"Goddammit, Swearengen. I don't trust you as far as I can throw you. But I enjoy the way you lie."
A very impressive start to Deadwood with this hour of telly, with the premise and the characters introduced with good storytelling beats and the "show, don't tell" type of exposition- no bad feat with this showing early signs of having the complexity of a fat novel.
It all fees very much like an HBO of the '00's both structurally and visually- It reminds me very much of True Blood in spite of the differences in genre.
Our first scene nicely establishes things as kindly sheriff Seth, somewhere in Montana Territory, mentions to a prisoner that he's off to Deadwood shortly. It's 1876 and, we learn, following Custer's recent last stand, the Black Hills in Dakota Territory are the focus of a gold rush.The only thing is that, legally, it's Sioux land, and the town has no legal basis and therefore is quite literally lawless. But this is nicely followed by an example of "law" in the "civilised" west- Seth is faced by a posse looking for blood, and is forced to hang the prisoner himself in a vague gesture towards "law".
No wonder he's planning to open a shop and give up the law business. But we're also introduced to the likes of a very menacing (and famous) Wild Bill Hickock, and the sweary gun girl with a heart, Calamity Jane- one of the few speaking women not pimped out and beaten up; no wonder the dresses and acts like a man. And we also meet the dangerous publican-cum-crimelord Al Swearengen, whose oddly mid-Atlantic accent is apparently deliberate. Intelligent and ruthless, he seems interesting.
Three characters are seen being shot dead in the course of the episode- it's a dangerous existence. And a family of Germans (?) trying to go home to Minnesota are massacred. It's a violent, harsh world but one redolent with what feels like realism. I much enjoyed this meaty and fascinating episode. Hopes are high for the next thirty-five.
No comments:
Post a Comment