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.
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.
