'Deadwood' Primer, Part 2: Welcome to Deadwood

"Believe me, we're stuck here a fuckin' while."

HBO

This is the second in a series going deep into the 2000s era HBO show Deadwood.

“You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.” ~ Ben Kenobi

“Welcome to fucking Deadwood!” ~ Al Swearengen

I have an admission so unbelievable you might’ve seen it on Taxicab Confessions in an earlier era: My favorite part of Deadwood is undoubtedly lame, at least compared to the other options.

It’s not the wonderfully inventive invective. It’s not the town itself, or the desperate degenerates it trades in, or Ellsworth’s preoccupation with “limber dick cocksuckers.” It’s not even Timothy Olyphant at perhaps peak Olyphantness—a topic I’ll delve another time—or the delightful banter between Swearengen and Mr. Wu—so much meaning squeezed out of one word—or any of the other obvious choices.

It’s the first few minutes after the prologue, after Calamity Jane tears into the yokels who can’t keep their wagon upright. As the music kicks in, she watches wagons inch toward a cluster of buildings surrounded by so much wilderness it almost feels hostile. Which in a way, it actually is—the pioneers who laid Deadwood’s foundations did so in direct violation of a treaty that guaranteed ownership of the Black Hills to the Lakota, who considered the area sacred.

This all really happened, which is another of the Deadwood’s delights. How it mixes fact and fiction into something more potent than either.

Gold changed everything. The U.S. government did nothing to stem the tide of prospectors flowing into the region, and in 1877 gave up all pretense and annexed the area completely. “Move fast and break things,” is Silicon Valley speak for ignoring laws and morality in pursuit of a dollar. That mindset has been part of the American DNA long before anyone knew what a Zuckerberg was. And it’s what drove Al Swearengen (for real, and on the show) and others to brave the dangers and carve an ugly little town in the midst of all that virgin beauty.

HBO

But I’m getting off track. It’s this show—my tangents have tangents. We haven’t actually gotten to my favorite part.

It involves Olyphant. Whatever, I make no apologies.

The camera fast passes to the front of the line where Seth Bullock (Olyphant) drives a wagon. And it is from his viewpoint that we get our first real look at Deadwood, in all its mayhem and disorderly filth. Between the prologue and this meet-cute, the show goes out of its way to make you think Bullock is the hero, a notion it quickly and happily disabuses you of. Deadwood is not a place for heroism, or even protagonists when it comes right down to it.

Showing and Telling are two sides of the same storytelling coin. Deadwood uses both to establish this seedy outpost off the edge of the map. In the prologue, we get a bit of dialogue between Bullock and the soon-to-be-dead criminal: lawless town on Indian land, gold rush. That’s all we get, but it’s enough to wet our beak.

This introductory scene is all show, filling in vital context via a colorful yet blurry montage. We get scattered glimpses and just as quickly move onto new mysteries as Bullock’s wagon rolls deeper into town.

• A team of men rapidly building what could be a theater or store but will probably be a saloon that rents out girls.

• Prospectors standing at the top of ladders set in deep trenches alongside the street. Are they too scared to stray from town? Too eager to spend what they find? Too poor to afford better digs?

• Stern-looking men posing for photographs, to send back home or perhaps catalog that they were here during what promises to be a momentous time in history. Or maybe they're just vain and think this show is about them.

• A table selling whiskey shots. I’ve seen more professional-looking lemonade stands. Incredibly, there’s a line of people waiting to buy.

• A guy holding up live chickens by the neck, and another bloodily butchering an elk or deer. Between them, they could establish a field-to-table food outfit, perhaps with the slogan: “If you have any money left after gambling, drinking, and whoring all night.”

• And everywhere there are people carrying stuff and wagons laden down and people just standing around taking it all in.

The overall impression is of barely contained chaos. It’s the clearance section of Kohl’s brought to horrible life.

Maybe it’s the D&D in me, but what I love is how economically this little scene shows what Deadwood actually is. Not the lawlessness, not the gold. It’s not even a town, not really—the locals call it a camp, which suggests a makeshift impermanence that mocks the wooden structures they’re so quick to build. In the mind of Al and Deadwood’s other forefathers, this place is a way station. A place to collect fares on the people passing through.

