Deadwood Monday: Season Three, Ep. 27, “True Colors”

Deadwood Monday: Season Three, Ep. 27, “True Colors”

By Matt Zoller Seitz on June 26, 2006 in Television Jump to Comments (0)

By Matt Zoller Seitz

There is really no such thing as privacy in Deadwood, much less secrets. The title town is a public stage on which each citizen presents himself as a kind of real-life character—a carefully constructed façade meant to conceal their weaknesses, hypocrisies and blind spots. But sooner or later, often during a high-stakes moment, they discover the awful truth: Pretty much everyone sees through them; the façade is made of cellophane. Their self-made character is just an agreed-upon lie, and as soon as another person decides to stop believing it, the truth stands revealed in all its naked frailty.

To read the rest of the Star-Ledger review, click here.
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TAGS: david milch, deadwood, hbo, matt zoller seitz, tv recap

Thought I would pass it along to you chaps, if you didn't know all ready, that HBO is showing the first three episodes of this season of Friday night.

I am looking forward to watching them in a row, as I think I will get a better feel for the ebb and flow.
Posted by Nicanor on 2006-06-30 08:07:00 Ben: I apologize for and have deleted my previous comment. The characterization of you was unfair and made in anger, an emotion I have in abundance these days.
Posted by Matt Zoller Seitz on 2006-06-30 02:39:00 Well that's just bizarre. Matt Zoller Seitz is a film critic and TV critic, so he posts about his favorite show. If you're not interested in his TV work, just read the film posts.

Besides, Altman is a weird director to choose for complaint. Not only is Altman strongly associated with: a) Large ensemble cast dramas, b) Western themed dramas, and c) movies derived from or written as an interlocking collection of "stories," but he also had a significant career on television, including a flawed (in my recollection) but interesting anthology (i.e. a single "story" every week) series about violence in America and a dated but interesting series dedicated to politics in America. The notion that those who appreciate Deadwood cannot appreciate Altman, of all people, is just...weird.

Now I'm afraid I've taken a snarky comment too seriously. Sorry if I missed the joke. Maybe the discussions about Altman here and here will be more to your liking, though they predate APHC.

Anon
Posted by Anon on 2006-06-29 20:55:00 It's been fun to watch this blog devolve into laughable Soap Opera Digest-style dissections of the weekly activities of the denizens of Deadwood. Like stereotypical bon-bon-eating housewives, y'all talk about these pasteboard characters on your favorite "stories" as though they were living people instead of middlebrow contrivances. You wouldn't even know from reading this blog that there's a new Altman movie out. May I humbly suggest that you direct your attention away from the boob tube and toward something worthwhile? Let's see if you're up to engaging the emotional challenges of A Prairie Home Companion, a work of art with actual insights about life and death. I doubt it.
Posted by Ben Kessler on 2006-06-29 19:06:00 Fire statements have mounted up. Remember Eddy Sawyer commenting that Al was a man who would set a fire? After that, Trixie and Dan's agreement to burn the Gem if Al died; Harry Manning wanting to start a fire department; Al saying in ep. 27 that he would burn it all down if he had to. Add to this that historically both the Gem and Langrishe's theater did burn, and I think we might want to break out the marshmallows and hot dogs and wait for the match to be lit.
Posted by JD on 2006-06-27 14:19:00 Matt,

In addition to being behind bars, did you notice that Bullock blew on the envelope, walking towards the door, just before we cut to Swearengen, blowing on his "finger"? I was worried it might be an omen.

A few weeks ago I made a comment about Bullock being the Ryan Atwood of Deadwood. I would like to redeem that comment with a serious point. If The O.C. was about using Ryan Atwood to really tell the story of Seth Cohen, Deadwood is about using Ryan Atwood to tell us the story of Caleb Nichols. In other words, power is at the center of the narrative in Deadwood, and while we can love characters at the periphery of it, those characters can't really work their way into the center. The way all sorts of storylines have come to revolve around Hearst -- how did he end up at the center of the Alma-Ellsworth-Bullock triangle, for example -- really brought this point home.

