Deadwood: HBO’s Western Masterpiece

When people talk about the golden age of HBO dramas, they usually bring up shows like The Sopranos, The Wire, and even less popular works like Oz or 6 Feet Under. But less often do I see people discuss HBO’s western masterpiece: Deadwood.

Created by David Milch, the series is set in the town of Deadwood, South Dakota in the 1870s, as it gradually goes from an illegal camp to actual settlement. The series ran for 3 critically acclaimed seasons before being abruptly canceled, and the show’s unfortunate cancellation is why I believe it hasn't received the recognition it deserves.

Which is a shame, because not only is Deadwood an incredibly entertaining period drama, it also excelled in a way that set it apart from even its extraordinary contemporaries at HBO. If The Sopranos was groundbreaking for its characters, and The Wire was groundbreaking for its themes, then Deadwood was groundbreaking for its incredible dialogue.

Though crude on the surface, Deadwood's mastery of the English language can only be described as Shakespearean. Every word choice is deliberate, spoken with an eloquence and intentionality that just hasn't been seen in any other show since, even when that word happens to be cocksucker. If the show had been given a full run, I have no doubt the series would be regarded as right up there with the likes of The Sopranos or The Wire.

So in this video, let's see if we can bring some attention to Deadwood, a Shakespearean drama set in the old west.

Deadwood is a historic drama, with most of the main characters like Al Swearengin and Seth Bullock being based on real people and history. However I will warn you now though that if you're a stickler for historic accuracy, this show may bother you. Though the characters are all real people who lived in Deadwood, many details about their lives and backgrounds are changed. Again they mostly stick to real history as their basis, but the show is not afraid to change things up if they think it will make for a better story.

The town of Deadwood began as an illegal settlement on what was then Native American territory. The discovery of gold in the black hills prompts a wave of people to move into the area seeking their fortune, either through prospecting or by the commerce that gold creates. Being a lawless territory, the town is incredibly dangerous and attracts the outcasts of society as well as the entrepreneurs.

Chief among the camp is Al Swearengin, the owner of the Gem Saloon and brothel. Al is a cut-throat businessman, not afraid to kill even the innocent if it advances his business interests. However, as bad as Al can be, he also deeply cares about the community and the people around him.

Throughout the show, we see him working for the interests of Deadwood. When the plague breaks out, he organizes the response. When annexation becomes a possibility, he rallies the people and pushes the movement forward. And when the town is threatened, he's the first to fight to defend it.

Part of this is of course his own interest. He wants his investments to become legal and protected once the camp becomes a part of the United States. But it's also shown that Al cares about the people closest to him. He looks after people like Jewel and Dan and Johnny, forming his own community inside the Gem. He even lets Trixie, whom he arguably loves, marry a man who can give her the love he can't.

Again that's not to say that Al is an angel. He beats the whores who work for him, is willing to kill children like Sophia, and ultimately wants to make money even at the expense of others lives. The world is a cruel place, and Al is willing to be cruel in order to survive. But despite this brutality he does try to build a better future for Deadwood, which puts him above others like Cy Tolliver who only cares about himself.

And it's this looking out of the greater good of the community that pushes Al to work with people like Seth Bullock. On the surface, Bullock and Swearengin are total opposites. Seth is honorable and temperamental to a fault, his stalwartness bordering on recklessness and insanity. He’s not willing to allow evil to stand even when his actions put his own interests in jeopardy. His principals put him at odds with Swearengin, and actively hurt some of Al's plans.

But despite this, Al see's the value in Seth's persona of good, and even respects the purity of his motives. He steers Seth to becoming sheriff, knowing that not only will it help the campaign to get annexed, but also be genuinely good for the town. Together they are able to put aside their differences and work together to fight against anything that threatens their community.

This threat is personified in George Hearst, the central villain of the series. Hearst is a business magnate, having made a fortune in gold. Wielding both economic and political power, Hearst comes to Deadwood to bully and coerce his way into even more money. Valuing only capital, his disdain for the community and human connection in general make him a common enemy for the camp.

The idea of community is at the heart of Deadwood. Though the camp is a rough place where things like justice are often hard to find, the idea of belonging is what ultimately all the characters are searching for. Characters like Al, Bullock, and Wild Bill Hickok aren’t just trying to find their fortune in Deadwood, they are fleeing from their past traumas and trying to find a place where they can belong. And ultimately this motley crew of cut-throats, do-gooders, thieves, and whores do end up forming a real community that they can call home.

But even more than the show's themes, the masterful dialogue is what ultimately made Deadwood so special. Upon first watch, it can be hard at times to make out what the characters are talking about. Especially when characters can be very crude on top of this. Throughout the entire show, the word "Fuck" is said 2,980 times, which is an average of 83 “fucks” per episode. For context, the Sopranos, another notoriously vulgar show, averaged around 40 fucks per episode.

But this vulgarity isn’t there for shock value, it’s very much a part of the rough world of Deadwood. This is a lawless town where anyone could die at any moment, and the tension of the world is ingrained in their language.

Again it’s like watching Shakespeare for the first time, but if you pay attention to the context you’ll not only understand their meaning, but also really appreciate the eloquence that goes into the character’s words, even the slurs.

