'DEADWOOD' LIVES
'DEADWOOD' LIVES
Maxim magazine calculated that the word “fuck” was uttered 870 times during the first season of HBO's Deadwood. No count was provided for the word “cocksucker,” another of the show's favorite epithets. Fortunately, no one told the Christians, and the FCC has no jurisdiction over premium cable, so the ultra-revisionist Western is back for a second season, and, despite initial reservations, I am very glad to see it. I'll freely admit that one of my early problems was the use of profanity, but not for usual reasons of decency. In a Western that's set mainly on a muddy street between two competing whorehouses, I'd expect a degree of foul language, but the characters' cursing seemed to break the dialogue's flow. Either that's now been rectified in the writing, or I've become accustomed. I also made the error during the first season of supposing that Wild Bill Hickok – played as a flamboyant terminal alcoholic by Keith Carradine – was the hero. When he died in the fourth episode, I was understandably confused. But now I see that the ensemble drama is driven by the roaring melodrama of Ian McShane as the archvillain Al Swearengen, augmented by my old bandmate Brad Dourif as Doc Cochran and Paula Malcomson as Trixie, the whore with the heart of iron. In fact, Deadwood's new season – in addition to some horrendous Victorian health care – promises an extra dimension, as government corruption and robber barons from the world outside move in on the 1876 gold strike, already a place of murderous mercantile anarchy where inconvenient corpses are fed to the killer hogs of the segregated Chinese, who also bring in the opium. Bare-knuckle politics are added to the mud, hookers, and opium. Can we ask for more?
–Mick FarrenPublished: 03/03/2005
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