Wordy Old Men on Deadwood: The Movie

After more than a dozen years spent anxiously awaiting a thing that it seemed would never come, the final (?) chapter of Deadwood is upon us. This was such an occasion that it felt like Wordy Ginters and I had dust this old thing off to talk about it.

Old Man Duggan: Fuck.

I mean—fuuuuuuuck.

We just finished watching the original run of the series this past week—I was rewatching while Jack Attack was seeing it all for the first time. It was a real trip seeing all our best friends and E.B. all grown up. And that fucker George Hearst too.

Wordy Ginters: The physical effects of time on most of these actors definitely caused some cognitive dissonance. I had the same feeling watching Twin Peaks: The Return. These beloved shows, and these characters, are a delicate thing to be picked up after years in storage. The two series (Deadwood and Twin Peaks) are too disparate for any meaningful comparison, other than their shared greatness, but it’s interesting to me how the passing of time itself, evident in the faces and bodies of the characters, ends up being a physical representation of some of the themes explored.

OMD: Indeed. It's kind of funny that they had to make some of them up to look even older because they hadn't aged as much as their characters should have. Still, Dayton Callie, Ian McShane, W. Earl Brown, even a suddenly almost distinguished looking Sean Bridgers all seem to have worn the weight of their characters' theoretical interseries/movie lives.

Not gonna lie, there’s so much to fucking unpack here. It’s daunting. May as well start at the top with the changes to Deadwood being shown in the form of the railroad carrying telephone poles and that “murdering, conniving, thieving cocksucker" Hearst, invading our wild-ass mining hamlet. Verizon and the Chicago and North Western Railroad doing their damnedest to gentrify what should surely have remained raw and untamed. Can you hear me now? Go fuck yerself, Change. Coming out of the darkness and emerging into the world strapped to the front of a train. I guess you’re gonna make us embrace change whether we want to or not, Mr. Milch.

WG: I’m thrilled that Milch was able to get the movie done. But after three seasons and 36 hours of Deadwood, it’s almost impossible to advance the cause in a satisfying way in 110 minutes.

OMD: It was weird seeing them refer to Jane as “Calamity Jane” for what I believe is the first time. Guessing the moniker was affixed to her after departing Deadwood sans Wild Bill. While she did grate on the nerves from time to time, there was something sweet about kicking shit off again with her slurring to herself, farting on muleback whilst lamenting loves lost, hoping to get the one she can back.

WG: I thought it was the perfect open. Calamity Jane. Drunk. Hanging the Deadwood-ese tapestry of swears over the valley. The half-crocked and mindless toss of the empty bottle brought to mind Tootie chucking a hunk of ice into the back of the ice wagon in your favorite movie, Meet Me in St Louis. Oh Mr. NEEEEEELEEEY.

OMD: Fuck that dumb movie. What kind of piece of shit culminates in marveling at a city in the throes of wishing it was Chicago while hosting a disaster of a World's Fair/Olympics. That dumb damn family was probably responsible for the historically disastrous Olympic Marathon, but Vincente Minnelli had them whitewash it all.

WG: We part ways on this one OMD.  I'm unapologetically on board with that flick.  I do admire the intensity of your ire.  

OMD: Jumping to the Gem, glad to see there’s not been much turnover in terms of most of the staff. Obviously ten years in the life of a prostitute in the late 19th Century has to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 years now, so the women of the Gem from the series have surely gone to greener pastures, but Al Swearengen, Dan Dority, Johnny Burns, and Jewel are still holding things together—the glue the holds the whole damn place together, I suppose.

WG: The “brotherhood” amongst those villainous bastards was some of what makes this show so damn great. The monsters, they have heart. They bleed. They love each other. I hope they have some younger muscle on staff that they’ve been mentoring though. Should any events that require cardio present themselves, I’m not sure Dan and Johnny can be counted on for more than a round or two. By this point, they’ve got “guys” they send into the fray on their behalf. Right?

