To be or not to be left out
Jun. 19th, 2011 10:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chaniThe thing is that Deadwood is so rich, there's so much to ponder and parse that I could spend hours reviewing just one episode. It reminds me of the good old times with BtVS when I could write long essays, draw many connections that perhaps existed on my mind only (but the connector is always the raison d'être of the connected things) and interpret things ad nauseam.
How could HBO cancell such a wonderful show? I suppose it was considered too complicated, too elitist.
Deadwood surely doesn't take the easy way so many tv shows indulge in. Buffy had depth and layers too but it could also be watched and enjoyed by viewers who simply wanted entertainment, humour, monsters and pretty girls; viewers who didn't care about the references, the deeper meaning, the writing structure, the foreshadowing stuff, the metaphorical language of the show, and who didn't see them while watching; viewers who didn't feel left out...
Joss Whedon was smart enough to cover the cleverness, the literary side and the complexity of his creation with a shallow and fun façade, hiding a gem behind a silly name and a geeky genre. It allowed the show to find an audience large enough to live on networks...but until now, and despite the cult that ensued, there are still many viewers or even critics who don't see the greatness of Buffy The Vampire Slayer (and it doesn't help that several silly vampire shows have followed!) or who simply couldn't imagine to put it in the same league as those quality tv shows that the cable has provided over the years.
David Milch, maybe because it was HBO, didn't disguise his fabulous show, although one could argue that the show is dressed-up like a western more than it is actually a western. I don't know the history of the ratings but I bet that they dropped during season 2, a magnificent season per se, but a season that many must have found too slow and un-westerny. And there's the Deadwoodlang that might be a put-off to many ears (either because of the profanities or because of the sophisticated and old-fashioned Shakespearian lines). Deadwood is a demanding show; it requires efforts but the reward is worth it.
One of my favourite episodes so far was "E.B Was Left Out", the title singling out a character that Wolcoot calls "a grotesque" in the next episode (which I'll review later)and that is indeed both hilarious and tragic, a fool, a clown malgré-lui who more and more looks and sounds like an alien creature, or a freak, doomed to look at the humans, and often spy on them, without being accepted among them, perhaps even more than the sociopath that is Wolcott or the god that is Al. Oh the irony of his being the Mayor! Al so mistreats him and he responds with saying "thank you!"
Con is playing a similar role towards Cy Tolliwer (hence his rather "we are dwarves in the company of a giant") but he isn't as "left out" as E.B, and the character sounds less histrionic. E.B seems to have been taken from a play. He is so pathetic in his obsequious ways towards people who don't even hide their irritation and annoyance(Cy's rolling his eyes when E.B implies a Bullock/Alma intercourse and later yelling "I don't fucking know!" and brushing E.B aside) or even disgust (Alma for instance when she leaves the table or says "I'm glad to be leaving your company) of him .
The opening scene between Al and Merrick is wonderful. You can see that Al is fond of Merrick and his speech is one of the most quotable ones he has delivered:
"Pain or damage don't end the world or despair or fucking beatings. The world ends when you're dead. Until then, you got more punishment in store. Stand it like a man, and give some back."
Now I realise that E.B is probably the character to whom Al's wisdom applies the most or rather who follows it, as he keeps being verbally beaten and humiliated, but he takes it over and over because it doesn't end his world. An he gives some back...on poor Richardson, his very own punching bag!!!
Also I noticed how recurring number three is. Merrick confesses that he has been beaten three times, three whores have been killed by Wolcott, three have escaped, sent away and never to return, thanks to Joanie and Charlie. "A different three" as Charlie says when Joanie comes to confide in him. She's so vulnerable confessing that she fears men (and her response when Charlie asked for the reason Wolcott killed the whores "I don't know! I am not a man!"). What to make of this? Not sure...
BTW Wolcott playing with the murder weapon, his razor, while wathcing his reflection, looks suicidal. He might feel more guilt than he admits to (Dexter-style!) and be less amoral than he says and more human than we thought.
