Death and life
Jul. 9th, 2011 05:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chaniI watched "The Whores Can Come" twice and I liked it better the second time. I wasn't sure first, because of the funeral, but it's actually an excellent episode.
The episode opens in the Chinese alley where human remains have been treated like garbage since season 1; if you needed to get rid of a body, Wu's pigs were there to get the job done. And now it's Mr Lee, "Hearst' Chink", who's bossing the alley, and it's Chinese corpses that are "taken cared" of, with fire (the counterpoint being the gentle way Martha takes care of her son's body, cleaning him with water).
The Chinese whores who have been told to be starving to death are disposable, burnt up and Mr Wu can't stand it so he goes to "Sweargin". Swearengen knows, but Al lets him down or so it seems (Dan is even shocked by it). Because he doesn't "give a fuck" and because he sees farther and knows he must play his cards carefully.
Those "burnt-up Celestial whores" might not be the ones the title refers to though. Those Chinese whores are pariahs in Deadwood, aliens, not quite acknowledged as human beings (apart from Cochran of course!), there aren't part of the community, and Mr Wu knows it hence his point but allowing them to come home, that is in China, something that burning their bodies up would prevent.
The whores of the title are most likely the Gem's whores who have been weeping since the horse ran over William. It's very symbolical to see Al not objecting to their going to the funeral, and Sol telling Trixie that everybody in the camp is welcome to the service. The whores are permitted to come, they are part of the community that gathers for William's funeral outside the Bullocks' house.
Trixie schooled them before they go so they would behave (oh her ""Wash your fucking mouth. You've got seven kinds of cock breath."!!!).
Since the previous episode, the Gem's whores have looked like a Greek chorus lamenting along the tragedy, and here they are at the funeral, and it reminds me of Mediterranean weepers and of what we, mediaevalists, call "the gift od tears". By the way water is a key element (pun intended) in the episode!
And I love how Trixie who has been schooled by Sol on doing accounts is now teaching him something about whores with that great line: "as much as he's her misery, a pimp's a whore's familiar. So the sudden, strange or violent draws her to him."
It's a great make-peace scene between them and a nice touch for it echoes the scene in which Joanie ran from Chez Ami, where Wolcott was in killing mode, towards Cy Tolliver.
Later, Trixie shares other words of wisdom about making choices that are ours, with Alma. Speaking of great quotes, Alma herself taught Sophia a bittersweet lesson:
"Know that we are in the world as much in our pain as in our happiness."
Jane herself have a few great lines, but more on the funny side like : "What is that? 'Thank you' in whale talk?"
There are many wonderful little scenes in the episode. Timothy Olyphant was terrific in the scene with Jarry, hardly speaking but conveying a restrained hostility while nodding as Al told Bullock to do so. I also love the silent communication between Seth and Sol. I'm such a sucker for storylines of male friendship!
I also loved Ellsworth carrying Sophia in the stairway and Alma finally answering yes to his proposal; apart from the potential good father that Alma may see in him, it was perfect that he had Sophia in his arms at that moment, for he is a man of wisdom indeed, and of knowledge (correcting the girl's phrasing with "Trixie and I"). A short yet beautiful scene.
And eventually there's the scene of Sol driving Seth, Martha and the casket to the cemetery nodding to Trixie and seeing her get inside the store.
As for the funeral, I'm with Joanie I hate funerals. Andy Cramed wasn't very good at the service thing and I don't think he is fit for the job of minister. Martha racing to the house to be with her son, and falling over on the way, was very sad and felt so real. In a previous scene when discussing the service was already too much for her, her "no!" already broke my heart. Seth is doing his best but he doesn't know how to help.