OMD: I mean for their sake, I hope so. But given the fact that Johnny and Dan are out in the thoroughfare, having Bullock's back, firearms at the ready, Johnny getting shot in the shoulder in support of the cause, I'm not so sure they've got young studs in the stable.

WG: I suppose the natural progression of old-timey muscle is to transition from hand-to-hand combat and knife work to the relatively less physically taxing gun-play.   I still think Swearengen, being the mustachioed Machiavellian that he is, has to have some young beef at the ready should Dan need to tag-in someone else for a breather.  We speak later of the Swearengen/Trixie relationship.  The bond between Dan and Al also goes down as one of the all-time great pairings.  

OMD: Seeing Al so haggard and jaundiced—a man whose previously indefatigable lifeforce propelled virtually everything in pre-territorial Deadwood—was jarring. As he seemed so much to be the mouthpiece for the show’s ailing creator, Al’s evident mortality and failure to recall the day of the week is poetic, sure, but fuck me, does it ever shake you to the core. A life lived hard. A liver done gone.

WG: One thing rewatching Deadwood drives home is exactly how much Milch has probably written himself into Swearengen. I don’t think it was a particularly big secret, but I didn’t realize Milch was a gambling addict. Ex-heroin addict too. Alcoholic. Stories came out a couple of years back about how he gambled away hundreds of millions. Mostly at the track. In several episodes, characters mouth the addict's lament—let me have my vices. Don’t bother me. I know it’s shameful, but I can’t do it any other way. I found an article from way back in 1994, the cultural conservatives (Rev Donald Wildmon) were shitting themselves over Milch’s NYPD Blue (nudity! swears!). Milch’s response to Wildmon’s concerns was something straight off the pages of a Deadwood script, “I represent the apotheosis of everything for which he has unaffected scorn and great alarm." Swearengen might be my favorite TV character of all-time. Seeing him diminished took a lot of the fun out of the movie for me. However, it was probably fitting closure and a true through-line of his character arc, from satanic to anti-hero to cucked good guy.

OMD: In the it’s-nice-some-things-haven’t-changed department, glad to see Doc Cochran is his old, cantankerous self, serving up his diagnoses with a heavy dose of piss and vinegar, all while having his medical advice roundly ignored.

WG: Brad Dourif one of my favorite actors. Wise Blood. Dune. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Bunch of Lynch films. Speaking of horse racing degenerates, he stars in a movie called Horseplayer. I haven’t seen it in years, but I loved it at the time. Dourif rocks a querulous perm in that one. Weirdly owns it.

OMD: Can't wait to track that one down. Need. The. Dourif. Perm.

Charlie Utter. First, he’s told by those pole cats that he needs to get with the times. Then, Don Swayze and Tony Curran—eventually revealed to be Hearst’s latest batch of henchmen—whose lack of manners rub Utter entirely the wrong way. Milch wastes no time with his hour-forty-five in getting things moving, setting up the incident that shoots the narrative into high gear in the first few scenes.

WG: Was the young lady they were harassing (Caroline?) supposed to be the sister of the prostitute Al whacked at the end Season Three as a fill-in for Trixie?

OMD: I've yet to find anything definitively linking Jen to Caroline Woolgarden, the newest would-be practitioner of the world's oldest profession. I suspect she's meant to stir those feelings in Johnny while showing that the more things change the more things stay the same.

WG: In retrospect, the timing and ages probably don't square. I happened to rewatch that particular episode prior to the movie, so the question of "notifying next of kin" was fresh in my mind.

OMD: The familial interplay at the Bullocks’ breakfast table was nice. I’m glad Seth and Martha were able to build a life together for themselves after William’s passing. Almost as pleasant was Hearst being thrown off his game as Bullock planted himself front and center while giving the speech commemorating South Dakota’s statehood. Think his ear was burning?

WG: Bullock dragging Hearst around by his ear is the most gratifying truth to power visual in the history of moving pictures. I’d like to see Bullock just ear drag him around Deadwood all day long, as he goes about his rounds. To the post office. To the goods and sundries store. To the courthouse. To the public telephone. To hot yoga class.