Oh and Sophia's face when she sniffes Farnum's "selection of choice". And it's kidneys which seems to point out a connection to Al's previous illness...
Wolcott takes abeating in the episode too, by Charlie Utter who can't help it, knowing what he knows. Apparently Wolcott doesn't fight back, he just takes it, perhaps because somewhere deep down he wants to be punished, but also because, as a killer who has taken several lives, he knows that being beaten isn't the end of the world, death only is.
I adored that Johnny was Al's eyes on the balcony and reported to him immediately, telling what's just happening in the street, while E.B missed the whole fight. Al knows it all, even when he is at his desk, ha! He even knows – thanks to deduction after what Johnny told him – that Tolliver wants to see him even before Dan says so which obviously makes an impression on Dan. He must think that Al has superpowers!
Al is being very Sherlock Holmes-y then connecting the beating with what he saw the previous night! Now it's E.B's time to be impressed before he announces : "I will station myself downstairs as an observer" which Al echoes while mocking when he says "I will urinate before I see Tolliver" and then the line evolves into another blow, this time towards Johnny...
Al obviously believes in tough "parenting" and that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. He is more a prophet than a god, now that he has descended from the height (helped with a small stone in his bladder) among the humans, like an avatar of Zaratustra (the one in Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Nietzsche, not the Iranian one). By the way Al is wandering a lot in the episode, leaving his office to go and see not only Alma, but also Charlie.
Oh and I loved how Jewel poked fun at Al, saying, as a private joke that Cy can't understand: "god he's always dragging that fucking leg!". The Al/Jewel interactions in a Gem are a precious thing. :- )
Wolcott with Cochran made me smile especially when the doc was worried about a renewal of violence and he said "I hope not doctor, I didn't do well in the original". Wolcott has found a way to give some back, but it's twisted and Charlie is only a tool, the violence would touch Joanie.
Ah the meeting between Al and Alma (how similar their names are!), long waited, and it happened at last! So Al decides to side with the widow. I find interesting that the episode reminds us that once upon a time Al tried to have Sophia killed. Dan couldn't do the job, and even though Al didn't kill the little girl at the end of the day, the idea of killing a child wasn't an issue. We've come to care for Al, but he began as someone who plotted a child's death... The fact that the girl is named Sophia aka σοφία (wisdom/knowledge in Greek) is, of course, very significant. Al is a wiser man now, a man of wisdom even, who "educates" his people, even a pissed-off Trixie who confesses "I'm erractic with my decimals"; the wise man tells her not to fault Sol and Seth for her fucking fears of tumbling to something new (and by mentioning a boot on her neck he recalled their first scene together in which Trixie received a serious beating from Al!). Al has an agenda of course, which Trixie now (she is spying on Bullock for him), but it's still a new piece of wisdom to a woman who cared for Sophia in season 1, and he seems almost proud of her moving onto new territory, like a teacher for a pupil. "Tell the child no hard feelings" indeed!
Trixie sort of imitates Al's wisdom when she makes amends to Bullock and after Sol asks her if she has guidance for him, she says: "Tread lightly who lives in hope of pussy" which almost causes a smile on Bullock's face. BTW Sol has the kindest and earnest blue eyes in that scene with Seth and Trixie.
And there is the famous meeting between the important men ("the gathering of the worthies" as E.B calls it!), about the Wolcott issue, in which Charlie didn't spill the beans about the true background of the beating but, ironically, Cy finally did. He wants to protect his own interest of course, but there's also truth in what he tells them about the way Hearst and his people would react if they decided to deal with Wolcott's crimes, and they all agree to turn a blind eye and buy Charlie's official version...for the sake of the group. Even Bullock aka Mr Principle agrees, simply shaking his head (Timothy Olyphant is terrific in that scene).
