It's May 1876. The Montana Territory is rough and dirty. The local law man is writing in his journal (so, you can tell already: hot and sensitive) while guarding a prisoner he's brought in for horse thieving. It's revealed that the Marshal is working his last night in this territory, and will soon be on his way out to start a new venture in an upstart town in the Dakota region. The prisoner laments that he, too, had wanted to get himself to Deadwood. "I had my plans about set," he says. "I only wish to Christ I could get these past three days back." Marshal Seth Bullock gives him a nice but non-committal look, sort of like you'd get from the high school secretary as you sat waiting to get your ass chewed out by the principal, and says, "I can imagine."
We learn that Bullock won't be going to Deadwood to continue his current career -- he and a partner are taking goods to start a hardware "bidness."
The prisoner goes on waxing fond about what he's heard about the lawless, gold-rich Deadwood. "Jesus Christ Almighty. No law at all. Gold you can scoop from the streams with your bare hands, and I gotta go and fuck myself up by supposedly stealing Byron Sampson's horse." (For those of you playing at home, we're one minute into the pilot, and have heard the first, most miniscule drop in the ocean of foul language to come.) Bullock shows his skill at understatement as he offers the guy a cup of coffee, saying, "That's poor damn timing at the least."
The Marshal is a polite man. The prisoner even shot him in the shoulder during his arrest and everything, but he's not holding it against him. "Don't look like it wants to infect," he says about the flesh wound, noting the sling holding his arm in place, and absolving the guy from his compounded crime. They share a little gallows humor about how God has probably heard worse stories than the one about the prisoner shooting the Marshal in his shoulder. Hell, Bullock's such a gentleman, the prisoner figures he might as well make a go of sweet-talking him into setting him loose. This, he is to find out, is a waste of his time.
This is a nice little interlude, this scene. The prisoner makes his pitch and Bullock leans against the bars to listen. Timothy Olyphant, who plays Bullock, aside from being devastatingly handsome, has a weird ability at unnatural stillness. I'll have more to say about that later, you can guarantee. He stares, unblinking, while the prisoner suggests "an idea to you, sir, that I pray as a Christian man you will entertain on its own fucking merits." Bullock: "Does it involve lettin' you go?"
The prisoner is just getting into his "idea," that he and Bullock head to Deadwood, running a few scores on the way, when the door bursts open and a petite gentleman in a bowler hat enters, breathless. Interrupted in his escape speech, the prisoner shouts, "Get the fuck out of here for a moment would you, sir?" The little guy, who turns out to be Bullock's hardware partner, Sol, tells Bullock that Byron Sampson, he of the stolen horse, is coming with a posse for the prisoner. Prisoner: "Sir, would you please get the fuck out here while we finish our conversation?"
Bullock looks worried: "How many backing his play?" A dozen, shitfaced, he's told. Things ain't looking good for the guy in the cell. We hear a shot outside, and Bullock goes to the window to see Byron Sampson and his gang of shitfaces, looking to get their lynch on. "Who is that?" the prisoner has to ask, nervously. "That, uh, sounds like Byron Sampson..." Bullock: "Yeah." Prisoner: "Well, what would he want?"
Of course, they all know what he wants, and Bullock only has to give the lynchee a lockjawed look over his shoulder to confirm it.
Byron Sampson looks like a huge, greasy pig and blowhards his way through a declaration that they've come for the prisoner and that Bullock should "climb out from behind his badge" and hand him over. I hate Sampson and wish somebody would steal all his horses.
Sol suddenly appears at the side of the jail driving a covered wagon. Sampson is an all-around bad guy and hater of justice, and yells out, "Oh, what have we got here? It's a JEW on a WAGON!" Was there a joke here I didn't get? Like, "A Jew drives a wagon into a bar..." I don't know. Anyway, Sol yells back, "Yeah, right HERE in the ALLEY," clearly the signal for Bullock to make his move.