Similarly, Cleo King's Aunt Lou was really entertaining, and I wanted to see more of her, but then I realized that there probably isn't a much greater role to play. Just like the Cornish, the Indians, and the Chinese, she derives her importance from the role she plays in the life of a town power-broker. These characters may be given a token B storyline, but they can never narratively usurp the show (like, say, a Seth or Sandy Cohen on The O.C. -- or even a Buffy Summers, a character who is traditionally a first-act victim who rises to become the star of the show).

Deadwood is really very conservative in this regard. I mean, look at what has happened to Farnum. When he consorted with Swearengen he was a central player in the town's affairs -- but now that he's only a useless desk clerk, he is reduced to rambling incoherently to Richardson and getting pummelled with impunity. Sanderson's wonderful performance really brings home just how tragic a fall in status can be in Deadwood the town AND Deadwood the show-- his funny little dance is not simply a play for attention within the fictional town, but also a play for attention within the narrative of the town. He is trying to hold on to being a Silas Adams-level character when he's really falling to a Leon-level character.

This is not a complaint, mind you. It's just a recognition of the historical constraints under which Deadwood operates. Power is the narrative engine of the show. And given just how much power Hearst yields, I can't wait to see how he'll be displaced.

Incidentally, this is why I was so sad last season when Mr. Wu killed Lee, the erudite Chinese Hearst henchman played last season by Philip Moon. Lee was a true enigma, a Chinese shadow of Wolcott. In some sense he didn't fit into the historical taxonomy of the town -- not quite celestial and not quite American, but Chinese-American to modern eyes. And we never got to learn how he earned that status -- who could he even tell his story to? How bittersweet that such a character, a downright evil embodiment of American progress, was dispatched with the words "Wu, America!"

Anon
Posted by Anon on 2006-06-27 07:33:00 If it's consumption, that'd be a death sentence too, no?
Posted by Dan Jardine on 2006-06-27 06:06:00 Gotta disagree with the diagnosis of Doc. Unless it's my TV, the stuff that Doc spewed up was sorta... tapioca colored. Definitely not red - I was expecting red. Also too thick (note the glop that drips through his fingers). Consumption, in mah opinion.
Posted by Weepingorilla on 2006-06-27 05:32:00 Regarding the movies, W. Earl Brown (who plays Dan Dorrity and has a writing credit on this season's 10th episode) posts regularly and candidly to HBO's Deadwood boards, and says that the cast members have all received offers for the films, but no deals have yet been struck. He offered his private suspicion, not supported by any evidence, that certain people at HBO would love nothing more than to have the deals fall through and have the fact that the films never happen blamed on greedy actors. However, he mentioned that as far as he knew "most" of the actors are willing and eager to do the films. He said he's sure that it will be quite some time before we see any of them, whatever happens, though a recent article (I don't have the link) claimed filming was to begin in the fall.

The films are certainly taking a backseat to Milch's surfing show, JOHN FROM CINCINNATI, and before deals are signed I'm sure everyone's being careful to promise nothing.
Posted by Greg C on 2006-06-27 00:02:00 Great job as always, Matt, though until the end of the second page I was afraid I'd have to tsk-tsk you for neglecting to mention Cleo King and her (in my opinion) phenomenal performance as Aunt Lou. While I agree that she seems like the ur-mammy at first, it's worth noting that amid Hearst's patronizing compliments and jenune pronouncements lie some of the only real moments of introspection we've seen him display. Because of her position, she appears the one person he can treat as a confidant--and while McRaney has had lots of opportunities to prove himself a supreme badass on the show, his scene with King could be for my money the best acting he's done on the series (though he was great all through this episode--the blythe detachment he brought to Hearst's description of her as "my nigger cook" to Alma and Ellsworth was an amazing line reading and one of the show's most stinging comments on the racial situation of the era).
Posted by Andrew Johnston on 2006-06-26 23:36:00 Alma has always reminded me of an Edith Wharton character given her New York roots, cultured bearing, sometimes indulgent behavior, always well-intentioned plans and overall tragic arc. I loved the analogy to Age of Innocence although I thought that the town's collective censure of her very unfitting for a place as immoral as Deadwood. From EB, Al, Hearst and even Ellsworth, Alma was condemned as a dope fiend/ sexual predator. She may as well be in New York high society to be judged so harshly. I thought that this was a great weakness in an otherwise fantastic episode, the best to date IMHO.

