Two lummoxes smash into one another in the muck of the thoroughfare. The scuffle starts out honorable, as honorable as that sort of brutality can be. Both Dority and Captain Turner drop their weapons to meet one another hand-to-hand. They grapple and jockey for the upper hand. The tumble down the middle of the street, each struggling for control.
And then, things gets ugly. Turner bites Dority's face. He begins to drown him in the mud. He looks up at Hearst, like a gladiator seeking the approval of the emperor, trying to discern whether he's drawn the beating out long enough to meet his master's demands. He draws it out. Eventually the tide turns in the skirmish. Turner begins bashing Dan's head in on a rock, and left desperate, soon to die otherwise, Dan gouges his opponent's eye out. He beats him down with a nearby piece of wood. He too, looks up to the emperors on their balconies, once at Hearst as challenge, and once at Al for silent approval. Then he does it, and Turner is gone.
It's a scene that's notable in its starkness and brutality. This is not the struggle between valiant men, laden with beauty and glory of the noble fight. It's a drag-out, beat down brawl between two thugs, and it carries with it all the ugliness, all the inelegance and filthiness and harshness that comes with that. It toys with the audience's emotions, suggesting that Dan, who is for once undersized relative to his opponent, may really meet his end, and inviting us to relish his triumph even as we're to be disgusted by what it takes to get there.
The victory, however, is not triumphant for Dan, let alone anyone else. He sits, naked in his room, wanting to be alone. As Al explains to Johnny, there's a difference between murder-for-hire, between taking someone out in one fell swoop, versus a fair fight, albeit a dirty one. Seeing the lights go out of someone's eyes, being locked in mortal combat, leaves you alone with it, makes it more real and personal for even a hardened killer like Dority. Al gives Dan time to make his way through that muck just as he let Dan make his way through the muck in the thoroughfare.
And it speaks to a theme of the episode -- that what you want can be spoiled by how you get it. Dan, in his puppydog sort of way, loves Al, and admires him. He wants justice against Hearst for hurting his master, for disrespecting the man who is his rock. But the way he gets that justice feels wrong, and leaves him feeling hollowed out when it's all through.
The same is true for Elsworth. In another scene which Deadwood, in the show's judiciousness, lets simmer and breathe, Alma is high as a kite and making advances on her husband for what is, presumably, the first time. Like her scene with Hearst a few episodes ago, there's a supreme awkwardness and almost terror to it as she advances. Elsworth may not know that she's back on the laudanum, but he can tell that something is off. The scene lingers as she moves in to kiss him, and there is a moment of shock, of recognition in Elsworth. He moves away, and in as tasteful a way as he can muster given how rattled he clearly is, tells her that he can't do that, can't do any of it anymore. Elsworth's been reluctant about this from the beginning, and with Alma's virtue no longer at stake, and her habit back in force, this is more than he bargained for. Even the affections that he'd once at least jokingly courted, when presented to him in a way that feels wrong, is too much for him to bear.
The most puzzling scene in this vein comes from Hostetler. The tenuous truce between him and Steve the Drunk seems steady enough. The simultaneous signing works as hoped. The bank accepts the deeds. All that's left is to turn over the board with Steve's gunpoint confession from last season. But Steve keeps moving the goalposts. The board has no writing on it anymore, so Steve won't accept it. It's too much for Hostetler, too much abuse that he has to just stand there and take, that he can't shove back into that racist asshole's face. So he kills himself. Part of the choice seems clear -- any more and he'd do something to Steve that would lead to Hostetler being killed anyway, but why he cuts to the chase, without giving Steve any of what he deserves, is a puzzling one for this show. But maybe it stands for the idea that nothing is easy here, nothing is simple, and nothing happens without pain, bloodshed, or both.
Hearst seems taken aback by all of this, or at least the part that he sees. He's not a man accustomed to losing, so Captain Turner going down appears to shake him a bit. Bullock, likewise, seems rattled by what Hostetler did. Both men have hot blood, and inevitably comes to a head. The third Cornishman killed in the street, as Al puts it "like a flag," leaves is a provocation that Bullock cannot tolerate. After a steely confrontation, Bullock arrests Hearst, cannot sit idly by on the sideline for the greater good any longer. This is what Bullock wants, and by god he's going to get it.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParent2016-07-31T18:53:42Z
Two lummoxes smash into one another in the muck of the thoroughfare. The scuffle starts out honorable, as honorable as that sort of brutality can be. Both Dority and Captain Turner drop their weapons to meet one another hand-to-hand. They grapple and jockey for the upper hand. The tumble down the middle of the street, each struggling for control.
