Deadwood Episode Guide: E.B. Was Left Out

Written by Jody Worth

Directed by Michael Almayeda

This is a remarkable episode, starting from the fact that is the rare one that actually begins immediately after the action in the previous one. Al wanders across the walkway into the offices of the Pioneer to find Merrick in a level of dismay from the events of the previous episode, which he recounts to Al. When Swearengen asks why he isn’t up and running again, Merrick’s says he feels ‘psychically wounded’. Al manages to literally drive life back into him by slapping in the face and following up with one of the best lines of dialogue in the entire series:

“Pain or damage don’t end the world, or despair, of fucking beatings. The world ends when you’re dead. Until then, you’ve got more punishment in store. Stand it like a man. And give some back.”

From this point on, the episode demonstrates the resurgence of Swearengen, even as he demonstrates his physical rehabilitation. Early in the episode, he tells Farnum to arrange a meeting between him and Alma. Miss Garret is surprised, as is the audience. One of the many masterstrokes of Milch has been to take these two interconnected forces of this series, and not even have in the same building until now, much less the same room. Events have started to force his hand, which is why Swearengen’s comes to Alma almost as a supplicant.

The conversation is one of the high points of the season – Alma knows that Swearengen has arranged her husband’s murder, tried to buy her claim out from under her. as well as probably had Sofia’s family murdered, so while she is appalled, she is canny enough she knows that something very dark must be underfoot for him to come to her. And when Swearengen comes to here, and is completely direct as to why – her tutor was a Pinkerton, and is trying to bribe him into a confession of his involvement in her husband’s murder in order to get at her gold claim - she is completely flummoxed. And when she asks directly why on earth Swearengen would tell her, he gives one of his most honest responses yet:

“I don’t like the Pinkerton’s. They’re muscle for the bosses as if the bosses ain’t got enough edge…Being the Hearst combine and their ilk got their eyes on takin’ over here, your staying suits my purpose.”

Considering how devoting to making money Al has been early, this is remarkably anti-capitalist of him. He sees the need of a greater purpose against the forces that are assembling. It’s a remarkable conversation – particularly given Alma’s instruction on Al to try and refrain from swearing, and the final decision to invite Al have tea when the meeting is over. We know that Alma has clarity of purpose herself, and it’s more than demonstrated here.

This episode also has another remarkable as Swearengen engages in the first of a series of monologues he will have with the severed Indian head – which is now in a box. Much as ‘the blow-job monologues’ will give insight into Swearengen’s past, his ‘discussions with the Chief’ will give insight into his course of action for future planning. In any hands other than Milch’s, this would border on ludicrous, but it demonstrates that these men would rather converse with the dead than share their weaknesses with the living.

And yet for everything that is going on involving Swearengen, the major focus of this episode is the aftermath of the slaughter at the Chez Ami. Joanie reluctantly returns to Tolliver to find out what happened to the women she left behind, and when she learns what she has to have suspected, she is devastated. Tolliver’s attempts at consolation are beneath him – “It’s no picnic running pussy is it?” – though perhaps in his own warped way, he is trying to find common ground. Instead, Joanie goes to Charlie, who got the other whores out of town last night, and tells him what she knows we think mostly for consolation. But Charlie was Wild Bill’s friend, and he knows how to handle action.

He goes to Farnum’s hotel, and on the flimsiest of excuses, picks a fight. Even now Wolcott might be able to have the advantage over him, but for the entire episode Wolcott acts as if he is still in a daze. Charlie takes advantage of this by yanking him into the thoroughfare, and laying an ass-whupping on him – one that even Tolliver doesn’t exactly see a reason to stop. Instead, he goes to the Gem, and tells Al that this kind of thing can not happen again.

He convenes a meeting of the town elders, and tells them who Wolcott is, what he represents, and there is no way that Wolcott can ever be touched. He stops short of revealing exactly what might have happened, or that he knew about it, but he still acts as if he has all the cards, even though it seems he overplayed his hand with Wolcott just yesterday. Swearengen knows what has happened, even if he can’t get confirmation from anybody, and is determined to try and maneuver around it.

This episode also concludes a remarkable drawing together of storylines that started all the way back in ‘New Money’ regarding Wild Bill Hickok’s last letter. When he is getting treated by the Doc for his broken ribs, Wolcott asks who beat him up, and upon learning that the man was Hickok’s best friend, tells him about the letter he obtained from Farnum and that he wants to know if Utter wants to get it to his wife. When Tolliver learns about this meeting, he is appalled, wondering whether he is trying to welcome a further beating. Wolcott’s detachment now takes on the air of one who seems to be wishing for death. When Charlie finally comes to him, Francis says he wants to know who told him what had happened, and Utter says he’ll keep it to his grave. Wolcott seems satisfied with this, and gives him the letter.

The one true source of humor is the episode where we see the machinery looming around the camp is Farnum, who is now beginning to feel left out of everything. Al refuses to tell him why he wants an audience with Alma, Alma refuses to enlighten him on that account, and he is pointedly left out of the meeting of elders where Utter’s beating of Wolcott is discussed.  He audibly stews in his hotel watching all this, and is finally borne to confront Al near the end of the episode. Al gives what is a rare display of kindness, and says that given his proclivity for blackmail, trying to take advantage of events in that episode would’ve gotten him killed. It’s the closest Swearengen will ever come to saying he needs E.B. and he takes it as such.

But all through the camp, there is a general feeling of despair. Utter is so wretched that even Jane comments on how terrible he looks, before she admits that the drinking and despair is starting to get the advantage of her – she’s now having blackouts that are lasting days. Bullock has been made aware of Alma’s condition, and has an awkward meeting with her after the meeting of the elders, in which once again, he discusses leaving the camp – this time with his family. Alma is already ill at ease, now she seems paralyzed.

And now Joanie seems even lower than she did after telling Cy to ‘kill her or let her go.” She tells Charlie that Maddie was ‘the only woman I ever met who wasn’t afraid of men.” Now she is convinced that she came to the camp not to earn for her retirement but to die. Joanie is so dismayed that she comes to the Bella Union looking for comfort, and as we know, this is the wrong place for it. Cy tries in his clumsy way to make Joanie feel better, but this involves saying death is better than getting old, of reopening the Chez Ami after enough time has past, and in his only honest moment, asking for Joanie to return to work for him.

But Tolliver doesn’t have the compassion or the sense for a bigger picture that Swearengen has – in this same episode, Al manages to persuade Trixie, who is clearly falling for Sol, and trying to avoid her feelings by saying she’s not good at ciphering, to tell her to go back there and not to blame him for her difficulties. He masks it under the possibility of gleaning information from Bullock, but he has clearly grown enough to see that Sol makes Trixie happy and he now wants that for. Tolliver, for all his affection for Joanie, still can’t see her as anything more than a whore.

The episode ends with Joanie in the ruins of what used to be ‘her place’ and now is forever stained. In one way, she’s never going to be happy there again. In another way, she’s never going to be able to leave.