Deadwood: Season 1, Episode 1 (S1E1)
"May I ride? I'd be honored to ride, infirmities permitting."
This is part of a series going deep into the 2000s era HBO show Deadwood.
Brief preamble before we get into the meat of this.
This may be the longest post I’ve ever written. Over 7k words. 32-minute read time. All on a single episode of television, one that I’ve already written about pretty extensively.
I’ve been working on this for about a month. There was a lot of self-doubt and questioning along the way, which slowed me down. I’m not totally married to the format I settled on, but also can’t think of a better way to delve into this. I will continue to write pieces around specific themes as they occur, as we progress deeper into the series. That’s right—the next post will be about episode 2!
Given the mammoth investment of time, and that I’m planning on collecting all of these into a book when I’m done, this and all future Deadwood posts will be for supporters. I include a sizable preview, per usual.
One last note: I already covered the first 10 minutes pretty extensively, so I tried to breeze through the beginning here. Tried, but largely failed.
1:48: The first shot of Deadwood is a quiet street in an unnamed Montana town. It’s the opposite of Deadwood, a place perpetually rife with an unseemly mass of humanity. Where is everybody? (Probably on their way to Deadwood.)
I find it funny that there’s scaffolding for hanging people in the middle of the street. It’s an interesting juxtaposition—a town so empty it’s almost bleak, and an implement of public execution in the middle of its main (only?) street.
2:03: Seth Bullock (Timothy Olyphant) quietly writes in his journal. There’s something endlessly appealing about the idea of journaling. But it’s hard to overcome the inertia of not journaling. There’s also a degree of pretentiousness—even when I’m writing for myself, I want it to be good, otherwise why bother? It’s a different sort of pretentious from writing for public consumption, which begins with the assumption that people want to read your writing. Need to, even.
I don’t think people realize how much ego is involved in writing.
I assume Bullock is capturing his feelings about his upcoming relocation to Deadwood. But maybe he keeps an Arya Stark list of all the people who’ve pissed him off. It’d be a long list.
3:19: I find Bullock’s good humor about previously getting shot—“Flesh wound, don’t look like it wants to infect”—rather charming. It signals an everydayness to the very idea of being shot, a dismissiveness of the sort you or I might exhibit after losing WiFi. But even that’s a bad example because people get irritated when modern conveniences unexpectedly become unavailable.
This was a time when violence lurked nearby and men often settled their differences with brutal finality, so I guess it makes sense that Bullock’s not nursing a grudge. However, this was also a time in which medical care involved tools more commonly used in carpentry. Even a flesh wound would be terrifying.
Bullock’s cavalier attitude is most surprising because it’s totally out of character. He gets pissed about everything. Is this the last time we see him in a good mood? I think it might be. The only explanation is he’s high on ‘last day of school’ vibes.
4:01: Clell Watson—the dude in jail—tries to convince Bullock to let him out. I enjoy how Bullock plays along and really wish Sol Star (John Hawkes) didn’t interrupt before Bullock could reply. Would he toy with him? Make him think he was considering it? I think he might. Entertainment is hard to come by in this town.
6:40: Byron Sampson tries to throw his weight around but it’s all impotent rage. And delusional. He orders Clell not to jump off the stool and hang himself, but he has no power here. I really enjoy the moment where Sampson realizes this. Nothing he can threaten is worse than what Clell has already accepted as truth—he’s gonna die, here and now.
6:57: Clell giving his last words, which are for his son: “Tell him his Daddy loved him.” Love how the fight immediately goes out of Sampson’s posse, for the same reason that “Hey Dad—wanna have a catch,” unravels grown men.
7:30: Clell hangs, but not before giving Sampson a final “fuck you.” You know—we tend to be on Clell’s side this whole time even though he’s obviously guilty and a lowlife criminal. Somehow the posse and the prospect of vigilante justice seems worse. But Sampson is the aggrieved party. So why’s Clell so mad at him? Because he wouldn’t let Clell steal his horse?
Bullock lets Clell choke for about 6 seconds before helping him with his fall. Is he giving Sampson his money’s worth, or trying to shame him for forcing a clumsy staged execution? We'll never know.
7:40: Even though they’re out for blood, the mob can’t make themselves look at the body. Even Sampson is shocked. It’s like they’ve never actually seen a hanging before. Maybe the placement of a gallows in the middle of the street was an effective deterrent. Maybe it’s never been used. What are the odds it still has a price sticker on it?
7:59: Bullock’s reaction after yanking on Clell’s legs has always mystified me. He’s legit seething. Granted, we later come to realize this is Bullock’s default state. Like Bruce Banner, his secret is that he’s always angry. But the suddenness of the transformation is shocking. Just 3 minutes ago, Bullock was journaling and all nonchalant about getting shot. Now he looks like he wants he add some people to the gallows.
8:23: Bullock jots down Clell’s last words and asks for a volunteer to give them to his sister. Even though Clell is dead and Sampson has more or less gotten what he wanted, he takes one last chance to be a dickhead. “None of you better fucking move.”
Always appreciated the guy stepping away from the mob to do the right thing. It seems like a small thing, but peer pressure looks different when your friends are packing heat.
9:13: You ain’t never seen a traffic jam like a Black Hills traffic jam. Or smelled one like it either.
The long, stalled wagon train is an effective way of illustrating just how many people are streaming into Deadwood. The traffic is at a dead stop on account of a wagon that broke down. The same wagon broke down the day before, which is another telling detail: People are rushing out here ill-prepared for what life on the frontier actually means. And we haven’t even reached Deadwood yet!