His move is to open the door and declare that he's executing the prisoner's sentence now, "and he's hangin' under color of law." This is the first we get to really see Olyphant walk anywhere, and his few steps out onto the porch are pretty revealing. I'll likely say more about this later as well, but in the first few episodes of this show, you can almost physically see a lot of the actors' wheels turning on how they are going to develop these characters. For a few of them here at the beginning, the edges are a bit rough and the scenery gets, well, slightly gnawed. Granted, the material is so good, you can only imagine how excited they must be to play it.
But Olyphant...he's watched a lot of westerns. A lot, okay? So many, he's got the squinty, low-talking, high noon thing going on to the extreme. To such an extreme that, if I were mean, I could call him Clench Eastwood. I could, but I won't -- there are just too many characters in this show to get name-y with them. Man, though. "Clench Eastwood." That's good stuff.
Sampson, who is blocking the scaffold in front of the jail, and who clearly has an "if I don't kill him, nobody kills him" issue, tells Bullock that if he and his partner plan on making it to Deadwood, they'd better not try to get the prisoner up on that scaffold.
"That's a deal, you loudmouth cocksucker," Bullock clenches out, and our Cocksucker Countdown is ON like the BREAK OF DAWN. Favorite word of all Deadwoodians: "cocksucker." You can't get five minutes in without it, and it flows like wine throughout the rest of the hour. I myself love a well-placed curse word, or ten, but I normally don't care for the gratuitous swearing. However, these people have raised it to such an art form, they make The Sopranos look like a ladies' tea club, and one has to just embrace it.
Bullock throws the rope up over a porch beam and gets ready to hang the guy right there. The prisoner, realizing what's going down, makes his last pitch. "Listen, this ain't right. My sister was coming tomorrow."
Kicking over a stool, Bullock asks what he would have her told. Abandoning his stall for a second, the prisoner complains that the stool won't allow him enough of a drop, and that he'll hang and strangle for twenty minutes before dying. Bullock promises to help him with the drop, and tells him to get on with his report to his sister.
Sampson is getting impatient, realizing his fun for the night is about to get ruined. He fires into the air again, causing Sol to nervously cover the scene with his own gun. Bullock tells Sampson to stick it. Sampson answers with a pouty "you don't get to tell us what to do," which sounds just like "you're not my real dad!" He then menaces the prisoner and tells him not to jump off the stool. Prisoner: "Or what, you'll kill me?" You tell him, dead guy.
The prisoner asks that his sister be told to look after his boy and raise him good. "What else?" Bullock asks. "Tell her...give him my boots. Tell him his daddy loved him. Tell him, he asked God forgiveness." Bullock: "Anything else?" Prisoner: "You help me with my fucking fall!" Bullock steps off the porch, never taking his eyes off the mob, who in turn are open-mouthed in rapt attention listening to the prisoner, and says, "Come ahead."
With one last "FECK YEEEW!" the guy falls forward. He struggles for just a second, choking, until Bullock reaches around his waist and jerks him forward, breaking his neck. Bullock takes a moment to look conflicted. I think he might have a tear in his eye. Being a Marshal is hard, people.
The mob is sobering up now, except for Sampson, of course. He looks to make a move toward the porch. This angers Sol, who is still up in the wagon, looking through his sights at the crowd and probably wetting his pants. "Stay back!" he says, firing into the air. "Stay the fuck back while my partner...while my partner's taking his sweet-ass time writin' whatever the fuck he's writin' over there." Oh, the heterosexual man love. Nowhere is it stronger than between those two.
In fact, Bullock is quickly writing down the dead man's last words. He asks for a volunteer from the crowd to deliver them to the sister. Sampson doesn't like this and threatens his groupies, saying none of them better make a move. They're so over him now, though. One of the grungiest among him says, "Sheeit. I'll do it," and goes to take the letter from Bullock, which comes complete with his Marshal's badge.
Bullock thanks him, grabs up his gun, jumps on the back of the wagon, and off they drive, into the night.
