now which major characters are going to be written out due to the actor being unavailable?

 

[Hollywoodaholic]

Awesome! Better late than never.

 

[joshEH]

So, while that declaration of support fills me with some measure of happiness, in terms of cultural parlance...contracts, or GTFO.


Don't tease Deadwood, HBO. It's far too meaningful. Work like hell to make it happen; if it actually comes together, then announce it to great fanfare and rapturous response.



Deadwood is precious, and so her revival should be considered in hushed tones, careful to not let Mother Karma wreak havoc.

 

[Dheiner]

Al: "If those cocksuckers fuck this up, I'll murder them in their fucking sleep."


(If he didn't say it, it might have been Dan.)

 

[Mark Maltais]

OMG! I just stumbled onto this thread!!! Please make it happen HBO you &^%$#!!! You owe all the Deadwood fans this!

 

[Charles Smith]

&@#*% right!

 

[ScottH]

Meh...I was a big fan of this show but I feel so far removed from it at this point that I'm not all that excited for a movie. Not that I won't watch it, but I certainly won't be making an effort to see it in a theater.

 

[joshEH]

From Alan Sepinwall, during HBO's TCA panel just now:

"HBO boss Casey Bloys just said the Deadwood movie is officially going into production soon."

https://twitter.com/sepinwall/status/1022150631954337792

More details. Directed by Daniel Minahan, starts shooting in October, probably hits Spring 2019:

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/deadwood-movie-is-finally-happening-at-hbo-1129743

Thank Christ the FUCKING PINKERTONS didn't get their way. Please god, don't let anyone else die before this films.

 

[Dheiner]

"Bout time. Cocksuckers."

 

[joshEH]

I always thought the biggest disappointment in Deadwood's original ending was that they didn't get a chance to burn down their sets. Now they have a chance to burn down Westworld's sets!

I guess the big question is whether they will pick up after a ten-year gap in the story. Seems the only rational way to handle this, as pretending like everybody didn't age would be stupid. It may cause things to be less historically-accurate, but that's hardly at odds with this show. I mean, Calamity Jane should have drunk herself to death by now, and no one here is gonna complain that she hasn't.

A ten-year gap will make it easier to explain the deaths of Tolliver and Richardson, and ironically harder for them to explain how Doc Cochran is still alive. At least, I assume they'll have him surviving the tuberculosis he was evincing in Season 3. You don't just toss aside a perfectly-good Brad Dourif.

 

[joshEH]

Also, W. Earl Brown just posted a great Twitter-thread about the years since Deadwood was canceled:

https://twitter.com/WEarlBrown/status/1022516470109089793

This passage totally made me chuckle:

November 2006 Contracts expired. All the horses were out of the barn, but I grew up on my grandad's farm, I can round up a herd. I kept a legal pad on my desk which kept track of the cast and what they were doing.

My favorite inscriptions: "Tim - hillbilly cop show in KY" "Anna - a show about meth in ABQ"

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Finished the third and final season tonight. I thought it was the best of the three, brewing with conflict: Hearst's increasingly heavy-handed tactics set against the machinations of the camp's incumbents. The lingering question: Can Swearengen's advantage in ingenuity compensate for his vastly inferior strategic position?

Gerald McRaney's portrayal of George Hearst is fascinating.

Hearst, of course, was a real person: Obsessed with mining, he traveled to California at age 26. His first great success came in his late thirties, in the Utah Territory, where he mined close to 40 tons of silver, and made more than $90 thousand (in 1859 dollars). In 1872, he worked another silver mine, in Park City, Utah, which produced $17 million dollars and made him enormously wealthy at a time when the country was suffering through an economic depression. By the time he arrived in Deadwood, he was one of the richest men in the country. His Deadwood mining operation would become the most successful mining operation in United States history, operating continuously from his acquisition through to 2001. His only son was William Randolph Hearst, the publishing giant.

McRaney plays Hearst as somewhere between overindulged child and socially awkward savant. His is a man who longs for the camaraderie of his fellow man, but is foiled by his own requirement for total and complete obedience to his will. At the time of his introduction into this series, he is someone who has been so powerful for so long that the very idea of agendas counter to his own purpose is infuriating to him. Avoiding the obstacles that appear in his path would have required concessions that would have been inconsequential to his bottom line. But the very idea of being asked to concede on anything "mistakes [his] nature absolutely." How do you deal with a man who doesn't play well with others, but has such an advantageous position that he doesn't need to?

The interesting thing with the Gem this season is how devoid of customers it is for nearly the entire season. With the exception of Hearst's plants early in the season and a couple bit roles in the finale, the only people we see in there are Al, his henchmen, his whores (not working), and the people Al summons for his various purposes. In the first two seasons, Al was able to multi-task between commerce and strategy. This season, checking Hearst requires more or less his entire attention.

