Deadwood Episode Guide: Mr. Wu

Written by Bryan McDonald

Directed by Daniel Minahan

By this point in the series, we have met the lion’s share of the characters. But in this episode we meet two of the most critical ones. As you can probably guess from the title, one is Mister Wu, the head of the celestials.

Technically, Wu has been here almost since the beginning of the series, but he seems most important for the fact that his pigs have been dining on most of the people who meet a messy end. (Considering the amount of murders we’ve seen just this season, it’s amazing that Wu’s pigs aren’t stuffed to the gills already.) But this is the first episode that we get the level of his importance. We know how low on the pecking order Chinese people were in 19^th century America, so when Wu dares to walk in the front door of The Gem near the opening, Johnny is personally affronted. But now, we see that he has a certain level of connection with Swearengen, mainly in the level of opium, the drug of choice for so many in this series.

The scenes between Wu and Swearengen play out mostly as farce in practice. Wu spends most of the episode drawing everything that happens. He only seems to really know two words of English: “Swearengen!” and “Cocksucker!” (It is a tremendous tribute to the ability of Keone Young as to just how much he is able to express by his inflection of those words.) But it also speaks volumes as to how Swearengen deals with things that he makes the effort to try to comprehend Wu and his drawings, and never talks down to him the way that he does so many others in the camp. It helps matters that the problem Wu brings is critical to Swearengen. Two men have killed one of Wu’s couriers – a man who was supposed to bring opium to Wu and Swearengen – and have stolen his dope. Wu, understandably (pun not intended) wants the dope and vengeance. Swearengen knows that if he kills two white men, the camp will go to war with Wu and him, but he needs to keep his relationship with the celestial open. It doesn’t help matters the two killers are Jimmy, who we saw working for Al earlier this season, and Leon, Tolliver’s faro dealer.

The way Swearengen deals with this also shows a lot of how he views these miscreants as opposed to Wu/. When he brings Jimmy into his camp, he listens to the man’s story sympathetically, and then tells him the room “stinks of cat-piss”. This is how Al seems able to tell when someone is lying to him. He smashes Jimmy in the faces, and orders him to throw himself over the balcony. Jimmy doesn’t even hesitate to follow orders. Later, on when Leon joins Jimmy in the room, and tries to spin a similar story, he gets even more pisses, beats up Leon, who promptly vomits on the floor, and orders to Jimmy to clean the mess up. He then convinces Wu, very carefully, that he will give him ‘one dead thief’ but not two.

The other character that is new to the show arrives almost simultaneously. In the previous episode when Swearengen had his conversation with Clagget, the magistrate told him that there was a warrant out for his arrest, and it was going to cost him $5000 to get rid of it. The bagman, who comes to collect this, and the ‘right number for the legislature’ is Silas Adams.  When he enters the Gem to collect his money, he gives Swearengen a note from Clagget that essentially tells him that the payments are going to have to keep coming. Swearengen curses Silas and Silas curses right back. Something in Adams’ attitude clearly impresses Swearengen, and he tells him “pussy and whiskey are free” His attitude is reminiscent of Bullock’s, and it’s clear Al sees something special in this man.

Later in the episode, they have a conversation over whiskey in which Swearengen’s gets a clearer measure of Adams’ malleability. He clearly likes Clagget even less than Swearengen does, and doesn’t even blink at the idea of killing him. Swearengen then asks Adams to come with him to the bathhouse (when Silas hesitates, he jestingly says “No one’s looking to fuck you in the ass) and lays out the situation to Adams. It’s clearly an audition, and we can see Adams’ passes with flying colors – when he mentions Tolliver’s watching, Silas doesn’t do what almost anyone else would and look towards him, he asks the right questions when Swearengen asks about giving him one, and when he mentions Tolliver’s actions, he asks if Tolliver is looking for a fight, which is soon becomes clear he is.

The climax of the episode takes place when Al goes into the bathhouse where Leon and Jimmy are high as kites and soaking in tubs. He tells them both that they have to draw straws in order to see Wu to ‘apologize to him’. Leon’s level of high gives him arrogance, but Jimmy is clearly aware of the dangers, and doesn’t want to draw the straw. When he finally does, Swearengen drowns him, telling Leon ‘to tell his boss what he saw’. Silas doesn’t utter a word during the entire encounter, but when Swearengen’s mentions whether Tolliver’s message got across, Adams gives him his money back, asks why he killed his own man, and again gives the right answer as to what just happened and why. Swearengen is clearly impressed, and asks Silas to take off his hat, and tells him to get a haircut: “You look like your mother fucked a monkey”. Coming from Al Swearengen, it clearly means he sees value in this man.

So much of this episode surrounds Swearengen, Wu, and Adams that almost everything else gets thrown by the wayside. But there are two critical elements going on that do get attention. Bullock, having reluctantly taken on the office of camp refuse collector, is trying to make the camp a better place reluctantly, and even though Farnum clearly doesn’t see the point. It feeds to a certain level of irritation throughout the episode, and he finally expresses is to Sol close to the end, about his own problems, which basically come back to the fact that he’s sent for his wife and son, not so much because he thinks its time for them to come, but because he is fighting his attraction to Alma.

The other equally important point is the almost total degeneration of Reverend Smith, which plays out in multiple fields. In the last episode, Dan ordered a piano for the Gem, much to Al’s irritation. The music from the piano attracts the Reverend in this episode, and Swearengen, who is dealing with his problem, is clearly distressed, but even he has some reluctance to yell at a minister. Gently for him, he asks Smith to leave, and notes his ailments. However, Smith returns to the Gem two hours later, find the Reverend kicking up a holler, and disturbing all his clientele, and this time is far more belligerent when it comes to throwing him out. When he sees the Doc, who has come in to treat the whores, there is clearly something that borders on concern:

“You notice too how he’s starin’ cockeyed? He was in here two hours ago, don’t fuckin’ remember. (briefest beat as he reads Cochran’s expression) Nothing to be done, huh?

Cochran: “No”

He then covers by yelling at Cochran about Trixie’s wellbeing, but it’s clear that even Swearengen is not immune to this cruelty.

Indeed, Smith’s ailments have finally progressed to the point that his mind is going on him. Never is this made clearer in a beautiful scene where Smith returns that night to the hardware store where Seth and Sol are waiting. He remarks about how they bet, and how he looked after the goods, and after mentioning them, he says:

You are the absolute image of them, gentlemen. But what makes me afraid is that I do not recognize you as my friends.

Smith finally confronts the horrors of what is happening to him, and it is heartbreaking:

“I don’t know what’s happening to me. I have various ailments, and I suppose this is a further ailment, but of what sort I don’t know. I’m afraid if you are devils which –which I don’t believe you are because you were the kindest men of all in the camp to me. But if you were devils I suppose that – that would be the type of shape you would take and if you are not devils – then I am simply losing my mind. And with my other ailments I am concerned – and afraid.”

One can hardly do justice in mere words to the power of the performances. But Raymond McKinnon is absolutely astonishing throughout this scene. So much so that for the barest of moments we think Smith might be right – until of course, Seth and Sol gently play back the words that say in the pilot to him. “I’m from Etobicoke, Ontario”; “I’m from Vienna, Austria”. Smith truly realizes he is safe, and professes that the ailments are just temporary, and that “a night stroll with friends” might help him. But over the scene Swearengen’s simple phrase plays over it, and not even Smith’s comic mention that “Mr. Swearengen’s saloon has a lovely piano” can stop the chill that runs down our spine as we contemplate the inevitable.