And the best part comes later during Al's conversation with Dan when he says "who impressed me at that meeting was Bullock that avoided putting his pet ineterests, innocence, so forth, guilt, fucking who did what to fucking who, before the needs of the fucking camp. It shows fucking progress, it shows growing maturity to what makes the world's fucking tail wag". I loved it. It's as if Bullock has become Al's pet project! Or as if he studies him the way some study chimps.
And before that another great moment of soliloquy by E.B, lurking in the background: "The bald contempt of it. Why not come out five abreast, cavorting and taunting – ‘E.B. was left out. E.B. was left out.’ Cocksuckers. Cunt-lickers. I'll make you filthy gestures. Public service was never my primary career.”
Bullock confronts Alma who admits that she is "unwell in the mornings" but when he asks her if it would be easier of he left she, who has been beaten as defeated when he chose his wife, stands and gives some back "I would not judge your decision, but please don't ask me to make it for you".
Losing love wasn't the end of the world.
Another famous monologue is Al's speech to the Chief's head (Hamlet had a skull, Al has a rotten Indian head!), very theatrical:
"A man, as it happens a rival of mine, learning the secret of a great man’s lieutenant, would make that lieutenant his slave. My rival knows that expanding the circle of the informed, dilutin’ his power, will confound his intention, so he takes precaution to be sole sharer of his secret. Then the world being the world, along comes a half-assed knight-errant, Utter, Hickok’s ex-partner, to put all my rival’s plans at risk. I’d seek audience with Utter, verify my thinking. He earns his bread shipping packages. And as the dimwit nobility that made him intercede may now make him reticent, you, Chief, will be my prop and ploy. Whilst I seek to draw him out. I congratulate myself on having kept you around. Why make a show of disposing of you was my fucking thinking. It’s not like we need the storage space. And if there’s a chance in a thousand you people have been praying right, (looks up) why get your bosses attention? Anyways, I’ve no plans of us partin’ company. As you will note…I have inscribed – no address"
I bless the subtitles on the DVD!
It's funny that Wolcott uses a true letter written by Hickock to his wife as an excuse to see Charlie nd pump him for information, and Al uses a fake parcel to do the same. But Charlie doesn't fall for it. The telegraph, the post service are convenient plot devices and props for the plotting kinds, and are also real things on the show. As for the meeting between Charlie and Wolcott inside of Wolcott's room, it's very awkward and Charlie is so torn between his feelings towards Wolcott and his duty towards his late friend Hickock. It's painful to watch. And it strikes me that Wolcott knows the letter by heart, which seems to echo the mirror and razor scene in which he looked almost suicidal. He seems to play with fire (pushing Charlie, perhaps hoping to be thrown off the window indeed), like Hickock so often did, which is highly ironical given that Garreth Dillahunt played Hickock's murderer in season 1! I had reservations about the character before, but not anymore, Wolcott has become quite interesting, oddly touching even.
BTW Jane's scene with Charlie was poignant.
The episode ends up with a Joanie who seems in dire strait, alone and unprotected, sans men, perhaps waiting for the wolf to cut her throat, almost offering her neck like the little goat from La chèvre de Monsieur Seguin.
Earlier she rejected Cy's help and refused to move back with him to be "protected". Unlike Trixie listening to Al, Joanie doesn't want Cy's guidance anymore. The parallel is quite interesting because, even though Joanie instinctively ran to Cy at the end of the last episode, she has cut off the bonds and does't trust him. Besides Cy doesn't oozes Al's confidence, on the contrary, he is scared and edgy; he seems to talk to her but he doesn't teach anything, and for a little while it actually sounds more like a monologue as if Joanie were an excuse for Cy to say certain things out loud. So when he proposed a sort of partnership, she declined knowing that she is just a tool for him, perhaps even less real than the Chief's head to Al, and she can't count on him. Yet Cy seems to have feelings for her still but she is destroyed, looks stoned even, already gone in a way. Also Al encouraged Trixie to move out, to step into new territory without fear while Cy simply suggested to Joanie to come back to the Bella Union, using Janie's fears of men like Wolcott. But Joanie also knows that Cy Tolliver is someone to fear after all.