I also loved all the" boot business". Jane has new boots, and so does Johnny, and it's significant. All the superstition going on was funny. It was a dead bird for Johnny and Dan said you don't wear new things on a funeral, and Trixie was so upset with the boots on the bar that she had to sprinkle whiskey on the threshold. Those beliefs were a way to cope with a grief they all feel, But the new boots also represent moving on, not lingering on the past, going forward --but not necessary running away to something familiar which is what Joanie did first, what Trixie explained to Sol and what Martha is about to do --, something that one must do despite grief because life must go on. It was also a very nice touch because it echoed last season's penultimate episode when Cochran made a new boot for Jewel so she would no longer drag her foot.
So everyone gathers for William's funeral but Wolcott, Cy, Al and Cochran who is tending the living! Mose has survived, unlike William. He's got a new chance, new metaphorical boots to walk out of Chez Ami. I suddenly realised that his asking Jane and Joanie to let him die was an echo to Andy's situation when Jane found him in the woods during the small pox episode. I loved it when Deadwood allow us to draw parallels like that.
Mose has been saved by two angels, and he seems to be a new man when Doc is tending his wounds. And suddenly his name makes sense, and is connected with all the references of water. Mose= saved out of water.
The scene in which Jane talks about her new boots and takes a bath is therefore quite meaningful. She's on the verge of change. That bath is like a baptism. The episode is about a funeral but at the same time there's the theme of the opposite rite going on, showing beneath the surface: a baptism that is the joining a community, the admission into an assembly, hence the title "the whores can come".
And I adored the very short and silent scene of Sophia giving her flowers to Jane at the end of the service, and the brillant shot of Jane's new boots in a puddle!
Al uses William's funeral to "advance the cause" in his dealings with Jarry and Mr Lee but doesn't go. He can't come and be part of that community, no matter how much at heart he has the camp's interests. He remains the god on the balcony, twisting his neck to catch a glimpse but estranged.
And while the tension is palpable between Cy and Wolcott at the Bella Union, or between Cy and Andy, and as Hearst is on his way, the episode ends in Al's room with a blowjob soliloquy.
Al started the episode saying he didn't give a fuck about the chinese whores being burnt up but we realise in this scene that he does care about funerals and that William's funeral brings memory of his own brother's passing and of the fact he took a beating afterwards. He let the old man beat him so the father's sadness would go off, just like the whore sucking him is supposed to help him get off.
The episode opens in the Chinese alley where human remains have been treated like garbage since season 1; if you needed to get rid of a body, Wu's pigs were there to get the job done. And now it's Mr Lee, "Hearst' Chink", who's bossing the alley, and it's Chinese corpses that are "taken cared" of, with fire (the counterpoint being the gentle way Martha takes care of her son's body, cleaning him with water).
The Chinese whores who have been told to be starving to death are disposable, burnt up and Mr Wu can't stand it so he goes to "Sweargin". Swearengen knows, but Al lets him down or so it seems (Dan is even shocked by it). Because he doesn't "give a fuck" and because he sees farther and knows he must play his cards carefully.
Those "burnt-up Celestial whores" might not be the ones the title refers to though. Those Chinese whores are pariahs in Deadwood, aliens, not quite acknowledged as human beings (apart from Cochran of course!), there aren't part of the community, and Mr Wu knows it hence his point but allowing them to come home, that is in China, something that burning their bodies up would prevent.
The whores of the title are most likely the Gem's whores who have been weeping since the horse ran over William. It's very symbolical to see Al not objecting to their going to the funeral, and Sol telling Trixie that everybody in the camp is welcome to the service. The whores are permitted to come, they are part of the community that gathers for William's funeral outside the Bullocks' house.
Trixie schooled them before they go so they would behave (oh her ""Wash your fucking mouth. You've got seven kinds of cock breath."!!!).
Since the previous episode, the Gem's whores have looked like a Greek chorus lamenting along the tragedy, and here they are at the funeral, and it reminds me of Mediterranean weepers and of what we, mediaevalists, call "the gift od tears". By the way water is a key element (pun intended) in the episode!
And I love how Trixie who has been schooled by Sol on doing accounts is now teaching him something about whores with that great line: "as much as he's her misery, a pimp's a whore's familiar. So the sudden, strange or violent draws her to him."