OMD: Old Man Hearst lamenting his back pain whilst Bullock busts out his downward dog, ear still firmly in Seth's grasp, would be manna from heaven.

WG: "Jesus H Christ Hearst, your ear is greasy."  Bullock, probably, relatively early in the day. 

OMD: Leave it to Trixie, the only character on the show more irascible than Bullock, to not be able to stay in bed while hurtling at breakneck speed toward the delivery of the Baby Star and instead barges out, mid-cigarette, to the balcony to call the now-Junior Senator from the State of California out as a “murdering shitheel” and a bevy of other factually (at least within the construct of the show) accurate and exceptionally foul things. If ever David Milch’s penchant for gutter-mouthed diatribes doubling as poetry were on display, it was being spewn forth from Paula Malcomson’s mouth, raining down on the "bald pate" of Gerald McRaney. Self-preservation is not in Trixie’s being.

WG: Trixie gonna Trixie. Milch’s penchant for showing how melodious the siren call of self-defeating behavior can be. No wonder the wet-mouthed rubes get all lathered up at Trump rallies.

OMD: While glad for the brevity of the exchange between Alma and Seth upon getting her settled at the hotel, Molly Parker and Timothy Olyphant still have that pregnant tension thing going. Bullock’s irritation with Charlie at having suggested the Bullock Star Hotel as Alma’s landing spot for her stay was priceless, as was Utter asking Bullock outfit him with a diaper upon suggesting that Bullock deal with Hearst in Utter’s stead regarding the sale of his land.

WG: It’s like reading Joyce. Or Cormac. It takes a few minutes to get attuned to the dialogue. Procure me an infant's linen.

OMD: I seriously wonder if there was anywhere else in the world where Hearst caught as much shit as he does here in Deadwood. A town refusing to bend the knee. Trixie’s public calling out followed by Al’s more measured undercuttings like “Does brevity exist in your repertoire, sir?” The fucking cocky grin on his face with Hearst’s returned stone-faced glare was a masterful bit of business.

The most surprising fate of any of the characters from the camp ten years prior has to be Aunt Lou, no? I mean who’d have thunk she’d have stuck around?

WG: Someone has to boss Richardson’s ghost around.

OMD: She better be continuing the antler-handed tributes on the stairs in his memory.

Utter prodding Jane to put aside the bottle and just go talk to Joanie was a nice moment. One last moment between friends of thirty years, and it’s one where he sets her head straight for maybe the first time we’ve ever seen on the show. Then Utter gets one last moment of giving no fucks about who he might be dealing with, suffering no shit from no one. His complete lack of deference to a man he knows to be a murderous fuck had me cackling. At every turn, Hearst gets virtually none of the respect to which he is accustomed from the denizens of this unruly boom town.

WG: I was hoping someone would throw a milkshake at his entitled ass.

OMD: I'd have been happy to see a Cornishman chuck a pickaxe headward.

Charlie’s not showing up for dinner set the same sinking feeling off that went down when Ellsworth got taken unawares while conversing with his dog in his tent. Hearst’s M.O. is pretty fucking cowardly, frankly. With the exception of the Captain’s brutal brawl with Dan, his men basically go in and shoot whomever Georgie Boy fingers from behind. Effective? Sure. Honorable? Clearly not. It seems clear that this is exactly how our sitting Shitbird-in-Chief would operate were such actions still viable.

WG: No accident, right? The Trumpian parallels. The great unwashed hectoring the one percenters. Maybe it’s just the times that color the perception. But yeah, Hearst is a decent precedent and stand-in for our current Shitbird-in-Chief. Fucking Gerald McRaney.

OMD: Major Dad. Who'd've thunk it?