How could HBO cancell such a wonderful show? I suppose it was considered too complicated, too elitist.
Deadwood surely doesn't take the easy way so many tv shows indulge in. Buffy had depth and layers too but it could also be watched and enjoyed by viewers who simply wanted entertainment, humour, monsters and pretty girls; viewers who didn't care about the references, the deeper meaning, the writing structure, the foreshadowing stuff, the metaphorical language of the show, and who didn't see them while watching; viewers who didn't feel left out...
Joss Whedon was smart enough to cover the cleverness, the literary side and the complexity of his creation with a shallow and fun façade, hiding a gem behind a silly name and a geeky genre. It allowed the show to find an audience large enough to live on networks...but until now, and despite the cult that ensued, there are still many viewers or even critics who don't see the greatness of Buffy The Vampire Slayer (and it doesn't help that several silly vampire shows have followed!) or who simply couldn't imagine to put it in the same league as those quality tv shows that the cable has provided over the years.
David Milch, maybe because it was HBO, didn't disguise his fabulous show, although one could argue that the show is dressed-up like a western more than it is actually a western. I don't know the history of the ratings but I bet that they dropped during season 2, a magnificent season per se, but a season that many must have found too slow and un-westerny. And there's the Deadwoodlang that might be a put-off to many ears (either because of the profanities or because of the sophisticated and old-fashioned Shakespearian lines). Deadwood is a demanding show; it requires efforts but the reward is worth it.
One of my favourite episodes so far was "E.B Was Left Out", the title singling out a character that Wolcoot calls "a grotesque" in the next episode (which I'll review later)and that is indeed both hilarious and tragic, a fool, a clown malgré-lui who more and more looks and sounds like an alien creature, or a freak, doomed to look at the humans, and often spy on them, without being accepted among them, perhaps even more than the sociopath that is Wolcott or the god that is Al. Oh the irony of his being the Mayor! Al so mistreats him and he responds with saying "thank you!"
Con is playing a similar role towards Cy Tolliwer (hence his rather "we are dwarves in the company of a giant") but he isn't as "left out" as E.B, and the character sounds less histrionic. E.B seems to have been taken from a play. He is so pathetic in his obsequious ways towards people who don't even hide their irritation and annoyance(Cy's rolling his eyes when E.B implies a Bullock/Alma intercourse and later yelling "I don't fucking know!" and brushing E.B aside) or even disgust (Alma for instance when she leaves the table or says "I'm glad to be leaving your company) of him .
The opening scene between Al and Merrick is wonderful. You can see that Al is fond of Merrick and his speech is one of the most quotable ones he has delivered:
"Pain or damage don't end the world or despair or fucking beatings. The world ends when you're dead. Until then, you got more punishment in store. Stand it like a man, and give some back."
Now I realise that E.B is probably the character to whom Al's wisdom applies the most or rather who follows it, as he keeps being verbally beaten and humiliated, but he takes it over and over because it doesn't end his world. An he gives some back...on poor Richardson, his very own punching bag!!!
Also I noticed how recurring number three is. Merrick confesses that he has been beaten three times, three whores have been killed by Wolcott, three have escaped, sent away and never to return, thanks to Joanie and Charlie. "A different three" as Charlie says when Joanie comes to confide in him. She's so vulnerable confessing that she fears men (and her response when Charlie asked for the reason Wolcott killed the whores "I don't know! I am not a man!"). What to make of this? Not sure...
BTW Wolcott playing with the murder weapon, his razor, while wathcing his reflection, looks suicidal. He might feel more guilt than he admits to (Dexter-style!) and be less amoral than he says and more human than we thought.
Oh and Sophia's face when she sniffes Farnum's "selection of choice". And it's kidneys which seems to point out a connection to Al's previous illness...