The uniqueness and creativity of the dialogue comes from series creator David Milch. In addition to writing on Hill Street Blues and co-creating NYPD Blue, Milch was an English literature professor at Yale. Though he could be rambling, nonsensical, and even borderline abusive at times, his education and his very idiosyncratic personality would be the basis for the voice of the show.

Milch had originally pitched HBO a series set in Rome under the emperor Nero. However HBO was already developing the series Rome at the time, which I will cover in another video soon. Milch then changed the setting to the old west, but kept the themes of community coming together in a changing and uncertain time.

During filming Milch was famous for constantly rewriting scenes on the fly. He would often deliver new lines to the actors written in pencil over their scripts. This was something he did on NYPD Blue as well, and the difficulty this caused for production ultimately pushed both Jimmy Smits and later himself out of that show. However these changes would often prove to be improvements on Deadwood, and the incredible dialogue of the show is owed to his commitment to always improve and never settle even at the last moment.

However, if we are going to praise Milch for what he brought to the show, we should also talk about his role in the infamous cancellation of the series. Like any breakup, there is blame on both sides, and you need to take any statements from either party with a grain of salt. Deadwood was an extremely expensive show to make, costing around $4.5 Million per episode. That combined with declining ratings going into the 3rd season made HBO hesitant to continue the series at full steam.

Further complicating the matter was another project Milch was working on for HBO, the series John from Cincinatti. One of the reasons HBO wanted to end Deadwood sooner was that he could not realistically run two shows at once, and they wanted to focus on this new show. The first episode of John from Cincinatti would air right after the Sopranos finale “Made in America” by the way, but would fail to find an audience and be canceled after one season.

Chris Albrecht, president of HBO, supposedly called Milch and offered him 6 episodes to wrap up the series, half of the usual 12 episodes. According to Albrecht, he told Milch that this was just a starting off point for negotiations, and suggested that they may give him more episodes if he needed them.

However Milch supposedly refused the offer outright, saying they could just not make a fourth season at all. He then hung up and immediately called Tim Olyphant, telling them that the show was likely going to be canceled. He would later defend this saying that Tim was buying a house at the time and he wanted to warn him in case the worst happened. However this information leaked to the media soon afterwards, and headlines started appearing that Deadwood was going to be canceled. This further hurt any chance at a reconciliation. There was some discussion between Milch and HBO for two movies to serve as the finale, but his behavior along with the declining financial prospects of the series ensured that this would not happen.

Now if you want to be fair to David Milch, you could say that he felt he had a responsibility to not compromise the show with a shortened final season. Afterall there was no guarantee HBO would give him the full resources they promised, when they were already unenthusiastic about the show. But it’s hard to deny that the final nail in Deadwood’s coffin was Milch’s ego and his desire to work on other projects, and ultimately it could be argued that Deadwood wasn’t canceled so much as Milch pulled the plug on it.

Of course Deadwood would later get a finale 13 years later in the form of Deadwood: The Movie. The movie picks up 10 years after the final episode of the series. Deadwood has been officially incorporated into the United States as part of South Dakota. Many return for the festivities, including George Hearst. He gets up to his usual Hearst bullshit and ends up killing Charlie Utter in order to take his land. After some more conflict Bullock has him beaten and arrested. Trixie and Sol get married, and everyone in Deadwood lives happily ever after.

I really don’t like the Deadwood movie. I’m glad that the cast got to have a reunion and I’m sure it was a lot of fun for them to make, but this film is blatant wish fulfillment that really doesn’t stand up to the rest of the series. George Hearst returns to the camp just so that he can finally get beaten down like we all wanted to see in the show, but it doesn’t feel earned. He acts so stupid in the film in order to justify how Bullock can end up getting the better of him. I mean I know he’s a politician now and that could explain the drop in IQ, but this just doesn’t feel like Hearst from the show.

And he’s not the only one. Calamity Jane ends up saving Bullock from Harry Manning, who’s become a stooge of Hearst. Not only does this step on Harry’s character who really wasn’t a bad guy in the show, it also doesn’t seem like Jane. She was a coward in the show, always running away from conflict despite her bold exterior. Now you could argue this moment is meant to symbolize her growth, but honestly seems more like they just didn’t understand her character.

Furthermore the movie doesn’t really honor the tone of the ending of the series. The last episode called “Tell Him Something Pretty” was all about how the show wouldn’t have a nice ending. They were forced to sacrifice an innocent prostitute to save Trixie, a dark compromise that all the characters have to live with. Though this event is paid lip service in the movie with Trixie feeling remorseful over her death, the fact that the movie ends on this triumphant note with Hearst defeated seems disingenuous to the point of that episode.

Even the dialogue seems to reflect that, with the characters not speaking with their usual eloquence.

Almost certainly some of this was due to David Milch not being as involved with the project due to his unfortunate Alzheimer's diagnosis. By the time of the movie’s release in 2019, Milch was living in an assisted living facility. Nic Pizzalato, creator of True Detective, would help Milch with the screenplay for the film. Milch in turn would later help write a script for the third season of True Detective. He continues to write to this day despite his illness, but his obvious inability to be there on set helping and rewriting scenes made the film suffer. If one thing is clear from all this, it’s that David Milch’s voice, as insane as it was at times, was essential for the success of Deadwood.

But regardless of its anticlimactic ending, Deadwood is still a fantastic series that more people should watch. I hope this video helps bring some attention to the show, and stay tuned for more content, coming soon!