And then, things gets ugly. Turner bites Dority's face. He begins to drown him in the mud. He looks up at Hearst, like a gladiator seeking the approval of the emperor, trying to discern whether he's drawn the beating out long enough to meet his master's demands. He draws it out. Eventually the tide turns in the skirmish. Turner begins bashing Dan's head in on a rock, and left desperate, soon to die otherwise, Dan gouges his opponent's eye out. He beats him down with a nearby piece of wood. He too, looks up to the emperors on their balconies, once at Hearst as challenge, and once at Al for silent approval. Then he does it, and Turner is gone.
It's a scene that's notable in its starkness and brutality. This is not the struggle between valiant men, laden with beauty and glory of the noble fight. It's a drag-out, beat down brawl between two thugs, and it carries with it all the ugliness, all the inelegance and filthiness and harshness that comes with that. It toys with the audience's emotions, suggesting that Dan, who is for once undersized relative to his opponent, may really meet his end, and inviting us to relish his triumph even as we're to be disgusted by what it takes to get there.
The victory, however, is not triumphant for Dan, let alone anyone else. He sits, naked in his room, wanting to be alone. As Al explains to Johnny, there's a difference between murder-for-hire, between taking someone out in one fell swoop, versus a fair fight, albeit a dirty one. Seeing the lights go out of someone's eyes, being locked in mortal combat, leaves you alone with it, makes it more real and personal for even a hardened killer like Dority. Al gives Dan time to make his way through that muck just as he let Dan make his way through the muck in the thoroughfare.
And it speaks to a theme of the episode -- that what you want can be spoiled by how you get it. Dan, in his puppydog sort of way, loves Al, and admires him. He wants justice against Hearst for hurting his master, for disrespecting the man who is his rock. But the way he gets that justice feels wrong, and leaves him feeling hollowed out when it's all through.
The same is true for Elsworth. In another scene which Deadwood, in the show's judiciousness, lets simmer and breathe, Alma is high as a kite and making advances on her husband for what is, presumably, the first time. Like her scene with Hearst a few episodes ago, there's a supreme awkwardness and almost terror to it as she advances. Elsworth may not know that she's back on the laudanum, but he can tell that something is off. The scene lingers as she moves in to kiss him, and there is a moment of shock, of recognition in Elsworth. He moves away, and in as tasteful a way as he can muster given how rattled he clearly is, tells her that he can't do that, can't do any of it anymore. Elsworth's been reluctant about this from the beginning, and with Alma's virtue no longer at stake, and her habit back in force, this is more than he bargained for. Even the affections that he'd once at least jokingly courted, when presented to him in a way that feels wrong, is too much for him to bear.
The most puzzling scene in this vein comes from Hostetler. The tenuous truce between him and Steve the Drunk seems steady enough. The simultaneous signing works as hoped. The bank accepts the deeds. All that's left is to turn over the board with Steve's gunpoint confession from last season. But Steve keeps moving the goalposts. The board has no writing on it anymore, so Steve won't accept it. It's too much for Hostetler, too much abuse that he has to just stand there and take, that he can't shove back into that racist asshole's face. So he kills himself. Part of the choice seems clear -- any more and he'd do something to Steve that would lead to Hostetler being killed anyway, but why he cuts to the chase, without giving Steve any of what he deserves, is a puzzling one for this show. But maybe it stands for the idea that nothing is easy here, nothing is simple, and nothing happens without pain, bloodshed, or both.
Hearst seems taken aback by all of this, or at least the part that he sees. He's not a man accustomed to losing, so Captain Turner going down appears to shake him a bit. Bullock, likewise, seems rattled by what Hostetler did. Both men have hot blood, and inevitably comes to a head. The third Cornishman killed in the street, as Al puts it "like a flag," leaves is a provocation that Bullock cannot tolerate. After a steely confrontation, Bullock arrests Hearst, cannot sit idly by on the sideline for the greater good any longer. This is what Bullock wants, and by god he's going to get it.