Deadwood Episode Guide: Here Was A Man

Written by Elisabeth Sarnoff

            Directed by Alan Taylor

Hickok: You know the sound of thunder, don’t you Mrs. Garret?

Alma: Of course.

Hickok: Can you imagine that sound if I ask you?

Alma: Yes I can, Mr. Hickok.

Hickok: Your husband and me had this talk and I told him to head home to avoid a dark result. But I didn’t say it in thunder. Ma’am. Listen to the thunder.

Because Deadwood had certain historical landmarks in the series, and because one of those was the fact that Hickok died within a few days of arriving in the camp, Milch originally planned to have Hickok die in the second episode. Albrecht, one of HBO’s executives, saw the masterful work that Keith Carradine was doing, and tried to convince Milch to hold off doing it until the end of the season. Milch’s compromise was to kill him off in this episode. It is still an act of tremendous bravery of Milch and his team to take what is arguably the most charismatic character in the series for, and not only kill him off, but kill him off so casually. But Hickok needs to die, at least for Deadwood to really come of age, and Sarnoff (no doubt aided by Milch) gives him a fuck of an exit.

Hickok has a good night at poker, this time at the Bella Union, but the worse McCall’s luck runs, the more pointed his remarks become. Tolliver chides him, and notes it to Sawyer: “Some men can’t come within… distance of a cliff without jumping off.” Hickok ends the game by pushing a chip at him, and saying, almost kindly: “Go eat, Jack.” As the script notes, at the moment McCall decides he’s going to kill Wild Bill.

In a large sense, it’s becoming increasingly clear that Hickok has come to this camp to die. He manages to engage in a rather cheerful back and forth with Bullock when he leaves the Bella Union, in which we do get the sense that there is still warmth and friendship in him. But when he finds Charlie waiting for him in his bedroom, and Charlie tries once more to convince Hickok to at least try to make a start of something in this camp, Hickok finally puts into words what we have come to realize is the truth:

“Some goddamn time a man’s due to stop arguing with himself. Feeling he’s twice the goddamn fool he knows he is because he can’t be something he tries to be every goddamn day without once getting to dinner time and not fucking it up. I don’t want to fight it no more, understand me Charlie? And I don’t want you pissing in my ear about it. Can you let me go to hell the way I want to?”

And Charlie accepts and goes to Cheyenne, never to see his friend again.

In many ways, this episode is about the fall of Hickok and the rise of Alma Garrett. Dan does as he was told and brings Brom’s body back from the creek, and Alma, in a very broad sense, finally comes out of her stupor. She leaves Farnum’s hotel for the first time to look at her husband’s corpse, and brought into confrontation with the forces in the camp, acquits herself admirably. She demands that Cochran examine her husband’s body to see if he did die from a fall. When Cochran comes back, and tries to restrain his commentary, she turns on him and calls him on how while he had plenty of opinions about her ailments, he doesn’t seem willing to speculate on how her husbands death. Doc tries to fob her off with the same laudanum he gave her earlier, and as soon as he leaves, she throws the bottle against the wall.

Swearengen in the meantime is trying to find to get the Garret claim bought back, knowing now that he could make a fortune. But Farnum’s caginess again spoils his plans. Though he tells E.B. to offer the $20,000 Brom paid, supposedly to keep the Pinkertons from descending upon the camp, Farnum renews the offer of $12,000 to Alma. We’ll never know for sure whether lowballing the offer or making it all is what arouses Alma’s suspicions. Whatever the case, in desperation she goes to Jane’s room and tells her to arrange a meeting with Hickok, trying to get him to act as proxy. She reveals herself far more astute in her initial conversation.

This leads to what in other episode – hell on any other series – would have been the highpoint of the season. Wild Bill’s goes into the Gem for the first – and as it turns out, the only time – in the series. The confrontation is a magnificent scene as for one of the few times in Deadwood’s run, Swearengen is matched in a game of wits with somewhat who is his equal.  Wild Bill knows that Swearengen is not to be trusted, and Swearengen knows that Wild Bill probably doesn’t believe him. The question is who will prevail? Wild Bill manages to solicit a bribe for “showing events to the widow in a favorable light”, and immediately Al knows that something is truly amiss.