It's a great make-peace scene between them and a nice touch for it echoes the scene in which Joanie ran from Chez Ami, where Wolcott was in killing mode, towards Cy Tolliver.
Later, Trixie shares other words of wisdom about making choices that are ours, with Alma. Speaking of great quotes, Alma herself taught Sophia a bittersweet lesson:
"Know that we are in the world as much in our pain as in our happiness."
Jane herself have a few great lines, but more on the funny side like : "What is that? 'Thank you' in whale talk?"
There are many wonderful little scenes in the episode. Timothy Olyphant was terrific in the scene with Jarry, hardly speaking but conveying a restrained hostility while nodding as Al told Bullock to do so. I also love the silent communication between Seth and Sol. I'm such a sucker for storylines of male friendship!
I also loved Ellsworth carrying Sophia in the stairway and Alma finally answering yes to his proposal; apart from the potential good father that Alma may see in him, it was perfect that he had Sophia in his arms at that moment, for he is a man of wisdom indeed, and of knowledge (correcting the girl's phrasing with "Trixie and I"). A short yet beautiful scene.
And eventually there's the scene of Sol driving Seth, Martha and the casket to the cemetery nodding to Trixie and seeing her get inside the store.
As for the funeral, I'm with Joanie I hate funerals. Andy Cramed wasn't very good at the service thing and I don't think he is fit for the job of minister. Martha racing to the house to be with her son, and falling over on the way, was very sad and felt so real. In a previous scene when discussing the service was already too much for her, her "no!" already broke my heart. Seth is doing his best but he doesn't know how to help.
I also loved all the" boot business". Jane has new boots, and so does Johnny, and it's significant. All the superstition going on was funny. It was a dead bird for Johnny and Dan said you don't wear new things on a funeral, and Trixie was so upset with the boots on the bar that she had to sprinkle whiskey on the threshold. Those beliefs were a way to cope with a grief they all feel, But the new boots also represent moving on, not lingering on the past, going forward --but not necessary running away to something familiar which is what Joanie did first, what Trixie explained to Sol and what Martha is about to do --, something that one must do despite grief because life must go on. It was also a very nice touch because it echoed last season's penultimate episode when Cochran made a new boot for Jewel so she would no longer drag her foot.
So everyone gathers for William's funeral but Wolcott, Cy, Al and Cochran who is tending the living! Mose has survived, unlike William. He's got a new chance, new metaphorical boots to walk out of Chez Ami. I suddenly realised that his asking Jane and Joanie to let him die was an echo to Andy's situation when Jane found him in the woods during the small pox episode. I loved it when Deadwood allow us to draw parallels like that.
Mose has been saved by two angels, and he seems to be a new man when Doc is tending his wounds. And suddenly his name makes sense, and is connected with all the references of water. Mose= saved out of water.
The scene in which Jane talks about her new boots and takes a bath is therefore quite meaningful. She's on the verge of change. That bath is like a baptism. The episode is about a funeral but at the same time there's the theme of the opposite rite going on, showing beneath the surface: a baptism that is the joining a community, the admission into an assembly, hence the title "the whores can come".
And I adored the very short and silent scene of Sophia giving her flowers to Jane at the end of the service, and the brillant shot of Jane's new boots in a puddle!
Al uses William's funeral to "advance the cause" in his dealings with Jarry and Mr Lee but doesn't go. He can't come and be part of that community, no matter how much at heart he has the camp's interests. He remains the god on the balcony, twisting his neck to catch a glimpse but estranged.
And while the tension is palpable between Cy and Wolcott at the Bella Union, or between Cy and Andy, and as Hearst is on his way, the episode ends in Al's room with a blowjob soliloquy.
Al started the episode saying he didn't give a fuck about the chinese whores being burnt up but we realise in this scene that he does care about funerals and that William's funeral brings memory of his own brother's passing and of the fact he took a beating afterwards. He let the old man beat him so the father's sadness would go off, just like the whore sucking him is supposed to help him get off.