SPOILERS to follow, kids. If you haven’t seen Deadwood: The Movie and want to remain unspoiled, you been warned, you hooplehead. Also, this is hella long, so be warned; a certain amount of Deadwood obsession is probably necessary.
I love Deadwood. Not only did I watch the original series when it first aired on HBO 13 years ago, I recently re-watched all three seasons in May in preparation for the surprise movie released on May 31st so I’d have a fresh memory of all the events and where we left the characters.
I was there for this movie. Every bit of leaked information made me more excited: Set 10 years later? Check. Continuing the Hearst storyline? Check. No mention whatsoever of John Langrishe and his band of un-merry thespians? Check1.
And I loved the movie–heck, I teared up at the end. Yet I was a little disappointed, a little dissatisfied, because of a few perceived flaws I chalked up to the immense task of tying off all those plots and stories and giving each beloved character at least something to do on screen.
Specifically, I was puzzled by Hearst’s final play at Trixie and Sol’s wedding. The character of George Hearst in Deadwood is many things: A monster, of course, a cretinous creature who play-acts at civility but lusts to dominate and destroy that which he cannot own. What he has never been on the show is stupid, or weak. He’s a man who revels in the power his money and political pull grants him, and a man who has never hesitated to surround himself with bodyguards. In fact, right up until the final confrontation in the movie, Hearst is always accompanied by plenty of armed guards.
And yet, at the end his play is incredibly weak. He braces the whole town, interrupts a beloved moment, and he does so with only two shitheel lawmen who are outside their jurisdiction and bearing a bullshit warrant. He has no guards, and his plan fails immediately and comically, resulting in his humiliation and beating at the hands of the whole town.
Initially this felt rushed to me, and I blamed a desire to offer fanservice, to see Hearst beaten and brought low. But that didn’t make sense. Not only was it a repeat of events in season 3 of the show, right down to the ear pulling, but it’s obviously pointless: Hearst will be released, he will continue to use his money and power to abuse the good folk of Deadwood, and none of Bullock’s posturing will matter. Again.
And then I realized the repetition of those events is the point, and I realized David Milch is a lot smarter a writer than I am a viewer.
‘Spect You Will, Senator
There’s a lot going on, I now realize, in the ending to the movie.
Way back in the first episodes of Season One, Wild Bill Hickock and Seth Bullock arrive in Deadwood and become friends, of a sort. They recognize in each other the same weary rage, the same desire to beat on certain types, a certain lack of connection to their fellow man. In fact, the parallels between the men are striking when you view them as two ends of a lifetime: One one end the younger Bullock with his friend Sol, angry and hiding from his family; on the other Hickock and Charlie Utter, tired and hiding from his family. It’s easy to imagine a world where Bullock doesn’t send for Martha and William and winds up in a similar way a few decades later: A long line of dead people, a long line of people seeking revenge, and Sol following hm around like a mother hen.
So it’s interesting to see, in the movie, that ten years after season 3 Bullock has mellowed. Oh, he’s still the same man, clearly, but he’s softened. He smiles more, he makes a joke, he resists the urge to indulge his anger. Clearly, making a go of it with Martha and having three kids with her has made him a happier, better man. He’s escaped Hickock’s fate because he re-connected with humanity and took a different path.
But the angry, violent Bullock is still there. When Al Swearengen says “Where you been, Bullock?” at the mid-point, it makes it clear that Bullock has been keeping his head down and his hands clean2.
And Bullock slides back into his ragey ways pretty easily. Sure, he’s justified3 by Hearst’s actions, but Bullock hesitates about three seconds before firing his gun into the air and making angry speeches.
And Hearst sees this. The key is this exchange between the two:
HEARST: I’m coming for you, marshal.
BULLOCK: ‘Spect you will, senator.
Harry Crane, Asshole
In the original series, Harry Crane is a kind of benevolent shitheel. He’s not someone you’d want as sheriff, of course, but you also don’t really have anything against him and his litany of health problems.
