True quality tv
Jun. 27th, 2011 07:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chaniI've finished Umbert Eco's novel during the weekend so I'm back to Deadwood!
I'd like to review together “Amalgamation and Capital”, “Advances, None Miraculous” and "The whores Can Come" because they seem to work as a triptych with "Amalgamation" being the prelude and "The Whores" the aftermath of the tragedy that happens at the end of the first episode but lingers on during the second, but the post would be too long so I'll save "The Whores Can Come" for another entry an another day.
"Amalgamation and Capital" owes its title to a scene in which Charlie, who is about to leave Deadwood to bring Hickock's letter to his wife, says the line. He's helping Bullock with questioning Mose Manual ( about his brother's death) who basically tells them "fuck yourself" . Mose is backed up and watched by Cy and Wolcott arrives and mentions another death, the miner who was shot in the previous episode; Charlie being pissed off at Wolcott still, denigrates the people that are all about money. Of course the sentence should rather be "amalgamation of capital" but the little mistake shows that, although he sees the Hearst's ways and guesses what capitalism is about, Charlie isn't really familiar with economic terms and theories (and doesn't know Hume, Smith or Karl Marx!). Still, Wolcott seems impressed.
Charlie's line and rant points out how the world is changing. It is no longer the old-fashioned world in which Wild Bill, his friend and his hero, rode like a knight of the West, it is a new America in which people like Hearst can make the rules because they bought that power, because they own stuff and it strikes me now that Bill, Charlie and Jane have always been those who didn't own anything but their clothes, guns and horses, so they were free to ride away when they wanted to (Jane has Bill's coat now but that's all). Charlie obviously misses the old ways, the lost West and would like to resist those new ways but for the moment being he must go on a mission.
Al, Bullock and Alma teamed up to resist too, but they probably don't subscribe to Charlie's noslalgia. Al is ready to adapt to the new world as long as he doesn't get fucked in the arse, and Seth is following. As for Alma she's supporting the "amalgamation of capital" by setting up a bank (and Trixie is the first depositor)! She's the biggest owner in Deadwood thanks to her claim, and a bank means profit. Yet it's also a bank for the community so it doesn't quite look like the same kind of capitalism as that one that Hearst embodies. There are levels of profit and context.
Speaking of resistance there's a wild stallion that Hostetler and Nigger General want to break and tame before selling him to the cavalry, so they tie him in order to castrate him. The wild stallion has others ideas (can we blame him?) and resists until he finally escapes and runs...wildly. That stallion reminds me the one from the credits, and I suppose that it is a metaphor of the beautiful and free wild West, in a way resisting civilization but doomed to be tamed and to have its balls cut off. But it can also be seen as just two fools (well, it's mostly Nigger General who doens't want to lose $ 100) wanting to make some quick money and sell the stallion as soon as possible without waiting for a better time to "nut him"...and thus causing a tragedy to occur.
Unless it's just a no-luck kind of thing, an accident, and the death is stupid, meaningless, blind and with no one to really blame.
Certain scenes seem more like an aside note: Alma and Ellsworth, Ellsworth and Trixie, Joanie and Jane. those were nice sweet and kinda funny scenes. And there's E.B brushing off Merrick who would like to enjoy some "respite" walk, or Merrick and Al arguing in front of Ellsworth (loved that shot because Merrick is like a giant).
Now that I think of it the episode seems to actually provide respite before the upcoming tragedy, and then everybody will have to cope with things that can't be ignored. Alma asks Ellsworth for respite too when, after being coached by Trixie, he pushes for an answer to his proposal.
But as usual, the key of the episode is in the opening scene, a scene that gives the tuning and a general meaning that helps to understand the rest of the episode, or at least that casts a certain light on it. This time, it's a conversation again, but not with Al. "Amalgamation and Capital" begins with a conversation between Seth and William about the man we've never seen but was Seth's brother and William's father. A dead Bullock. So in a way, there's a shadow, a ghost there right from the beginning, and Death has been summoned.
Yet the scene isn't only filled with sadness, nostalgia and regret over the things that were lost or over what could have been; new things seem possible – William and Seth may be building a true relationship – and there's hope, which is metaphorically represented by the seeds William has saved, keeping somthing from his past and planting them to start something fresh in Deadwood. Three seeds; that number three again. Last time three were saved (the whores Joanie made leave), three lives were taken. There's a price to pay.
