Deadwood Episode Guide: True Colors

Written by Regina Corrado & Ted Mann

Directed by Gregg Fienberg

The problems with Deadwood’s third season are twofold. One of them has to do with the fact that Swearengen, so much the manipulator of events until this point, now seems utterly paralyzed when it comes to dealing with Hearst. Had anyone else even made a threat towards his holdings, much less attacked him the way Hearst did in the climax of the previous episode, he would be food for Wu’s pigs within minutes. Instead (in a rarity for the series) the show makes a two week time jump, and we find Trixie openly go into Al’s rooms, where he has been holding forth, and trying to give him a pep talk, telling him ‘the last shot ain’t been fired’. Much as Al’s illness allowed Wolcott to achieve a greater hold in the camp last season, his psychological paralysis has given Hearst far more time to get a hold in to the camp. And it’s very hard to get an understanding as to why.

The other problem is far more direct, and occurs in this episode. Jack Langrishe, a theater impresario, rides into town with his theater in company, and unlike most residents who clearly show themselves as supplicants to Al, he raises his hat and tells him: “I’m barely speaking to you.” We become aware very quickly that Al and Langrishe have a history – they knew each other in Virginia City, and even though Langrishe is clearly gay, Al has a clear friendship with him, even though he feels a bit uncomfortable with his presence. He actually walks through the camp with him, serving as a tour guide, with some genuinely wry comments. (When Langrishe sees the celestial’s pigs, and cries out ‘Bacon!’, Al says: “Might have a human affect.’) He treats Langrishe as an equal, and never once talks down to him.

I never had a real problem with Langrishe or his theater company. Part of it had to do with the fine work of Brian Cox, a truly gifted actor who never quite seems to get credit he deserved for his work. (That has changed since the end of the series, when Cox moved on to play a billionaire media mogul in Succession. Perhaps he borrowed some of what he learned from Milch into his portrayal.) Admittedly, the problem is trying to figure out why, with everything that is going on with Hearst, the series should suddenly start dealing with the actions of yet another new set of characters, this time in an area that really doesn’t pertain to the action.  It is possible that, had Deadwood not been canceled, there would have been a payoff for all of the theater storylines in future seasons. Milch would certainly demonstrate that he would be able to do so with several storylines from the second season here. As it is, with characters like this taking up time from the already large cast, it is very likely that the fans of the show didn’t want to deal with it.

What is more important in a way is one of the other new rivals, Aunt Lou Marchbanks, an African-American woman who is Hearst’s cooks. She is one of the only character who Hearst seems willing to open up to, in which he seems willing to relate some of the problems he has in these camps. But it becomes clear very quickly, that the only reason Hearst relates to her is because he considers a nonentity. (The real George Hearst was from Missouri, which was a slave state when he was growing up, and it is very clear that he basically considers the Civil War has changed nothing, at least for him.) He makes it very clear that he doesn’t like to talking to anyone who doesn’t subvert himself to him. Once again, he mentions his name ‘Boy-The-Earth-Talks-To’, and it becomes increasingly clear that he doesn’t want to have a conversation with anyone else. It is made up for by the fact that Lou goes to play with the celestials, and she completely dismisses everything she thinks of Hearst and the high talk she has.

This becomes increasingly clear with the two other major events that are going on throughout the episode. The major one involves Alma who seems to have recovered from the abortion that was performed in the previous episode. There is, however, an undertone when Doc asks whether or not she has disposed of the laudanum that she took in order to deal with the pain. Alma objects very loudly, and profusely, and the phrase ‘the lady doth protest too much’ has never taken on a greater meaning. If you considering the possibility that she is still on laudanum, there is  the logic of the junky in what she does next. She has arranged for a meeting with Hearst to try and discuss how the handle her holdings. Even Trixie can see this is a bad idea, and Ellsworth, compliant in so many other things, is very hostile to the idea in general, and insists on coming with her. The entire first meeting, Ellsworth seems like its taking all his energy to stop from reaching out and snapping Hearst’s neck, and it’s impressive that Alma manages to maintain her cool all the way through it.

But it’s not until the second interview that Alma truly realizes the depths of the pit she has dug. Alma offers 49% of her claim in exchange for five percent of Hearst’s.  Hearst puts her down with four words: “Your proposal offends entirely.” He then he says he is going to buy her out, and when Alma sees just how badly she misjudged events, she tries to leave… and Hearst tries to prevent her from leaving. (He later cheerfully admits to Tolliver than he came very close to raping her, and that he chose not to, because it bored him.) When she unreels in front of Ellsworth, and tries to explain how badly things have gone, he tells her that: “I only wanted to protect you.” Alma simply says: “You can’t.” If she knows how much death has already gone on because of Hearst’s presence, she knows far worse is to come.

The larger problem comes when Bullock interviews another miner about a murder in Hearst’s mine, where another Cornishman tells him that this man was murder because they were trying to organize. Bullock’s reaction is to go to Hearst, and ‘put him on notice’. Hearst all but ignores it, and talks about the murder of his men in the Gem two weeks ago, as being nearly as important, and openly mocks Bullock for his indignation. “I identify a pattern in these events, I put you on notice.” He then slams down a shot of whiskey with similar disdain. Bullock then goes to the Gem, and demands the Cornishman’s body from AL, which he then has to go through a comic bit of business between them about how Wu has been keeping them in the freezer.

Hearst cements his place over the town by finally turning Tolliver into one of his ‘dogs’. There should be some joy in these, seeing that Tolliver’s attempted con of Hearst over his part in cleaning up Wolcott’s mess is revealed to be an utter fiction, and now he will no longer have even the hint of independence. But there just seems to be something pathetic about Tolliver now, seeing as how Hearst visits him basically in bedclothes, and the fact that he seems so willing to turn himself into one of Hearst’s pets. (“If the good lord had given me a tail…) Does he really think he might still get some kind of reward from Hearst for loyalty? He must know by now Hearst is a man with none, if literally getting the truth from the horse’s mouth.

The camp really does seem to be losing more the closer it gets to civilization. Even Al admits he doesn’t know who owns a lot of the houses, and Doc, who seems to be the conscience of the camp, taking on a heavy cough can’t be a good sign. Near the end of the episode, when Bullock says that the elections ‘have to stand for something’, he is trying to invoke the veneer of law. But as this episode has made clear, law means nothing if there are always going to be people who will have the resources to flaunt it.