Deadwood Episode Guide: Bullock returns to the Camp

Written by Jody Worth

Directed by Michael Engler

Apart from the obviousness of the title, this episode is mainly about cons and the people who try to play them. There are small cons and long cons going on by new operators in this episode, but all of the players are far beneath the work of the masters of the game: Swearengen and Tolliver.

To deal with the more pressing issue, the opening minutes wrap up to story of Jack McCall decidedly anticlimactically. Charlie and Bullock catch up to McCall in the hole of the wall he’s finally reached. Jack is literally blind drunk when they enter and his last line is: “I don’t wanna play no more”. Even at the full potency of his rage, Bullock still believes in the concept of the law. Rather then shoot him in the back just like McCall did Hickok, he knocks him out cold, and rides with Charlie to Yankton for him to stand for trial. Just as in the opening sequence of the series, the idea of the law – sparing McCall’s life so he can be tried and most likely hanged instead of just killing him in cold law – is both a meaningless distinction, and what the series stands for.

The series then takes an extended time jump - somewhere between ten days and two weeks – which will be very rare for how Deadwood usually proceeds chronologically. In this case, it is a necessity to advance several of the stories that were so critical in the last episode. In addition to the necessity for Bullock and Utter to get back to the camp, we need to see that the small pox outbreak, being handled by Doc, Jane and Reverend Smith is starting to come under control, and just as importantly that Trixie has managed to wean Alma Garret off the dope. This is also critical in advancing many of the characters, especially Bullock, Alma and Trixie.

For all Trixie’s efforts to fool Farnum that Alma is still high on opium, the moment she steps outside the hotel to go to her husband’s funeral, Swearengen instantly knows that Alma isn’t high, and just as importantly, Trixie has been lying to him.  Farnum, just as importantly, finally works up the balls to tell Al about his own deception – which he knows that, the Garret claim is a bonanza.  Swearengen reluctantly offers E.B. a percentage, but makes it clear he has to get the claim. And even now, fully aware of the consequences and playing with Swearengen’s money, Farnum still can’t bring himself to follow orders.  Forcing his offers on Alma at her husband’s funeral (which he has to know isn’t going to help their cause); he goes to $19,500 rather than the full twenty thousand. No doubt it doesn’t help matters that Bullock and Utter ride up mere seconds later.

Seth and Alma have their first real conversation in this episode with her in full command of her facilities. There is nothing revolutionary expressed in the discussion – Alma relays what has been happening since Bullock left, Seth tells her that he can’t find someone in Montana to assay the claim. What makes it important is the undertone. At one point, Seth tells Alma: “You are different” To which Alma replies. “So are you, Mr. Bullock.” The beginnings of a flirtation are taking place, even though neither is willing to admit it, possibly even to themselves. Alma knows that is in her interest to take the child and leave town, but it is clear that draws the two of them, like moths to a flame.

Bullock is also undergoing a kind of stress from Bill’s death and the attack the Indian made on him. He now fully understands that he survived solely on blind luck, and that he did was more to the savagery that lingers deep within him. It is for that reason, when it comes time to find someone to assay the claim, he goes to Swearengen, and tells him bluntly, that he’s going to choose someone he trusts, and that if the widow ‘doesn’t get a fair shake, it’d be you who’d I come for”. As vexed as he is by everything that is going on around him, Swearengen seems barely able to contain his amusement at the suggestion. Just as quickly, he reveals just how dangerous he is to Seth. Neither of these strong personalities backs down, and it’s only become there’s a murder in the Gem seconds later (we’ll get to that in a minute) that things don’t escalate any further.

Perhaps the darker undertones come when Al realizes that Trixie has chosen to betray him by getting Alma off the dope instead of further hooked. When he finally calls her back to his office, things get dark quick. It has been written that in the early planning for the season, Swearengen was going to murder Trixie for her deception. Though I’d like to think that Milch saw the work Paula Malcomson was doing (particularly with Molly Parker) and decided to keep her around, there’s no denying that what Al does is far colder. He grabs Trixie between her legs, listens to her desperate if half-hearted explanation, and lets her go. But just as she’s about to leave, he says almost casually: “Don’t kid yourself Trixie. Don’t get a mistaken idea.”

It is pretty clear that Trixie in the last few weeks has gotten a glimpse of the possibility of some kind of better life by helping Alma and Sofia. But afterwards, when Alma actually goes to make her this offer, Trixie, now aware that this is an existence she will never be suited for, tells Alma that if “you want to fuck him (Bullock), fuck him” and calls her a “rich cunt”. She then leaves, and with a modicum of her former kindness, tells Alma that the child is about to say her name. The two will remain close for the length of the series, but Alma will never broach this level of their relationship again, even as Trixie by incremental levels begins to advance her station.

The major subplot that makes up the remainder of the episode is the arrival of Miles and Flora, a brother and sister in their teens. We first see them in the Gem, showing Dan a picture of their father, who they say had headed to Bismarck looking for work, and said he’d said for them. They put themselves up as in need of work, and perhaps influences Dan’s attachment to Flora, agrees to give Miles a job ‘pushing a broom’ Flora then goes across the way to the Bella Union, and shows the same picture to Tolliver. Cy also offers her ‘work’… which Joanie is more than happy to help. We won’t be clear of the deeper implications of how Joanie works until the end of the season, but what we see is Joanie’s attempted seduction of Flora as well as a gentle to move to try and ‘pimp her out’. This doesn’t go nearly as well as she’d like because she’s still in the brown study she’s been ever since Andy Cramed took sick.

This arc actually gets brought to an unusual resolution. Jane has been tending Cramed in the plague tent for the past two weeks, and he has managed to recover. He returns to the Bella Union, not at all interested in Cy’s attempts to make him ‘rejoin the family’, and only really cheerful to Joanie. Tolliver’s reaction shows that he is still incapable of even considering what he did to Andy as wrong, and upon Cramed departure, snarls as Joanie to get busy tricking the new girl out.

It is clear that Miles and Flora seem a little off in their stories. Flora manages to succeed in conning Joanie because she is more capable of adding the right amount of detail and emotion. We don’t get a full picture though of what they’re up to, until near the episode’s end where Miles asks Flora: “What place do you think we can get a better score?” and she replies, casually, “Why not take ‘em both?” (To see Kristen Bell, months away from breaking big in Veronica Mars is rather stunning, and shows her full potential even then.)

Even here, it is obvious that the camp is no place for youth. Swearengen manages to put up a jovial front that we rarely see when he shows Miles “the tittylicker” – a man whose name doesn’t even begin to describe the nature of his ‘habit’. But Dan, who is usually a lot smarter than that, falls for the girl’s con, and when a young patron starts ‘looking at her’ simmer for several minutes, stabs him in the gut, and watches him bleed out. Swearengen puts on his patron face, offers a free round, and free drinks “to whoever helps dispose of the body” and just sort of snarls at Dan. For all that, he lets the cause of the fight get off easy.  Tolliver won’t be nearly as generous.

And to an extent, this episode provides closure to everyone connected with Hickok and his passing. Charlie Utter comes back to the Number 10 saloon where Bill was shot, asks for details, receives Tom’s gentle recital along with a poker player’s bragging. He then joins Jane by Bill’s grave, where she is reciting the events of the day. Charlie manages to tell the earlier events before breaking down, and eventually they move on. Charlie manages to use this to let go. Jane, for all her movements forward the last few episodes, will not be able to. Charlie will become a part of the camp in a way Jane never will.