And there might be hope for the Bullock family to exist for real given that Martha is willing to bring lunch to the store (and is gracious enough to ask Trixie if she's sure she doesn't want to join them around the table)and is fine with Alma coming to see the safe being installed; she even sorta makes peace with her when talking about the school stuff. Or hope for Jane about whom Charlie is so worried, when Joanie decides to take her under her wings and asks her to be her guest. It's an episode of tragedy but also of offerings and grace.
Mose Manual is haunted by another ghost and deals with his guilt by gambling while being sucked off by a whore under the table. However, being angry, he's like a time bomb on the verge of blowing up, and it ends with his shooting Wolcott (after said Wolcott delivers a taunting and merciless speech duirng which his eyes are black as if he were possessed by a demon) but missing, and eventually Mose himself is shot by one of Cy's men.
His death seems to have been telegraphed with all the tension building up, except that he isn't dead yet and it's actually another life that is about to be taken.
While Tom Nuttall is trying to recapture the bicycle fun from "Chidish things" with William tagging along and possibly trying the vélocipède behind Tom to "ride double", Seth is called to Al's office because Miss Isringhausen needs him to witness her signing as she doesn't trust Al to let leave unharmed, and Martha remains in the store with Sol, Trixie, Alma and Sophia.
Finally as Fate is set in motion, the stallion escapes and William meets his end when the wild horse runs over him. The poor boy ends up in the mud, broken. The final shot leaves no hope to the audience and the lullaby sang in the ending credits was the last blow.
"Advances, non miraculous" picks up right after that shot. Bullock is quick to reach the place where William lies and then carries the boy through the camp (oh Olyphant's face and the way he screams "Mrs Bullock"!) allowing everybody to witness that tragedy; it's the counterpoint of the joyful bicycle scene in "Childish Things".
But as a boy's life is ending and sadness is filling the camp, life goes on in Deadwood.
The episode is poignant of course for it's mostly focused on William's death throes (Cochran telling Seth that there's nothing to do is once more amazing) and you can see that the whole community is concerned about it but it isn't really melodramatic perhaps because there are many scenes that balance that slow death. Actually a lot happens while William is dying. Hostetler and Nigger General flee; Trixie talks Alma into giving Ellsworth an answer; there's the matter of a severly injured Mose Manual to attend and caring Jane is there (and so is Doc Cochran eventually because he cannot not help no matter how unfair it might be that a murderer would be saved while there's nothing to do to save an innocent child); Jarry comes back; Andy Cramed returns (and he is a reverend now!) and Al carries his plotting with Merrick, and, since Seth is not available, with "the Jew"(like Trixie with Alma, a worried Sol chose to busy himself with sharing his expertise with Al and schooling Silas, as he can't help his friend Seth).
There is less to mull over than in the previous episodes, but I like it for we get to see more of Sol Star and I have a crush on John Hawkes!
I love gentle Sol but this episode gives us a chance to see other sides of the character and Hawks is such a versatile actor that he delivers easily. I loved his scene with Dan, his fight with Trixie, his conversation with Al and Silas.
One of the most moving scene is when Jane bumps into Tom Nuttall, snot running from his nose, while looking for a bottle in an alley. Damn, it broke my heart.
Eventually Hostetler gives up on running to Oregon and decides to find the horse and bring it back to Deadwood which General Nigger agrees with.
Meanwhile Seth and Martha watch over the brain damaged William, and in the end, they talk to him, the way Cochran recommended in an earlier scene. Bullock then pretends to be his brother, William's father, the dead one whose ghost was invoked at the beginning of "Amalgamation and capital". It's a lie both adults agree upon (a theme from a previous episode!) to ease the boy's passing; he puts on a show, using information he got from someone else (William himself in the opening scene from the previous episode) like Al and Silas did for Jarry, not for the same reasons of course.
At the end of the day, Al says:" the days saw advances, Trixie, none miraculous" and then he asks for the gimp and when she tells him that Jewel is outside Cochran's, Al sends Trixie over there as well.
No miracle indeed, as William finally expires.
Unlike those who came and went, Al has barely left his office during those two episodes. He's back to be the powerful god he was in the beginning, summoning people to the Gem, being in control over Deadwood. He didn't leave his office but he knew and he weighted on things, except for Willam's end.
When Cochran is at Joanie's and about to work a surgery on Mose with the girls helping him he can't help saying:
"The hoof hits just one inch to the right, boy's pain is gone, don't have to watch him suffer. I doubt He's omniscient. I know He's myopic,”.