Deadwood summons to itself all whom are outcast from polite society and offers them a glimmer of hope. A chance to get their lives back on track. To borrow showrunner David Milch’s parlance, they're “shit birds.” People who seemingly can’t help but continually screw up their lives. You’ve probably known a few in your life, and chances are good they look on their ill-fortune as being put upon them rather than being of their own making. The criminal we meet in the prologue is a shining example of the archetype. They piss into the wind and complain about getting wet.

Deadwood is built upon those uncertain, transient backs. It’s where con men and businessmen and former lawmen all find common ground, where the lines are blurred out of all meaning, where meaning is found only in gold and its acquisition. It’s the Old Testament all over again, except this golden idol is fist-sized and frittered away on booze and whores.

As much as the town is the closest thing the show has to a main character—and the character of the town is rather lifelike in how it matures and changes—Deadwood is a people. That’s very Kumbaya but it’s true. This scene is our first look at what that actually means. Bizarre, dirty, random, often vile, occasionally compassionate, always achingly human.

Another cool detail: notice the background deforestation. HBO

That got a little high brow for a minute. Don’t worry, to balance the scales we’ll cover the tit licker in appropriate detail at some point.

So yeah—I really dig this little scene where we meet Deadwood. There’s nothing dramatic about it. There’s not even any dialogue. But it just speaks to me on an elemental level.

One of the other things that’s interesting is all the people just sorta standing around. Or being fitted for a firearm. Or posing for a picture. Shouldn’t they be out prospecting? Isn’t that why they abandoned their previous life and came all this way? It reminds me of people who decide they want to write, so they spend hundreds of dollars on books, and hours picking out the perfect desk, and days making sure their writing space has that Insta cozy vibe—Moleskine, coffee mug, clear desk top—but never get around to actually writing. No shade, I did that myself for a couple years. The illusion of progress is actually more satisfying than legit progress, because you get to do all the fun stuff without any of the actual hard work of sifting for gold.

I opened this piece with a quote from Star Wars. Partly because it’s never far from my mind; I’m fluent in exactly two languages—English and Star Wars. But I also love comparing our first glimpse of Mos Eisley with this moment from Deadwood.

Ben Kenobi’s declaration that Mos Eisley is the absolute worst and that young Luke Skywalker is about to see some serious shit is one of the great setups in cinema. And while the dive cantina they visit is chock-full of scum, and a couple of villains do randomly decide to pick on Luke, you get the sense that this place isn’t really a place at all. It’s a watering hole on a very arid planet that pilots frequent when they’re stuck here for a few hours. Nobody wants to come to Tatooine. The aliens Luke encounters are no different than the randos you and I bump into at the airport. We are chance-met, and that’s the extent of our relationship.

When Calamity Jane stands looking down on Deadwood, it’s not from a place of moral superiority. She isn’t judging the town, or the people rushing there. People overlooked when Fate handed out the best gifts, and mean to seize destiny themselves. For them, Deadwood is more than a destination. It’s a promise. Which is why the comparison to Mos Eisley ultimately falls apart. The spaceport offers only a bit of excitement before the real adventure starts.

And, of course, Deadwood is way more villainous. But that’s a topic for next time.

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You know, when I decided to write about Deadwood, it was with the thought that I might cover each episode individually. But I've now written two pieces of nearly 4000 combined words and we’re barely 10 minutes into the first episode. I know I can be long-winded but this is a record even for me.

I'd like to promise a more episodic entry next time, but I'm not sure that's really the case. I find the idea of writing an episode breakdown incredibly boring. Here’s the rub: I’m revisiting the series episode-by-episode, to refresh myself on the story and look for what strikes me as interesting, and also because that’s how you watch television. So I expect this delving will be somewhat constrained to episodes, with chances to circle back and deepen our understanding as we go.

I suspect the next post will be about Al Swearengen. It’s frankly a minor miracle that I haven’t spent much time with him yet, given how vital he is to the show and also all the wonderfully crude things that come out of his mouth. And I need to talk about Wild Bill and why the two former lawmen feel compelled to posse up in this place where there is no law. And Jane. And Doc. The list goes on.

Do me a favor—if you liked this, send it to someone.