Bullock shooting his gun off in the thoroughfare, Charlie Utter slung lifeless across his horse, putting Hearst on notice in front of the whole fucking town was a baller fucking move. The massive brass balls on Bullock never cease to impress. And his matter-of-fact “No” in response to Al’s asking “You ever think, Bullock, of not going straight at a thing?” was pitch fucking perfect. And setting fire to Hearst’s telephone poles? We get to see the fire brigade in action. Bullock’s just gonna keep yanking Hearst around by the ear, and I’m on board for every moment of it.

WG: "You ever think . . . of not going straight at a thing?"  That was one of my favorite scenes. Pump Swearengen’s contemptuous yet incredulous reactions to the whack-ass or irrational thought processes of those who surround him straight into my veins.

OMD: If I could mainline that, I might never come back.

I have to say I like E.B.’s pervy upgrades to the hotel. That he can incontrovertibly confirm that Hearst pulled the strings in Utter’s execution leaves me once glad for Farnum’s general odiousness. That he got to call Lead and struggle with technology was just gravy.

WG: Of course E.B. has peep holes in his hotel. His peep holes have peep holes. He’s probably got an old-timey camera man stationed under the floorboards in the lady’s pisser.

OMD: Peddling fuzzy Daguerreotypes of water sports clearly became Farnum's metier in the years we missed.

The gall of Jewel putting out peaches for the auction. How dare she? Perhaps she knew that the town was going to rise up, middle finger defiantly extended, determined to outbid that fucker, ultimately saved by Alma, besting her ex-husband’s murderer this time.

WG: Thank God Jewel was smart enough to know that the Cinnamon stays in the pantry.

OMD: The one time I wish maybe she hadn't exercised the heroic restraint required to not put out the cinnamon. Perhaps Harry'd have gotten another gut full of pain. Gastric distress is the least that turncoat deserved in the lead-up to the climax.

“Wu, feed that fuck to the pigs.” The, ehrm, the General really gets the short end of the stick at almost every turn. Such a good dude. Don Swayze—his character’s name is Seacrest, but anyone who knows who he is ain’t calling him anything but Don Swayze—tries to leverage Wu’s grandkid at gunpoint against Bullock. Clearly he didn’t get the memo. Bullock and fucking around are not acquainted with one another. Mengyao ends up wearing some of Don Swayze’s brains on his shirt while Bullock beats the fuck out of Hearst’s other heavy.

WG: One of the many great things about Deadwood is how most of the characters know all the angles. And when the angles are lined up in opposition, a world weary fait accompli.

OMD: The stand-off in front of Hearst HQ was pretty fucking great. Really getting the full monty from Olyphant here, hanging acting dong with aplomb. Milch sure ratcheted up the tension there.

“Heavens open up. She expresses contrition.” What a delightful line. Mortality looming large in the first scene back between Al and Trixie. Guessing the Doc gave him liquid cocaine to get him going enough to make the wedding, as I can’t imagine what other elixir of the time might endow him with the energy to support his resolve. Maybe a liquid speedball? Al’s magnanimity in doling out advice and control of the Gem in the event of his imminent passing was a nice touch. The Gem as a dance hall. Hard to imagine, but as long as the peaches are always at the ready, Deadwood will probably approve.

WG: The love story between Al and Trixie is so well done. The relationship and marriage to Sol surely isn’t getting in the way of it. I wish parts of it weren’t made so explicit in the movie. It’s too holy to speak of out loud.

OMD: With the clock running out, both for Al and ultimately Milch, I think any point in secreting away those feelings, leaving them unsaid, sort of loses its utility.

Gotta be honest, Jane and Joanie’s reconciliation at the livery had me a little choked up. They’re both so broken and beaten down, that their finding happiness with one another—and a seemingly lasting happiness, at that—warms the heart.

WG: SAME.

OMD: When Bullock cockblocked Hearst’s arrest of Trixie at the reception, cuffing him and telling the Sheriff from Lead to go fuck himself, I was grinning from ear to ear, but Merrick’s getting a pic of Hearst mid-perp-walk with a “Smile, Mr. Hearst” for good measure was too much. I laughed so fucking hard.

