Deadwood Episode Guide: Advances, None Miraculous

Written by Sara Hess

Directed by Daniel Minahan

Much like the opening of the season, Advances, None Miraculous opens mere minutes after the closing of the previous episode. Only in that episode, the causative events was the aftermath of the brawl between Bullock and Swearengen. Now, we find ourselves in the midst of something just as critical to the camp, but far more emotionally devastating – the oncoming death of William.

Everybody knows, deep in their guts, what is coming, and much of what happens in the episode is based on their reactions to it. Leaving aside Seth and Martha, who spend the entire episode on the deathwatch, everyone is clearly in various states of upset. How they reflect is in different ways. Trixie is near tears half the episode, Dority and Adams are more pissed than usual, and Farnum masks his clear sadness with his usual complaints about being left out, and abusing Richardson when he makes his efforts to pray before his ‘god’ Even Tolliver seems initially affected by it – he is masked by trying to get the fatally injured Mose out of his joint, and then gets royally irked by those who try to interfere. Perhaps the most moving moments comes when Tom is found in tears, and returns to his saloon in utter despair, demanding that the bicycle which brought him such joy just a few hours ago be removed.

The ones who feel the most despair for another reason are, understandably, Hostettler and Fields. Hostettler brings up the special level of hypocrisy of the standard that affects blacks in the 1870s.

“There’s people in this camps whose stabbed and shot and murdered who are still walking around upright. The only thing we was trying to hurt was that horse… so that we could make an honest dollar.”

Of necessity, Hostettler and Fields flee the camp, unsure of their destination or plans. Hostettler considers killing himself, so that he can cheat the white folks from killing him (something Fields very nervously mocks) and then has a brief discussion in which he tells Fields that they will chase down that horse, take whatever’s coming to them, and then go down to Oregon, where together they might open another livery. Fields knows what a pipe dream that is, but his last words to Hostettler are : “Let’s go find that fucking horse.”

The man who is feeling particular grief is Cochran, who is well aware of his function as a moral weathervane. Called in to see how Mose is doing, he gives him a passing glance, tells Jane and Joanie that trying to help him is futile, and then returns to his cabin. He walks back, sees Martha and Seth standing over their deathbed, knows there is nothing he can do, and goes back to the Chez Ami, telling Jewel “I have to go operate on a whale.” Prefacing his actions by making it clear that very little is likely to come of this, he nevertheless says: “We’ll give it a goddamn whirl.”

Under normal circumstances, business would stop considering the vigil for William. But the outside forces that have descended on the camp will wait for nothing. Isringhausen, who was waiting on the sheriff to escort her from the camp before William was injured, now refuses to leave Swearengen’s office fearing for her life, and even the threat of Al’s cutting her throat doesn’t budge her. Angrily, he tells Dan to find Hawkeye, which leads to a mad search around the camp which reveals Adams, who tells Dan angrily this is who he’s waiting to see. Adams then comes to the office, and even now Isringhausen seems willing to play bold, asking Adams if he’s considering murdering her, and trying to sign the document that has been causing so much agita with a false name. Despite all this, and probably because of it, Al is impressed by the woman; his last words before she leaves the Gem (and the series) forever are : “I wish I had five like you.”

The other force that has returned is Commissioner Jarry, who seems just as oblivious to danger as he was before: when he demands of Tolliver and Wolcott to see Bullock, Tolliver tells him all he’ll get is a pistol-whipping and even Wolcott seems unnerved. (As he tells Tolliver after Jarry leaves: “I am a sinner beyond redemption, but I am not a government official.)

Jarry has returned because of the article Merrick put in the Pioneer last episode, and Merrick now gives Al advance warning that Jarry is en route after spying on the telegraph. Knowing the messes that are coming, Al calls Dan to get Starr, which leads to Sol showing a rare side of temper with just about everybody, first with Trixie over her returning to the Gem, and then at Al when he makes what seem to be anti-Semitic remarks before he finally gets to his point – he wants Sol to tell him about government officials in Montana. Even in his understandably distracted state, Sol remains as competent as ever, and even in a moment of fury actually gives Al pertinent information.

This leads to a delightful three-cornered scene when Al and Adams perform a con on Jarry trying to convince him that a prominent Montana interest wants to charter Deadwood for Montana. (Welliver is particularly delightful in this scene, using Adams’ no doubt real contempt for the Commissioner to insult him with practically every exchange.) By the time the con is over, even Adams is so astonished that he asks Al after Jarry leaves: “What just happened?” And Al explains that they will now get what they need from the Commissioner: “Elections”. This will prove the impetus for much of Season 3.

With all of this unfolding, we spend precious little of the episode actually with Seth and Martha. But in its own way, this is an example of another bit of mastery my Milch and the rest. When Jimmy Smits left Milch’s NYPD Blue, his character Bobby Simone eventually died after a lingering illness, and while his final episode is considered one of the great moments in television history, the last half hour was almost to much to bear. Now given fewer constraints, the writers choose to deal with William’s death (which is far more important for the camp then it was for the squad on Blue) by spending only a few short scenes on the deathwatch itself. We see Cochrane gently tell Seth that it wouldn’t hurt if Martha put a wet cloth on her son’s head or speak to him, we have a brief scene where Martha regrets bringing him from Michigan here at all and says that she wants to take him home, we have Seth and Martha say their goodbyes talking about their last days here but not really.

Instead, the series demonstrates the camp unifying by reacting with anger and sadness. One of the more moving scenes comes when Wu, who may have only the barest of understandings of what is going on, coming to Jewel, who is standing vigil, and offering her a cup of rice. Jewel gently tells him that she’s a gimp, and can’t hold the cup. (In the acknowledgement that they are both outsiders, Jewel may be the only one who doesn’t talk to Wu with impatience.) Others react in different ways. Farnum tries to use his mocking tones around Richardson, but there’s almost gentleness (for him, anyway) and he greets his guests in the kitchen where he is chopping onions (no doubt trying to come up with an excuse for tears – assuming, naturally, that people will give a damn about him now). Trixie comes back to the Gem, and Al demonstrates kindness by asking: “Why aren’t you amongst the circumcised?” then kindly allowing her to stand vigil just within eyesight of the cabin.

And in the final minutes, Milch knows that he doesn’t have to use dialogue at all. He shows various shots of people standing around, waiting for the inevitable. A minister shows up (we’ll get to him in the next episode; he is a familiar face) and heads towards the cabin. We see Martha and Seth watch William take his final breaths. Then Seth opens the door, and lets the minister in. And Sol walks towards the camp, and we leave the episode on his drawn face, which, as it has so many times with John Hawkes, speaks volumes.