Wolcott takes abeating in the episode too, by Charlie Utter who can't help it, knowing what he knows. Apparently Wolcott doesn't fight back, he just takes it, perhaps because somewhere deep down he wants to be punished, but also because, as a killer who has taken several lives, he knows that being beaten isn't the end of the world, death only is.
I adored that Johnny was Al's eyes on the balcony and reported to him immediately, telling what's just happening in the street, while E.B missed the whole fight. Al knows it all, even when he is at his desk, ha! He even knows – thanks to deduction after what Johnny told him – that Tolliver wants to see him even before Dan says so which obviously makes an impression on Dan. He must think that Al has superpowers!
Al is being very Sherlock Holmes-y then connecting the beating with what he saw the previous night! Now it's E.B's time to be impressed before he announces : "I will station myself downstairs as an observer" which Al echoes while mocking when he says "I will urinate before I see Tolliver" and then the line evolves into another blow, this time towards Johnny...
Al obviously believes in tough "parenting" and that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. He is more a prophet than a god, now that he has descended from the height (helped with a small stone in his bladder) among the humans, like an avatar of Zaratustra (the one in Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Nietzsche, not the Iranian one). By the way Al is wandering a lot in the episode, leaving his office to go and see not only Alma, but also Charlie.
Oh and I loved how Jewel poked fun at Al, saying, as a private joke that Cy can't understand: "god he's always dragging that fucking leg!". The Al/Jewel interactions in a Gem are a precious thing. :- )
Wolcott with Cochran made me smile especially when the doc was worried about a renewal of violence and he said "I hope not doctor, I didn't do well in the original". Wolcott has found a way to give some back, but it's twisted and Charlie is only a tool, the violence would touch Joanie.
Ah the meeting between Al and Alma (how similar their names are!), long waited, and it happened at last! So Al decides to side with the widow. I find interesting that the episode reminds us that once upon a time Al tried to have Sophia killed. Dan couldn't do the job, and even though Al didn't kill the little girl at the end of the day, the idea of killing a child wasn't an issue. We've come to care for Al, but he began as someone who plotted a child's death... The fact that the girl is named Sophia aka σοφία (wisdom/knowledge in Greek) is, of course, very significant. Al is a wiser man now, a man of wisdom even, who "educates" his people, even a pissed-off Trixie who confesses "I'm erractic with my decimals"; the wise man tells her not to fault Sol and Seth for her fucking fears of tumbling to something new (and by mentioning a boot on her neck he recalled their first scene together in which Trixie received a serious beating from Al!). Al has an agenda of course, which Trixie now (she is spying on Bullock for him), but it's still a new piece of wisdom to a woman who cared for Sophia in season 1, and he seems almost proud of her moving onto new territory, like a teacher for a pupil. "Tell the child no hard feelings" indeed!
Trixie sort of imitates Al's wisdom when she makes amends to Bullock and after Sol asks her if she has guidance for him, she says: "Tread lightly who lives in hope of pussy" which almost causes a smile on Bullock's face. BTW Sol has the kindest and earnest blue eyes in that scene with Seth and Trixie.
And there is the famous meeting between the important men ("the gathering of the worthies" as E.B calls it!), about the Wolcott issue, in which Charlie didn't spill the beans about the true background of the beating but, ironically, Cy finally did. He wants to protect his own interest of course, but there's also truth in what he tells them about the way Hearst and his people would react if they decided to deal with Wolcott's crimes, and they all agree to turn a blind eye and buy Charlie's official version...for the sake of the group. Even Bullock aka Mr Principle agrees, simply shaking his head (Timothy Olyphant is terrific in that scene).
And the best part comes later during Al's conversation with Dan when he says "who impressed me at that meeting was Bullock that avoided putting his pet ineterests, innocence, so forth, guilt, fucking who did what to fucking who, before the needs of the fucking camp. It shows fucking progress, it shows growing maturity to what makes the world's fucking tail wag". I loved it. It's as if Bullock has become Al's pet project! Or as if he studies him the way some study chimps.