Yet when Al, from his balcony, sees the look on Sol's face, HE knows.
I'd like to review together “Amalgamation and Capital”, “Advances, None Miraculous” and "The whores Can Come" because they seem to work as a triptych with "Amalgamation" being the prelude and "The Whores" the aftermath of the tragedy that happens at the end of the first episode but lingers on during the second, but the post would be too long so I'll save "The Whores Can Come" for another entry an another day.
"Amalgamation and Capital" owes its title to a scene in which Charlie, who is about to leave Deadwood to bring Hickock's letter to his wife, says the line. He's helping Bullock with questioning Mose Manual ( about his brother's death) who basically tells them "fuck yourself" . Mose is backed up and watched by Cy and Wolcott arrives and mentions another death, the miner who was shot in the previous episode; Charlie being pissed off at Wolcott still, denigrates the people that are all about money. Of course the sentence should rather be "amalgamation of capital" but the little mistake shows that, although he sees the Hearst's ways and guesses what capitalism is about, Charlie isn't really familiar with economic terms and theories (and doesn't know Hume, Smith or Karl Marx!). Still, Wolcott seems impressed.
Charlie's line and rant points out how the world is changing. It is no longer the old-fashioned world in which Wild Bill, his friend and his hero, rode like a knight of the West, it is a new America in which people like Hearst can make the rules because they bought that power, because they own stuff and it strikes me now that Bill, Charlie and Jane have always been those who didn't own anything but their clothes, guns and horses, so they were free to ride away when they wanted to (Jane has Bill's coat now but that's all). Charlie obviously misses the old ways, the lost West and would like to resist those new ways but for the moment being he must go on a mission.
Al, Bullock and Alma teamed up to resist too, but they probably don't subscribe to Charlie's noslalgia. Al is ready to adapt to the new world as long as he doesn't get fucked in the arse, and Seth is following. As for Alma she's supporting the "amalgamation of capital" by setting up a bank (and Trixie is the first depositor)! She's the biggest owner in Deadwood thanks to her claim, and a bank means profit. Yet it's also a bank for the community so it doesn't quite look like the same kind of capitalism as that one that Hearst embodies. There are levels of profit and context.
Speaking of resistance there's a wild stallion that Hostetler and Nigger General want to break and tame before selling him to the cavalry, so they tie him in order to castrate him. The wild stallion has others ideas (can we blame him?) and resists until he finally escapes and runs...wildly. That stallion reminds me the one from the credits, and I suppose that it is a metaphor of the beautiful and free wild West, in a way resisting civilization but doomed to be tamed and to have its balls cut off. But it can also be seen as just two fools (well, it's mostly Nigger General who doens't want to lose $ 100) wanting to make some quick money and sell the stallion as soon as possible without waiting for a better time to "nut him"...and thus causing a tragedy to occur.
Unless it's just a no-luck kind of thing, an accident, and the death is stupid, meaningless, blind and with no one to really blame.
Certain scenes seem more like an aside note: Alma and Ellsworth, Ellsworth and Trixie, Joanie and Jane. those were nice sweet and kinda funny scenes. And there's E.B brushing off Merrick who would like to enjoy some "respite" walk, or Merrick and Al arguing in front of Ellsworth (loved that shot because Merrick is like a giant).
Now that I think of it the episode seems to actually provide respite before the upcoming tragedy, and then everybody will have to cope with things that can't be ignored. Alma asks Ellsworth for respite too when, after being coached by Trixie, he pushes for an answer to his proposal.
But as usual, the key of the episode is in the opening scene, a scene that gives the tuning and a general meaning that helps to understand the rest of the episode, or at least that casts a certain light on it. This time, it's a conversation again, but not with Al. "Amalgamation and Capital" begins with a conversation between Seth and William about the man we've never seen but was Seth's brother and William's father. A dead Bullock. So in a way, there's a shadow, a ghost there right from the beginning, and Death has been summoned.
Yet the scene isn't only filled with sadness, nostalgia and regret over the things that were lost or over what could have been; new things seem possible – William and Seth may be building a true relationship – and there's hope, which is metaphorically represented by the seeds William has saved, keeping somthing from his past and planting them to start something fresh in Deadwood. Three seeds; that number three again. Last time three were saved (the whores Joanie made leave), three lives were taken. There's a price to pay.
