Deadwood

OTMFM. Swearengen is the REAL hero of the show; Bullock is this sort of confused teenager.

I personally think the whole thing is what MOST great ensemble cast stories are: a personification of the inner life of the chief writer. Bullock THINKS he's the superego, but he's really the id; Swearengen THINKS he's the id, but he's really the ego.

Trixie
Doc
Alma (ooh, I just know she's a con-artist. I know it. I used to hate her, until it occured to me she was an evil bitch. Now I like her tons.)
Starr (getting better, and I hope to see him allied w. Trixie against Bullock).
and Ricky Jay's character. Is he back this season?

and, naturally, Swearengen.

That, if I may be motherfuckin' permitted to voice my goddamn opinion on the topic which we have at here to fuckin' hand, could possibly be concieved as my favorite episode to date, despite the motherfuckin' surfeit of Al, speaking of his estimable (yet lacking in coherence) contributions in the matter of dialogues. This sonofabitch Mr. W - and if that's not a name evocative of our ways and times I'll be doubly fucked as to what could qualify - is representing a shadowy, powerful, distant motherfucker who's very name puts a shake in the boots of everyone in this shithole camp from a craven cocksucker like E.B. to the icewatery veins of Cy Fuckin' Tolliver? Oh, he's a body to keep your bloodshot peepers on of a one hundred percent certainty.

The sequence where Trixie told off the Jew ("fuck the whole lot of you. i wish i was a tree") was as brilliant and clean and incisive as anything I've ever seen on television.

OTM with Dan crying. Such a great character.

Did anybody else notice that the actor who plays the new Hearst man is the same guy who killed Wild Bill?

1) Trixie / Jane
2) "Don't look me in the face."
3) "Don't spread the rumors. About the claims. Don't."
4) "Maybe I'm wrong on account of me being perpetually fucking drunk."

ahem.

(it's fun to post in Deadwoodese!)

This got better after the first two and moved onto incredible about episode five.

- the second episode with kristen bell, aka veronica mars, was some of the most brutal shit i've seen anywhere, anytime. the payoff in the next episode (with joanie walking past the pigs and seeing the hat) was great.

- brad dourif was the best thing about the lord of the rings trilogy and he's up there with mcshane in this show.

- i like how timothy olyphant is our "hero", but is basically a fucked-up dude with a temper and a badge who happens to have more conscience than everyone around him.

- wild bill's "cunt" speech to jack mccall was perfect as both an insult and a moment of self-loathing.

- molly parker is wonderful, just barely keeping it all together even living in deadwood and i loved her moment when she watched her father beaten to a pulp (as bullock was defending her) and yet still told that whore at the bella union to look after him.

- paula malcomson as trixie has some great moments and that first setup of her character over the course of the first episode (killing a man who was hitting her, getting beaten by al, ready to kill him but in the end just giving him the gun) is really wonderful.

- the aforementioned veronica mars episode is awesome precisely because it really shifts the villain role from al swearengen to cy tolliver, which is sort of underlined by the final episode when tolliver tries to buy off a general to protect his interests while al is gently putting and end to the reverend's suffering.

- yeah and ian mcshane is doing something similar to what daniel day-lewis did in gangs of new york but he's more charismatic, deeper, smarter, and more complex. probably one of the best performances of any actor in any medium that i've ever seen.

- this is so much better than any series HBO has ever aired, and nothing else comes close with the possible exception of "band of brothers".

Season 2 DVDs will most likely be out in May. They would have been out this month, to coincide with the new series starting in March, but unfortunately the series has been pushed back to June so HBO can use the Sopranos as a lead-in with Big Love.

When Altman dies, AO Scott in the NY Times called this an obvious desendant of McCabe and Mrs. Miller, only "pretentious and sentimental" by comparison -- and I agree while still liking the show a lot. I'd never listen to one of David Milch's commentaries all the way through, but I did hear him say he doesn't see Swearengen as "a villain, but one of God's fallen angels" (or somthin).

Sorry, but motherfucking Swearengen is a villain, Milch, you cocksucker. (Why I found the weepy bathos around Swearengen's kidney stones icky.)

I had better see some Bullock buttock before this show is over. (saw Timothy Olyphant do The Santaland Diaries off-Broadway years ago, he filled out candystripe tights verrry nicely.)

Dorrity's gay!

uh, did I fall asleep at some point?

And when are Season 3 DVDs out?

I don't think of him as a villain, especially compared to Wolcott or Tolliver or Hearst. By comparison, Al has a strong moral core that is compromised by his cruel business sense.

I like to think of Al as Batman to Bullock's Superman (in the Frank Miller sense).

(I like my superheroes uncomplicated, hv never touched that Frank Miller stuff)

Maybe it was the layoff between 2 & 3, but the voting stuff just confused the hell out of me.

John from Cincinnati better be really fucking good.