Deadwood: Season 1, Episode 8- Suffer the Little Children

"You might, Dan, want to learn how to indicate interest in a girl other than murdering another person."

Another dense, complex yet warchable, well-shot and well-acted episode doesn't surprise me at this point. It's 200's HBO, its a literary novel in the medium of television, it's bloody good. You're expecting me to say this.

Even so, I can't help but admire the structuring of the storyteling here. The main plotline here is probably young sublings Flora and Miles, who turn out to be cleverly manipulative thieves, and are both caught and killed, after much roughing up, by Cy. It's a hard word. And that Anna from Frozen has quite the potty mouth.

And yet there's so much more. Al's relationship with Trixie (attempting suicide, much to the gult of Alma after last episode) is shown at full force complexity here, very much mirrored by Joanie and Cy, whose own relationship clearly has many layers. More generally, the smallpox vaccine finally reaches camp, as well as rumours of a possible treaty with the Sioux. Could law and civilisation be coming?

Yet the mot fascnating thread is that of Alma, persuaded by Bullock to stay after he discovers her claim has promise. And above it all is the fascinating Al Swearengen, forever playing a prticularly potty-mouthed type of three dimensional chess, leaving E.B. struggling to keep up. He's an utterly fascinating character.