The combined talents of McShane, McRaney and Cox are explosive. Never has television been this mesmerizing...

A couple of articles on Ian McShane today suggest that he isn't as confident about the movies getting made...I think that it's time for Matt to stand on his soap box and cry out again. It's the great privilege of critics to have a captive audience.
Posted by Anonymous on 2006-06-26 22:50:00 So many little moments I didn't mention; one of them is the righteously pissed-off Bullock deciding to put Hearst "on notice" while standing behind the iron-barred pay window at Sol's store. This ties into another vivid Third Season image of Bullock recognizing his own temper while sitting in an open jail cell. Two complementary images of a guy imprisoned by his passions.
Posted by Matt Zoller Seitz on 2006-06-26 22:42:00 Yeah, I know -- that was supposed to have been corrected by now, but I'm moving pretty slowly these days.
Posted by Matt Zoller Seitz on 2006-06-26 22:31:00 as always, fantastic, interesting spot-on analysis; one correction though: they were definitely playing mah jong at the end, not dominoes. Big difference.
Posted by Sunset Parker on 2006-06-26 22:26:00 I knew Hearst's character would take a dark turn, but Jeez...

I loved the exchange between Bullock and Al:
"Tactics and timing ain't the issue." -SB
"Hell you say." -AS

Also a funny moment Bullock mimicking Woo saying "Swidgen".
Posted by bill komissaroff on 2006-06-26 21:49:00 One quick thought re Swearengen's tour of the camp - I think it's the first time Al has manifested himself publicly in the days since Hearst injured him. I think it was a big moment for Al (Trixie was earlier berating him as reclusive), even if he meekly snuck out the back to begin his stroll, rather than defiantly charging out the front door and reasserting his weight in the camp. I think Al is more insecure right now than we've yet seen him (leaving aside his illness early in season 2). For all his bluster about having his revenge served cold (and I really do think he intends it that way) he's also a little shaken as yet in his faith that he can reassert himself against Hearst. As the camp tour came up to the Grand Central I think he had to fight the shortsighted impulse to go right in and raise hell, with Jack generously bailing him out by saying he preferred to make a first impression without Al.

By the end of the episode, we see Al once again surveying the camp from his balcony, as we might suspect he has of late been peeking through the window from inside his office. It seems, though he claims Jack makes him uncomfortable, he gathers strength from Jack's company (much as Trixie's presence got him out on the balcony earlier in the day).

Or perhpas I'm misreading it all.
Posted by Greg C on 2006-06-26 21:45:00 Very strong analysis this week, Matt. "The Age of Innocence" comparison is apt. One of my favorite, and I think heavily underrated, Scorcese films. Also, shot in my old college town, Troy, NY, which I have something perhaps akin to fond memories of.

I'd like to hear more about what almost seemed the centerpiece of the episode to me, Al giving a tour of the camp to Langrishe. Structure wise, I'm not sure how it came into play, almost felt as if it was there for new viewers, but the show has never seemed interested in backtracking for said viewers. Regardless, some great bits in there. I don't see any transcripts online yet, so forgive my paraphrasing from memory.

His description of Bullock along the lines of "our sherrif's house - he's a fucking maniac" made me laugh outloud, and was as accurate and truthful as anything spoken in the episode.

More importantly though, was the communal space. "And who's is this?" "This. This is for everyone I guess." That's close right? An amazing reading with genuine worth from McShane.
Posted by James on 2006-06-26 20:02:00

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