Swearengen is truly nervous and unsettled for the first time since the series has begun – so much so that Farnum, who seems too much like a sweaty weasel actually dares to raise his voice to him, and suggest that maybe he’s over-thinking things and that he might have too much on his mind. Swearengen reaction is that he needs to “fuck something”, and yells for Trixie.

Alma asks Hickok that she needs to know what she might be selling before she takes the offer. Hickok directs her to Bullock, who by proxy agrees to assay the claim. All three agree that Alma should leave the camp as soon as possible, leading to the superb exchange that I listed at the beginning of the article. Considering the amount of carnage that will eventually ensue because of Alma’s decision to stay, it is easy to see that Hickok knew from whence he spoke. However, considering that the series would’ve been a lot less interesting without Alma Garret in it, the viewer can only be grateful that she didn’t take his advice.

There are a couple of more critical events going on before we reach the climax of the episode, and because both involve two women who will become key to the series, it worth looking at them. As we noticed in the last episode, Ellsworth saw Dority kill Brom, and returns to the Gem the next day to have a roundabout conversation with Dan about it. When he finally gets to his point – that he would be willing to leave the camp rather than end up being fed to the pigs – Dority turns to Trixie about the conflict. Trixie looks at Dan, and says: “Don’t you do it.”  When Dan asks whether she means tell Al or let Ellsworth lead, Trixie says: “Either.”  Trixie has a far blunter sense of morality than you expect from a prostitute – certainly one whose pimp is Al Swearengen. And considering that Dority had no problem telling Al about the gold claim – and accepting his great compliment with: “I just know when I’m out of my depth,” it says a lot about Dority that he seems to take Trixie’s words to heart.

At the Bella Union, Tolliver seems determined to be building up his operation. He consults with Doc about maintenances for his whores, and seems willing to defer to Joanie about certain details. Then another member of his crew, Andy Cramed shows up apparently about to set up a scam, but it quickly becomes clear that he looks poorly. When Joanie comes in to tend to him, she sees this and reports to Tolliver. Cy’s reaction is to get the Doc, but “Tell him somebody fell.” And when it becomes very clear that Cramed has some very severe illness, he turns on Joanie (and by extension Cramed) very quickly. We are about to see that for all the nicer trappings and collegiality Cy Tolliver does not have a family.

Of course, all of this pales in comparison to what actually happens at the end. Jack McCall is still sniping and raging at anyone who’ll listen about his experiences with Wild Bill. Somehow, he manages to get a hold of a gun, and walks in Nuttall’s saloon, where Hickok is back playing poker. The split second before the kills hot is fired, Wild Bill pauses as if he knows what is coming, and almost welcomes it.

The moments that follow are among the few times in Deadwood that the camp seems to be one organic entity. The reaction from those in the saloon is immediate, and a moment later, the enormity of what McCall has done seems to strike him, and he runs. ) There is a subtle comparison between the two when McCall tries to mount a horse, and slips getting his foot in the saddle.) The masses crowd around him. The two people in camp who know Bullock the best are both drawn to it: Jane and Seth. Even before they clearly know what is happened, they leave their designated locations and run to the Number 10. Almost by design, the moment they arrive, Bill’s body collapses from the table. Jane picks up a bottle of whiskey, drinks almost the entire contents, and drops it to the ground; in a larger sense, she will never put it down again. Bullock just looks upon it with grief and rage playing in turmoil. It is a marvelous scene for both Olyphant and Weigert.

And in a weird way, one more critical character arrives in the camp at the exact moment of Hickok’s death: a rider comes in with the skull of an Indian, come to collect the bounty Swearengen offered in a moment of false pride in the Pilot. This too, is a moment of historical reference, even if Milch changes it from the same day to the exact same minute. And in a larger sense, this character while already moldering and rotting, will offer us more insight into Swearengen than just about any other living character in the entire series.