And there might be hope for the Bullock family to exist for real given that Martha is willing to bring lunch to the store (and is gracious enough to ask Trixie if she's sure she doesn't want to join them around the table)and is fine with Alma coming to see the safe being installed; she even sorta makes peace with her when talking about the school stuff. Or hope for Jane about whom Charlie is so worried, when Joanie decides to take her under her wings and asks her to be her guest. It's an episode of tragedy but also of offerings and grace.
Mose Manual is haunted by another ghost and deals with his guilt by gambling while being sucked off by a whore under the table. However, being angry, he's like a time bomb on the verge of blowing up, and it ends with his shooting Wolcott (after said Wolcott delivers a taunting and merciless speech duirng which his eyes are black as if he were possessed by a demon) but missing, and eventually Mose himself is shot by one of Cy's men.
His death seems to have been telegraphed with all the tension building up, except that he isn't dead yet and it's actually another life that is about to be taken.
While Tom Nuttall is trying to recapture the bicycle fun from "Chidish things" with William tagging along and possibly trying the vélocipède behind Tom to "ride double", Seth is called to Al's office because Miss Isringhausen needs him to witness her signing as she doesn't trust Al to let leave unharmed, and Martha remains in the store with Sol, Trixie, Alma and Sophia.
Finally as Fate is set in motion, the stallion escapes and William meets his end when the wild horse runs over him. The poor boy ends up in the mud, broken. The final shot leaves no hope to the audience and the lullaby sang in the ending credits was the last blow.
"Advances, non miraculous" picks up right after that shot. Bullock is quick to reach the place where William lies and then carries the boy through the camp (oh Olyphant's face and the way he screams "Mrs Bullock"!) allowing everybody to witness that tragedy; it's the counterpoint of the joyful bicycle scene in "Childish Things".
But as a boy's life is ending and sadness is filling the camp, life goes on in Deadwood.
The episode is poignant of course for it's mostly focused on William's death throes (Cochran telling Seth that there's nothing to do is once more amazing) and you can see that the whole community is concerned about it but it isn't really melodramatic perhaps because there are many scenes that balance that slow death. Actually a lot happens while William is dying. Hostetler and Nigger General flee; Trixie talks Alma into giving Ellsworth an answer; there's the matter of a severly injured Mose Manual to attend and caring Jane is there (and so is Doc Cochran eventually because he cannot not help no matter how unfair it might be that a murderer would be saved while there's nothing to do to save an innocent child); Jarry comes back; Andy Cramed returns (and he is a reverend now!) and Al carries his plotting with Merrick, and, since Seth is not available, with "the Jew"(like Trixie with Alma, a worried Sol chose to busy himself with sharing his expertise with Al and schooling Silas, as he can't help his friend Seth).
There is less to mull over than in the previous episodes, but I like it for we get to see more of Sol Star and I have a crush on John Hawkes!
I love gentle Sol but this episode gives us a chance to see other sides of the character and Hawks is such a versatile actor that he delivers easily. I loved his scene with Dan, his fight with Trixie, his conversation with Al and Silas.
One of the most moving scene is when Jane bumps into Tom Nuttall, snot running from his nose, while looking for a bottle in an alley. Damn, it broke my heart.
Eventually Hostetler gives up on running to Oregon and decides to find the horse and bring it back to Deadwood which General Nigger agrees with.
Meanwhile Seth and Martha watch over the brain damaged William, and in the end, they talk to him, the way Cochran recommended in an earlier scene. Bullock then pretends to be his brother, William's father, the dead one whose ghost was invoked at the beginning of "Amalgamation and capital". It's a lie both adults agree upon (a theme from a previous episode!) to ease the boy's passing; he puts on a show, using information he got from someone else (William himself in the opening scene from the previous episode) like Al and Silas did for Jarry, not for the same reasons of course.
At the end of the day, Al says:" the days saw advances, Trixie, none miraculous" and then he asks for the gimp and when she tells him that Jewel is outside Cochran's, Al sends Trixie over there as well.
No miracle indeed, as William finally expires.
Unlike those who came and went, Al has barely left his office during those two episodes. He's back to be the powerful god he was in the beginning, summoning people to the Gem, being in control over Deadwood. He didn't leave his office but he knew and he weighted on things, except for Willam's end.
When Cochran is at Joanie's and about to work a surgery on Mose with the girls helping him he can't help saying:
"The hoof hits just one inch to the right, boy's pain is gone, don't have to watch him suffer. I doubt He's omniscient. I know He's myopic,”.
Yet when Al, from his balcony, sees the look on Sol's face, HE knows.