9:17: Calamity Jane (Robin Weigert) struts into our lives. She’s dressed in layers of tattered brown clothing and is carrying a whip. She has the airs of a hobo who wandered through a circus, picked up a bullwhip, and just kept it because why not.
Wild Bill Hickok (Keith Carradine) is laid up in the back of a wagon due to a headache. Jane sweetly sees to him. She’s pretty clearly been friend-zoned but she also hasn’t gotten the memo, or at least didn’t read it.
9:57: Jane loudly harangues the crowd for stalling Wild Bill. She does this standing directly beside the wagon in which he’s trying to stave off a headache. Hilarious.
10:13: A group of men struggle to right a wagon. This wagon didn’t just break down—it fell over. I’ve never driven a wagon but it seems like you’d have to be really incompetent to roll one onto its side. No wonder Jane’s so incensed.
Calamity Jane: “What a goddamned circus!”
She’s holding her whip, which means nothing but confirms my head canon that she’s a circus devotee who likes to LARP as a lion tamer.
10:25: The music kicks in as we get our first real look at Deadwood.
I covered this part separately and rather completely.
11:28: Seth Bullock reins up where his business partner Sol Star is talking with Dan Dority (W. Earl Brown) about renting a lot. The going rate is $20 a day. Tents only, no construction. I think the real estate and economics of Deadwood are fascinating, which is just another way of outing myself as a huge nerd. This is also my way of signaling that a future post will delve into the local economy. I’ll keep it fun.
It’s a corner lot, so Seth acquiesces to the price though he clearly does not like it. $20 doesn’t sound like much, but it’s almost $650 according to this inflation calculator. The calculator only goes back to 1913, so it could very well be north of $700 in today-dollars. Again, that’s for one day. Kinda blows my mind. And puts into perspective just how hot the Deadwood real estate market was.
12:01: More economics! Al Swearengen (Ian McShane) turns Ellsworth's (Jim Beaver) gold into credit at the Gem Saloon.
Al Swearengen: “Eight ounces of gold at $20 an ounce is $160, plus $10 for a half-ounce makes $170 total.”
That’s almost $5500 after inflation.
Given this scene and the ‘rent a lot’ one are back-to-back, and both are using $20 as a base unit of measure, it’s almost like showrunner David Milch is begging us to compare the two. So let’s not disappoint him.
Obviously, there’s a fortune to be made in gold. That assumes you have a working gold claim, or the stamina to grind at less desirable digs. Ellsworth is the rare example of someone who got lucky. He’s how every would-be prospector imagines themselves on their way to Deadwood.
Meanwhile, the hardware business guys have to drop $20 just to setup their tent. They’re running different races, and though we’ve all been taught that the slow and steady Tortoise will ultimately prevail, that's a bit hard to believe when Rabbit is spending $5500 on booze, gambling, and whores in one day, every day.
Las Vegas has got nothing on gold rush Deadwood.
I don’t wanna go too far off into the economics—there’s definitely enough material for a dedicated post—but I do wonder who sets the price of gold. Did Al independently decide gold is $20 an ounce? Is there a general agreement (also called collusion) among the Deadwood merchants about how to turn gold into cash? Is $20 the going rate in the civilized parts of the world?
The thing is, Al could offer $5 or $10 an ounce. What’s Ellsworth gonna do? Deadwood is a captive market—they’re hundreds of miles from anything. There’s a fortune to be made here, but it’s a buyer’s market.
12:50: Ellsworth is a dark horse candidate for the show’s MVP. He doesn’t have much of a narrative impact but I just love the guy.
Ellsworth: “I may’ve fucked my life up flatter than hammered shit, but I stand here before you today beholden to no human cocksucker. And working a paying fucking gold claim. And not the U.S. Government saying I’m trespassing, or the savage fucking red man himself, or any of these limber dick cocksuckers passing themselves off as prospectors had better try and stop me.”
One of the first instances of Deadwood’s lyrical profanity.
I think there’s probably a longer, separate essay to suss out the entrepreneurial spirit underlying all these people rushing out to Deadwood. It’s about the gold, yes, but it’s really about what such immense wealth provides: Freedom from all constraint. These prospectors were unknowingly early adherents of the FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early) movement.
Except they squander all their money and never actually retire.
13:45: The aftermath of Trixie (Paula Malcomson) shooting a john who’d been beating her. Al bribes Doc Cochran (Brad Dourif) with free booze to keep the gun out of the whore’s hand in any retellings, framing the death as a suicide.
It’s a cold calculus—whores shooting up johns is bad for business—that makes a certain crude sense, but Al’s brusque and aggrieved manner is a far more affecting introduction to the character than his commerce with Ellsworth moments ago, and also more accurate. In buying Ellsworth’s gold, Al comes across as mild-mannered, almost pleasant. The stereotypical barkeep. But that was just a facade. The man who quickly weighs out ramifications and consequences with near total disregard for the human element is the true Al Swearengen.
16:03: Wild Bill steps off the wagon to slake his thirst. Jane is practicing with the bullwhip while a crowd of amused men look on. I could be wrong but I believe this is the first and only time she ever uses the whip. Maybe she thought Deadwood would be a lot of delving into dark places and swinging over gorges in pursuit of gold, but in fact it’s mostly getting shit-faced.