Ten years later, he’s not sheriff, and it’s easy to imagine that there’s a bit of resentment towards Bullock. Harry’s now subordinate to Bullock, and Bullock’s effortless competence and physicality might conceivably chafe a man afflicted with loose bowels, gout, and a cinnamon allergy that almost killed him, once.
Milch does some fantastic work with just a few quick moments to fill all of this in. First off, when Charlie Utter is reported missing, Bullock tells Harry to mount up for the search, and Harry’s initial reaction is to whine about his gout, which Bullock takes in stride–because it’s a common thing between them. Later, Bullock growls at Harry that he’s been hearing about his gout an awful lot, and the tone of the rebuke makes it clear: Harry is a shitty lawman.
Imagine being Harry. You’re sheriff for a moment because Hearst rigged an election. Then you’re under Bullock, a man who clearly thinks very little of you and who everyone simply respects and fears automatically. It’s little wonder that Harry takes Hearst’s money and sets up Samuel Fields to be taken from jail and murdered, thus establishing that Harry is a bad guy in league with Hearst.
Let Him Fuckin’ Stay There
So, that ending. Hearst’s play is weak, and it’s stupid. Of course it falls apart immediately. Bullock is a U.S. Marshal, and no two shitheel sheriffs are going to carry Hearst’s water once Bullock throws his star in the way.
Hearst knows this. What I realized (days later, because I’m dumb) is that this is his plan all along. I’m coming for you, Marshal. Hearst in the past hasn’t been exactly subtle, but he’s been cunning. He plots. He plans. When he brings the Pinkertons to camp in the series, he is careful to instruct them precisely how to behave in order to create a precise scenario he believes will be advantageous to him. Why would he now pull this weak, poorly-conceived play? Was it just lazy writing?
Of course not, and shame on me for ever thinking so. Hearst makes this weak play in order to get precisely the reaction he gets. He makes his weak play at the worst, most hurtful moment–Trixie and Sol’s wedding–to ensure that Bullock, still the same, easily goaded asshole he’s always been, will do exactly what he does: Arrest Hearst. Hearst goes quietly. He has brought no armed guards, and none are on duty outside to stop the marshal.
Why? So that Harry Crane can murder Bullock under cover of saving Hearst from the marshal.
Maybe you saw that immediately, but I didn’t. Hearst has already established that Bullock is violently disposed towards him. If the official line was that Crane burst in to find Bullock about to shoot Hearst in cold blood in revenge for Charlie, it would scan for people not intimately familiar with the players. It would have worked. This was the plan.
But then the spirit of Wild Bill Hickcock, inhabiting Calamity Jane for one brief moment, defended the only friend he’d made in Deadwood. Jane, normally frozen in fear or uselessly drunk, is animated and shoots Harry down, ruining Hearst’s carefully laid trap.
It’s fucking brilliant.
Love Thy Neighbor
Of course, there’s more. There’s the beating Hearst has to endure first, symbolic of how Deadwood, once a viper pit of warring interests, has become a community. This is underscored earlier when Dan and Johnny back Bullock in the shootout with Hearst’s thugs; there’s no meeting, no order from Al. Dan and Johnny back Bullock without needing those formalities, once necessary, because they’ve become a community. They don’t always like each other, but they love their neighbor.
Hearst ultimately fails here because Deadwood is now part of the wider world. He can’t oust Bullock because Bullock is a federal marshal. He can’t murder his way into Charlie’s land because Deadwood comes together to thwart him. Even Hearst can’t go up against civilization itself, and Deadwood has become civilized.
I’ve rambled on too long. I was initially disappointed, but now I see so much going on in this movie and this ending that I’ve just written several thousands words about it. And for fuck’s sake, I never even got to Al Swearengen.
“Our father who art in heaven …
Let him fuckin’ stay there.”
Brilliant.
- Brian Cox is brilliant and hilarious in the role, but the best I can say about this storyline from the series is that I did not miss it.
- Ian McShane is brilliant, and in this moment you can see Al’s mind chewing on what he might have achieved in Deadwood had Bullock remained his perpetually angry self.
- See what I did there?