"Sometimes I wish we could just hit 'em over the head, rob 'em,
and throw their bodies in the creek. "
"But that would be wrong. "
By far, my favorite drama on television is Deadwood on HBO. And I don't even have HBO (or cable, or even much of a reception on the antenna). I only catch up with it on DVD. I just finished watching the first season again. The second season just came out of DVD this week. I would buy it, but I definitely cannot swing $70 bucks these days. Season three debuts on June 11th, and I'm sure I won't see any of those episodes for another year and a half.
Its been said before that Deadwood is a deconstruction of the Hollywood Western (I think that is said about every remotely new and interesting western that has come out in the last thirty years). But Deadwood is truly unique and interesting because its the only one I know of that actively critiques the idea of the lone pioneer/cowboy/frontiersman and his trails and tribulations in the wild frontier. Deadwood doesn't care about any of those myths, let alone perpetuate it. The only people afraid of the Indians are the rich white people who won't come to Deadwood. But everyone in Deadwood goes about their daily life trying to make a community--indifferent to the oversimplified binary between civilization and wilderness. And that's what's fascinating about Deadwood--its about a frontier community, not just a righteous loner.
Everyone in Deadwood is there because of their own greed of some kind--no matter how morally upright, or not, they might otherwise be. And the show's brillance is to reveal how all of these unique and fascinating characters can't stand each other, and yet are forced to work together for a greater good (mostly individual greed, but isn't that the true American spirit?).
This is how the series deconstructs the American Western mythologies--it isn't just that it's dark, brutally violent (and I do mean brutal--as in, beating a teenage girl to a pulp, then blowing her brains out, and then feeding her to the pigs), profane, and often cynical, or even that there is no one John Wayne/Gary Cooper/Randolph Scott-type man of absolute good anywhere in town. What it deconstructs is the myth of individualism--that the West was formed by one (white) man with only vision and determination. It deconstructs the myth of the showdown--there is no one man to kill to make the West a better place, nor is there one such honorable man to do the killing.
Deadwood is instead about the true origins of the West, and of American democracy--greedy people, some better than others, who come together to grab what they can, knowing that they must work together, however begrudgingly, to do so. There is no great showdown to solve these problems--only endless, messy, multi-layered conversations about legalities, money and power, and, yes, the occasional, reluctant, burst of violence, to "tame" the west. W's straight talking and straight shooting would last him two seconds in this frontier. That's why it's great TV.
And Al Swearengen is one of the best characters I've seen (not to mention, heard).
"In life you have to do a lot of things you don't f@#*ing want to do. Many times, that's what the f@#* life is... one vile f@#*ing task after another."
