Deadwood Episode Guide: No Other Sons or Daughters

Written by George Putnam

Directed by Ed Bianchi

“My joint. Two hours. We’re forming a government.”

Deadwood by far takes place in one of the bleakest settings of all the dramas that would bring forth the new Golden Age of television  - yes, even darker than the Jersey of The Sopranos and the Baltimore of The Wire. But there’s a very solid argument to be made that it’s also the most optimistic of the three series that launched that age and HBO. At their core, both The Sopranos and The Wire are about how people react to the death of the American dream, either by responding to their basest impulses or because they are stuck in a web that they cannot escape. Deadwood is, in stark contrast, about the beginning of the American dream, and as this episode demonstrates, is about disparate people, many of whom we’ve already seen are malodorous, if not downright evil, coming together for a common goal.

It is no coincidence that Swearengen is the man who is responsible for starting what amounts to the ‘ad hoc government’ that will effectively run Deadwood for the remainder of the series. Swearengen may be bloodthirsty, and he may only care for his own well-being, but he has already demonstrated long-term vision that several of his companions clearly lack. He may hate Magistrate Clagget with a passion, but he listens to what he has to see about the possibility of annexation, asks the clearest questions about it, “What’s the right number for the legislature?”, and goes through the entire camp getting every single person he thinks might be important, including several he has actively at odds with.

And several members of the camp are willing to step up. Charlie Utter, who up until this point has had no interaction with Swearengen, shows up at the Gem, and despite just having started a very important new business, volunteers to be fire marshal. Doc Cochran is willing to volunteer his duties in the health department. Bullock, who openly admits to Sol when the meeting is over that he didn’t want to burden, volunteers to a key office, if only because he doesn’t want to be sheriff. And of course that bastion of integrity, E.B. Farnum basically volunteers to become Mayor, because no one else wants the job. Even if he only wanted the trappings of power, Farnum clearly has an idea as to how government works: “taking people’s money is what making organizations real”, which is a cynical but realistic picture of how government works. Much of it is symbolic, like the peaches and pears that Johnny ladles out at intervals throughout the meeting, but symbols are important.

Swearengen seems a lot more human in this episode than we’ve seen so far. From the opening where he casually lectures Trixie on what he’s thinking about life after the annexation, to when he reluctantly gives Johnny Persimmon Phil’s old position (and cheerfully admits to Dan that he had to flee his own office in terror) to when he goes through the entire camp basically talking to everybody, including Bullock and Starr about what’s needs to happen next. (He even manages to compliment them on now nice their newly build hardware store looks.) And it clearly takes a lot out of him; when it’s all over, he freely admits all the conviviality gave him a damn headache.

Others are not nearly as willing to become part of the whole. Tolliver agrees to come to the meeting, and is willing to bring Eddie, who in his own way is clearly in as much as Joanie is about the murders he committed in the previous episode. He’s told Joanie that he’s willing to front her money to open her own brothel, but we know just by looking at him, it was something to say. Eddie asks to come to the meeting of the elders, but when he asks a question that pertains directly to Joanie, Cy can’t let it go when the meetings over, and has an angry conversation where he all but calls Eddie a pedophile (we never learn one way or the other about Eddie’s sexuality). He’s just as cold to Joanie when she makes her own suggestions about getting out, and its very clear that he is now pretty close to destroying ‘the family’ that he has spent years building.

A sadder example is that of Jane. She’s managed to hold it together while serving as a nurse at the plague tent the last couple of episodes, but in this one, she goes on what for any other character would be an epic binge, but for Jane is basically Monday. Both Cochran and Charlie are well aware of just how bad it is, and try to offer ways for her to come out of it. But in a rare moment of self-awareness, Jane says that she can’t stay sober and is tired of embarrassing herself near the body of Bill. At the end of the episode she rides off. It is not clear whether Milch and the rest were genuinely considering writing Jane out of the series (though she remains in the opening credits, Robin Weigert does not return for the remainder of Season 1), but it is clear that Jane will never be a part of the camps as a body.

And by far the most tragic case of someone who is not long for the camp – or indeed, for this world - is Reverend Smith. We’ve known he has been in bad shape for weeks, but now it is clear even to him that something is horribly wrong. He apologizes to Jane for his order, claiming he smells of rotting flesh. His eyes are fixed, and he can’t use one of his arms. But worst of all, he says that he can no longer feel “Christ’s love”. He is still trying to convince himself that his suffering is somehow part of God’s purpose, even if he doesn’t understand what that purpose is. Cochran, who though he will not say so directly for another episode, knows exactly what is killing Smith, and says, with perhaps a greater cynicism that if this is His purpose, “God is a real son-of-a-bitch”

If the greater theme of this episode is about forming a government, the rest is about former relationship, and in three scenes we see the beginnings of bonds of three critical ones to Deadwood.  The first is that of Joanie and Charlie. Joanie is going through the camp, ostensibly looking for a place of her own. Her path, however, takes her down the darkest sections, including that of the Chinese, where Wu’s pigs are dining on the remains of Flora.  At the moment when she is the most vulnerable, she runs into Charlie, who is a wearing a new suit for his business, and is feeling foolish. The conversation they have is very simple – they introduce themselves, they talk about their jobs, Joanie freely admits she’s a whore, and Charlie doesn’t seem to judge that. It’s never directly spelled out – Milch is remarkably subtle in that sense – but Charlie may be the first man who Joanie has ever met who doesn’t want anything other than simple friendship. Their relationship will be one of the smaller joys of the series.

The second relationship involves Trixie and Sol. A couple of episode backs, Sol openly invited Trixie to his hardware store to simply work on sums, and its been clear ever since that he is sweet on her in a way that goes outside the relationship of prostitute-client. In a way, Sol is as much an outsider in this camp as Trixie is, and while he will be given more deference than her, he will not be respected. When he goes into the Gem, and strikes up a conversation with her, it clearly surprises Trixie as to how happy it makes her. She covers it up in a way, but it’s apparent to Swearengen who knows how to read her perhaps better than she knows to herself.

The third – and by far the most crucial to the series – is that of Alma and Seth. They have been trying to keep it professional up until now – Seth says that he wants to talk to her about Ellsworth about how to best mine what is clearly a hell of a gold claim – but almost from the start, there has clearly been a sexual undercurrent. Seth clearly knows this, and almost casually mentions to Sol that it’s time to send for his wife and son. Near the end of the episode, when he and Alma are having their final conversation, he makes a special point of mentioning that he is married. But having done so, he then makes it clear that his wife is his brother’s widow, and that after he died in a cavalry charge, he married her more out of duty than love. In the 1870s, even in a camp with no law like this one, it is clear that the social etiquette remains absolute here. But it’s becoming increasingly clear that Alma married Brom under much the same reasons that Seth married his wife. And as much as they are trying to stay firm to those rules, it becomes increasingly clear with each conversation they have that both of them want to cast those rules aside, and damn the consequences. They almost seem relieved when they awkwardly bid each other goodbye at the end.

And its own way, it’s clear that Bullock is trying to hold fast to at least one set of responsibilities. He knows this town needs a sheriff, and he doesn’t want to be that man, even if he is the most qualified. He is clearly attracted to Alma, so he sends for his wife and son. The pull between Bullock’s desires and greater responsibilities are at the center of Deadwood, and in a way, they’re almost as important as forming a government.