When Jen was introduced as one of the Gem's new whores at the beginning of the season, I thought it was a mistake to cast a prominent background player with the same height, build, and hair as Trixie. Only in the finale does the purpose of that casting become clear. It's a reminder of the Al Swearengen from the beginning of the first season, who wouldn't hesitate to do a dirty deed if it furthered his interests, as opposed to the more noble and magnanimous figure of later seasons. But it's also a validation of his feelings for -- and sense of obligation to -- Trixie, that he would sacrifice an innocent to spare her life. The fact that he felt the need to clean up the blood stains himself speaks to why he is our protagonist and not Tolliver or Hearst: he has a more conscience, even if he doesn't let it limit him, and he carries the weight of his misdeeds with him.

Speaking of Tolliver, he spends the season largely impotent, waylaid first by injury and then pinned down under Hearst's thumb shortly thereafter. His inability to impose his will in matters of consequence keeps the worst qualities of his character always close to erupting. Hearst humiliates him, and then others pay the price for it.

Bullock also has little to no agency this season. He is a man ruled by his passions, and the ever escalating developments within the camp compel him to a predestined outcome again and again and again. His function this season is to mostly serve as unreasoning force of nature that alternately frustrates Hearst and Swearengen, upending their tactics and plans with each unreasoning act.

I'm always sad to see Jim Beaver get written out of anything, and "Deadwood" is no exception. Ellsworth's death was both anticlimactic and inevitable. It did provide the first opportunity for Sofia to be a character rather than a plot device or background color. This is a young girl whose entire family was murdered in her presence. I found it both indicative of the hardness of life in this place and time and moving as a moment of humanity that Sofia knew, understood, and accepted that Ellsworth was dead, but wanted to see the body and feel his beard one last time, to make her peace with his passing, acknowledge how important he was to her, and pray for his safe passage into eternal rest with the Lord.

One of my favorite small developments is the relationship between Aunt Lou and Richardson. The arrival of Aunt Lou to serve as the Grand Central's new cook would seem to displace Richardson. In 1877, it would have been seen as a massive insult for a white man to be replaced and demoted in favor of a black woman. But Richardson is an odd simpleton, and he doesn't think in those terms. He accepts Aunt Lou's arrival readily, and serves under her without complaint. Like Farnham, she recognizes that he requires steering and direction. Unlike Farnham, she treats him with patience and respect, and steers him constructively. By the end of the season, she treats him as one would treat a favored child.

Sam Fields is an interesting character, who -- like Calamity Jane -- was popularly known as an interesting character in accounts from the time being dramatized. In reality he was one of the most prominent and well-known members of Deadwood's black community. In the show, he and Hostetler are the only black people seen in the camp. This season, he serves as one avatar for the black pioneer experience, while Aunt Lou serves as another (very different) avatar for the black pioneer experience.

I don't feel like the subplot with the theater troupe coming to town served any meaningful purpose. But Brian Cox was so great as Lagrishe that I didn't much mind that his subplot didn't really go anywhere.

The quick subplot with Wyatt Earp and his brother, and how the show explains the historically factual briefness of his stay at the camp, was fun. The portrayal of Wyatt Earp here, while not villainous, borders on amoral. It's an interesting contrast to the fearless and heroic prototypical lawman in so many Hollywood portrayals.

At the end of the day, hat we're left with is a deliberately anticlimactic ending, with the destruction and slaughter of the camp averted without bloody battle in the streets, but Hearst otherwise largely victorious. The historical record wouldn't have permitted any other outcome.

As unsatisfying as the final episode is as a series finale, in some ways I think it was fortuitous that the series ended when it did. Hearst's acquisition of Alma's claim and the avoidance of bloodshed cemented the completion of Deadwood's journey from lawless anarchy to civilization. Hearst's stranglehold on the town wouldn't be meaningfully threatened for at least a decade. The power dynamics that fueled the show would have been stuck in a kind of stasis that could have easily come to feel like wheel-spinning.

There was probably room for one more really exciting and dynamic season, dealing with the devastating fire of 1879 and the transformative effects of the aftermath with so much destruction and displacement. But going another four or five seasons would have risked diminishing the show's reputation.

 

[TravisR]

Finished the third and final season tonight. I thought it was the best of the three, brewing with conflict: Hearst's increasingly heavy-handed tactics set against the machinations of the camp's incumbents. The lingering question: Can Swearengen's advantage in ingenuity compensate for his vastly inferior strategic position?

Gerald McRaney's portrayal of George Hearst is fascinating.

Hearst, of course, was a real person: Obsessed with mining, he traveled to California at age 26. His first great success came in his late thirties, in the Utah Territory, where he mined close to 40 tons of silver, and made more than $90 thousand (in 1859 dollars). In 1872, he worked another silver mine, in Park City, Utah, which produced $17 million dollars and made him enormously wealthy at a time when the country was suffering through an economic depression. By the time he arrived in Deadwood, he was one of the richest men in the country. His Deadwood mining operation would become the most successful mining operation in United States history, operating continuously from his acquisition through to 2001. His only son was William Randolph Hearst, the publishing giant.

