(**) Where Milch’s sometime-partner Steven Bochco has always had a flair for episode titles, particularly ones driven by puns or other wordplay, I’ve always gotten the sense that Milch has little interest in them. And allegedly sweet, vulnerable Flora(***) is very talented indeed at bending people to her will, whipping Dan Dority into a homicidal rage to protect her non-existent virtue, fooling Cy with her innocent act, and even knowing when to turn on the charm with Joanie once she realizes that her new boss might swing her way. And in a new development, the seemingly-innocent siblings Flora and Miles Anderson turn out to be con artists themselves, looking to rip off one or both of the Swearengen and Tolliver operations. Cy gets back to cons both long and short, and can’t comprehend the changed attitude of the newly-recovered Andy. Seth comes back and tries swinging his weight around in service of Alma, while Al in turn continues trying to swindle her out of the gold claim. And Alma has suffered many indignities and is very vulnerable to Al and his people, but she’s also prickly and lost in her own head and made to look like a spoiled, selfish child in that final conversation with Trixie.Īnd if last week was about seeing the camp temporarily come together to deal with the smallpox outbreak, “Bullock Returns to the Camp”(**) shows that individual agendas still rule camp life for the most part. Seth is in the right in protecting Alma’s interests against Swearengen, and yet he somehow comes across as the hostile, unreasonable one in their confrontation – the man who can’t ever play nice with others, where last week we saw just how well Al can do that in service of a larger cause. But “Deadwood” is much more complicated than that. In a more traditional Western, Seth would be the clear-cut hero, Alma his tragic, pure-hearted love interest, Sol the genial comic relief and Swearengen and the rest the black-hearted cutthroats standing in the way of all that’s decent and just and romantic. (*) Admittedly, Al primes her to have tha reaction with their earlier discussion, where without him battering away at her self-esteem, Trixie might have felt comfortable enough in Alma’s world to get away from Al and just take care of the little girl. Swearengen mocks Seth’s holier-than-thou attitude, while Trixie bridles at Alma implying that she doesn’t have the right to speak frankly to her.(*) And they seem a well-matched pair: not from quite the same social strata, but with an innate sense of their own superiority over these filthy thugs and swindlers and whores who surround them. Seth Bullock and Alma Garret arrived in the camp for very different reasons, but they shared a desire to shut the rest of the world out (Bullock through his rage, Alma with the laudanum) and have been forced by circumstance, and by deaths of people close to them, to come out of their shells and engage with the world – and, as it turns out, with each other. This is the former click here for the newbie-safe version.Ī review of episode 7, “Bullock Returns to the Camp,” coming up just as soon as I congratulate you on your advanced thinking…
Note: All our DVDs are new Australian region 4 DVDs made for Australian DVD players.We’re continuing our trip back through the first season of David Milch’s epic revisionist Western “Deadwood,” and we’re continuing to do it with two separate but largely identical posts: one for people who watched the whole series and want to be able to discuss it from beginning to end, and one for people who are just starting out and don’t want to be spoiled with discussion that goes past the current episode. The women of Deadwood prove their mettle as Calamity Jane, Alma Garret, and whores Trixie and Joanie stake their claim in this dangerous town of scheming misfits, all learning the hard way. Seth Bullock is the new Sheriff and forced to stand his ground against two conniving brothel owners: cutthroat Al Swearengen, and his cheif rival, the cunning Cy Tolliver. Unsavoury new arrivals - looking to cash in on the lucrative anarchy - and a government of outsiders usher in an era of hard decisions and brutal power struggles among the camp's founders. For better or worse, times are changing, and the transformation from camp to town is imminent. A new day is dawning in the Black Hills outlaw camp of Deadwood.