And before that another great moment of soliloquy by E.B, lurking in the background: "The bald contempt of it. Why not come out five abreast, cavorting and taunting – ‘E.B. was left out. E.B. was left out.’ Cocksuckers. Cunt-lickers. I'll make you filthy gestures. Public service was never my primary career.”
Bullock confronts Alma who admits that she is "unwell in the mornings" but when he asks her if it would be easier of he left she, who has been beaten as defeated when he chose his wife, stands and gives some back "I would not judge your decision, but please don't ask me to make it for you".
Losing love wasn't the end of the world.
Another famous monologue is Al's speech to the Chief's head (Hamlet had a skull, Al has a rotten Indian head!), very theatrical:
"A man, as it happens a rival of mine, learning the secret of a great man’s lieutenant, would make that lieutenant his slave. My rival knows that expanding the circle of the informed, dilutin’ his power, will confound his intention, so he takes precaution to be sole sharer of his secret. Then the world being the world, along comes a half-assed knight-errant, Utter, Hickok’s ex-partner, to put all my rival’s plans at risk. I’d seek audience with Utter, verify my thinking. He earns his bread shipping packages. And as the dimwit nobility that made him intercede may now make him reticent, you, Chief, will be my prop and ploy. Whilst I seek to draw him out. I congratulate myself on having kept you around. Why make a show of disposing of you was my fucking thinking. It’s not like we need the storage space. And if there’s a chance in a thousand you people have been praying right, (looks up) why get your bosses attention? Anyways, I’ve no plans of us partin’ company. As you will note…I have inscribed – no address"
I bless the subtitles on the DVD!
It's funny that Wolcott uses a true letter written by Hickock to his wife as an excuse to see Charlie nd pump him for information, and Al uses a fake parcel to do the same. But Charlie doesn't fall for it. The telegraph, the post service are convenient plot devices and props for the plotting kinds, and are also real things on the show. As for the meeting between Charlie and Wolcott inside of Wolcott's room, it's very awkward and Charlie is so torn between his feelings towards Wolcott and his duty towards his late friend Hickock. It's painful to watch. And it strikes me that Wolcott knows the letter by heart, which seems to echo the mirror and razor scene in which he looked almost suicidal. He seems to play with fire (pushing Charlie, perhaps hoping to be thrown off the window indeed), like Hickock so often did, which is highly ironical given that Garreth Dillahunt played Hickock's murderer in season 1! I had reservations about the character before, but not anymore, Wolcott has become quite interesting, oddly touching even.
BTW Jane's scene with Charlie was poignant.
The episode ends up with a Joanie who seems in dire strait, alone and unprotected, sans men, perhaps waiting for the wolf to cut her throat, almost offering her neck like the little goat from La chèvre de Monsieur Seguin.
Earlier she rejected Cy's help and refused to move back with him to be "protected". Unlike Trixie listening to Al, Joanie doesn't want Cy's guidance anymore. The parallel is quite interesting because, even though Joanie instinctively ran to Cy at the end of the last episode, she has cut off the bonds and does't trust him. Besides Cy doesn't oozes Al's confidence, on the contrary, he is scared and edgy; he seems to talk to her but he doesn't teach anything, and for a little while it actually sounds more like a monologue as if Joanie were an excuse for Cy to say certain things out loud. So when he proposed a sort of partnership, she declined knowing that she is just a tool for him, perhaps even less real than the Chief's head to Al, and she can't count on him. Yet Cy seems to have feelings for her still but she is destroyed, looks stoned even, already gone in a way. Also Al encouraged Trixie to move out, to step into new territory without fear while Cy simply suggested to Joanie to come back to the Bella Union, using Janie's fears of men like Wolcott. But Joanie also knows that Cy Tolliver is someone to fear after all.