I’ve joked on Twitter and in conversation, but holy hell was I glad to see the thrower of the bottles at Hearst was our old friend Garret Dillahunt, playing his third character in the burg of Deadwood. Bullock standing by until seeing his wife ushering their children away from the scene and realizing he couldn’t just let the mob tear that shithead limb from limb still allowed us a little catharsis. Hewing to history has its limitations, and in this case, we know that Hearst dies in Washington, D.C. two years later.

WG: I’m glad you confirmed that, I thought that was him! Since you reran the series in its glorious entirety, you happen to catch the Nick Offerman cameo? If I recall, he was a card player at one of the tables at Tom Nuttall’s place? Season 1?

OMD: Oh, there's a lot more Offerman than that. He's one of the rogue road agents living the high life at the Gem after they slaughtered Sofia's family on the trail. Full frontal Offerman. That's what he gets for running with Persimmon Phil, I guess.

Nothing made me more glad than Bullock pulling Hearst into the cell by his ear. Or at least not until Jane got her big moment, taking down Harry Manning, who was in Hearst’s pocket and a second away from killing Bullock, and getting her groove back. After those moments during the series where her impotence in the moment led her spiraling into the oblivion found at the bottom of the bottle, it was fucking beautiful getting to see her step up to the occasion and succeed where she hadn’t been able to previously.

Hot on the heels of that overwhelming emotional moment, we’re treated to Bullock at Samuel Fields’s bedside, having his old friend Utter’s final moment related to him, the two commiserating over their friend being at peace when he went. Olyphant has two lines in that scene—five whole words—and it’s maybe the best acting he’s ever done. Fuck. Just destroyed me.

And finally we get a little bedtime duet from Jewel and Al of “Waltzing Matilda” setting off a montage in which snow lightly falls on a town in which the dust is settling after another Hearst power play has nearly torn it asunder, its residents going back to their lives, Bullock finally coming home. Duet having given way to an instrumental version of the Aussie ballad, Trixie sits down at Al’s bedside, his last breaths coming, and damned if he doesn’t go out on the highest note I can recall, cutting off the opening line of the Lord’s Prayer with a “Let him fucking stay there.”

WG: This is what got me. Having watched some of the older episodes myself, I was again struck dumb by how emotionally poignant Deadwood can be. Think back to Season 1, Jewel in her orthopedic boot, dancing around with Doc. “Tell me I’m as nimble as a forest creature”. The same emotional fuckery got me when Jewel started rubbing Al’s feet and singing "Waltzing Matilda."  Again, hard not to imagine Milch thinking about his own mortality. Earlier Al opines that it’s the unseemly process of dying, the “chewing up and spitting out” that he finds distasteful. He just wants to get it over with. Decries the self-pitying aspect of it. I like the dignity involved of knowing the angles and accepting them.

OMD: We’ve all been waiting a long goddamn time for this. It’s hard to imagine how I could have been more pleased with what I just saw, having now watched it twice. I mean obviously, we’d all love for this world to just keep giving us stories with these characters in Milch’s voice forever, but short of that, this was a feat I worried was not going to be achieved. What thoughts have you?

WG: I didn’t enjoy it as much as you did. But I’m such a fan of the series in general, and these characters, I can’t be too disappointed. It’s a shame we didn’t get more from Milch. I like how he examines truth, and dignity and degeneracy, and honor. Sometimes all jumbled up in the same character. There is really no one like him.

OMD: If nothing else, the last 25 minutes or so are some of the best television I can remember seeing. I don't know how much I cried, but it was a lot. Bullock at Samuel Fields's bedside. Jewel and Al singing. Joanie and Jane looking like they're headed for a lovely final act. A seemingly finally soberish Jane stepping up and saving Bullock. Al staying secular to his literal dying breath. Fuck me. So much brilliance in that final act. Hell, I'm still numb to a world without Al Swearengen.

WG: Let's pour one out for Al.