McRaney plays Hearst as somewhere between overindulged child and socially awkward savant. His is a man who longs for the camaraderie of his fellow man, but is foiled by his own requirement for total and complete obedience to his will. At the time of his introduction into this series, he is someone who has been so powerful for so long that the very idea of agendas counter to his own purpose is infuriating to him. Avoiding the obstacles that appear in his path would have required concessions that would have been inconsequential to his bottom line. But the very idea of being asked to concede on anything "mistakes [his] nature absolutely." How do you deal with a man who doesn't play well with others, but has such an advantageous position that he doesn't need to?

The interesting thing with the Gem this season is how devoid of customers it is for nearly the entire season. With the exception of Hearst's plants early in the season and a couple bit roles in the finale, the only people we see in there are Al, his henchmen, his whores (not working), and the people Al summons for his various purposes. In the first two seasons, Al was able to multi-task between commerce and strategy. This season, checking Hearst requires more or less his entire attention.

When Jen was introduced as one of the Gem's new whores at the beginning of the season, I thought it was a mistake to cast a prominent background player with the same height, build, and hair as Trixie. Only in the finale does the purpose of that casting become clear. It's a reminder of the Al Swearengen from the beginning of the first season, who wouldn't hesitate to do a dirty deed if it furthered his interests, as opposed to the more noble and magnanimous figure of later seasons. But it's also a validation of his feelings for -- and sense of obligation to -- Trixie, that he would sacrifice an innocent to spare her life. The fact that he felt the need to clean up the blood stains himself speaks to why he is our protagonist and not Tolliver or Hearst: he has a more conscience, even if he doesn't let it limit him, and he carries the weight of his misdeeds with him.

Speaking of Tolliver, he spends the season largely impotent, waylaid first by injury and then pinned down under Hearst's thumb shortly thereafter. His inability to impose his will in matters of consequence keeps the worst qualities of his character always close to erupting. Hearst humiliates him, and then others pay the price for it.

Bullock also has little to no agency this season. He is a man ruled by his passions, and the ever escalating developments within the camp compel him to a predestined outcome again and again and again. His function this season is to mostly serve as unreasoning force of nature that alternately frustrates Hearst and Swearengen, upending their tactics and plans with each unreasoning act.

I'm always sad to see Jim Beaver get written out of anything, and "Deadwood" is no exception. Ellsworth's death was both anticlimactic and inevitable. It did provide the first opportunity for Sofia to be a character rather than a plot device or background color. This is a young girl whose entire family was murdered in her presence. I found it both indicative of the hardness of life in this place and time and moving as a moment of humanity that Sofia knew, understood, and accepted that Ellsworth was dead, but wanted to see the body and feel his beard one last time, to make her peace with his passing, acknowledge how important he was to her, and pray for his safe passage into eternal rest with the Lord.

One of my favorite small developments is the relationship between Aunt Lou and Richardson. The arrival of Aunt Lou to serve as the Grand Central's new cook would seem to displace Richardson. In 1877, it would have been seen as a massive insult for a white man to be replaced and demoted in favor of a black woman. But Richardson is an odd simpleton, and he doesn't think in those terms. He accepts Aunt Lou's arrival readily, and serves under her without complaint. Like Farnham, she recognizes that he requires steering and direction. Unlike Farnham, she treats him with patience and respect, and steers him constructively. By the end of the season, she treats him as one would treat a favored child.

Sam Fields is an interesting character, who -- like Calamity Jane -- was popularly known as an interesting character in accounts from the time being dramatized. In reality he was one of the most prominent and well-known members of Deadwood's black community. In the show, he and Hostetler are the only black people seen in the camp. This season, he serves as one avatar for the black pioneer experience, while Aunt Lou serves as another (very different) avatar for the black pioneer experience.

I don't feel like the subplot with the theater troupe coming to town served any meaningful purpose. But Brian Cox was so great as Lagrishe that I didn't much mind that his subplot didn't really go anywhere.

The quick subplot with Wyatt Earp and his brother, and how the show explains the historically factual briefness of his stay at the camp, was fun. The portrayal of Wyatt Earp here, while not villainous, borders on amoral. It's an interesting contrast to the fearless and heroic prototypical lawman in so many Hollywood portrayals.

At the end of the day, hat we're left with is a deliberately anticlimactic ending, with the destruction and slaughter of the camp averted without bloody battle in the streets, but Hearst otherwise largely victorious. The historical record wouldn't have permitted any other outcome.

As unsatisfying as the final episode is as a series finale, in some ways I think it was fortuitous that the series ended when it did. Hearst's acquisition of Alma's claim and the avoidance of bloodshed cemented the completion of Deadwood's journey from lawless anarchy to civilization. Hearst's stranglehold on the town wouldn't be meaningfully threatened for at least a decade. The power dynamics that fueled the show would have been stuck in a kind of stasis that could have easily come to feel like wheel-spinning.

There was probably room for one more really exciting and dynamic season, dealing with the devastating fire of 1879 and the transformative effects of the aftermath with so much destruction and displacement. But going another four or five seasons would have risked diminishing the show's reputation.

Now wait until 2032 to watch the movie so you can know the pain that the rest of suffered after the third season

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Now wait until 2032 to watch the movie so you can know the pain that the rest of suffered after the third season

Heading off to watch it now. My HBO subscription expires in two weeks!