Light dawns and we find ourselves in the Black Hills of the Dakota region in July of 1876. There's a traffic jam due to a broken-down wagon. A very pissed-looking woman in men's clothing goes down the line yelling, "Same damn wagon that broke down yesterday, Bill!" Bill, laid up in the back of a wagon, hears there's no room to maneuver and cracks, "Sounds like it's tighter out there than a bull's ass in fly season." Strangely enough, the rough-looking chick is charmed by this. She demurs at his joke and asks, "How's your headache?" Bill: "Not bad." She wants to know if she should canvas for whiskey. Oh, he's hung over. "That's all right, Jane." He says he's familiar with her canvassing techniques and doesn't want any casualties on his conscience.
Meet Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane, y'all: the cutest couple that never was.
Jane looks worried and this makes her mad (as everything else will for the entire season). Jumping down, she shouts out that it's ONLY Wild Bill Hickok they've got stuck here in the mud. She goes on to insult any and all of them, calling their attempts to get the wagon out of the mud a "goddamn circus" before she looks out over the ridge to see a town, gleaming in the valley.
We cut to Bullock moving into town at the front of the wagon train. Everything is in motion. People are building, exchanging goods, panning out their gold prospects. Everybody looks to be on the make. The place is dirty and kind of scary. There's even a thrown-together stand at the side of the road with a sign reading "Whiskey Shots." I'm vividly reminded of my last trip to New Orleans. Some guy is gutting a goat, while another one holds up two chickens for sale. The street is lined with shady characters. Welcome to Deadwood.
Bullock runs into Sol, who is making a deal on a corner lot with a big, mulleted guy named Dan. Bullock clearly feels it's a rip-off, but Sol knows best and cinches the deal at twenty dollars a day. That does seem a bit high. Dan tells them to settle up every morning with a Mr. Swearengen down at the Gem Saloon. Bullock asks where the Gem is located. "You'll find it," Dan says. "Everybody does."
We do find it, in the scene. Behind the bar, none other than Mr. Al Swearengen is wheeling and dealing with a customer who has brought in a gold nugget. This is our first time seeing Al, and we can see right off that he is not one to be messed with. "Eight ounces of gold at ten dollars an ounce is a hundred and sixty, plus ten dollars for a half-ounce is makes a hundred seventy, total." The customer nods his approval at Al's assessment and delivers my second-favorite line of the episode: "Inform your dealers and whores of my credit, and pour me a goddamn drink."
Al says it's his pleasure and does just that as Dan comes in to deliver the cash he just collected off the hardware guys. Al raises an eyebrow, and goes to write it in his book while the customer, a man named Ellsworth, takes his first drink of the day. Well, the first drink of the day with his left hand. He asks Al, "Now, with that limey damn accent of yours, are these rumors true that you're descended from the British nobility?" And I don't get it, because though the great Ian McShane who plays Al to absolute perfection is, in fact, English, he has no such accent on this show. In any case, Al says he's "descended from all them cocksuckers." What I love about this scene are the small cuts to Dan, who is looking on and listening from the corner as this exchange is made. Dan is always watching.
Ellsworth raises his glass, saying, "Well, here's to you, Your Majesty," as he begins a small soliloquy: "I tell you what. I may have fucked my life up flatter'n hammered shit, but I stand here before you today beholden to no human cocksucker." I've watched it twenty times now, and it kills me every damn time.
Ellsworth goes on for a while about how good he's got it with his paying gold claim, and how none of the various "limp-dicked cocksuckers" like the Indians or the government should try and stop him. Al listens to this speech with an intensity that is scary. Al does everything at a scary level of intensity. Seriously, McShane plays him like the hardest, darkest, most multi-faceted diamond and no matter what he does, you have to love him, even when -- especially when -- he's doing something you hate.
Al agrees that Ellsworth's cocksuckers had better not try anything in the Gem, leading Ellsworth to announce, "Goddammit, Swearengen, I don't trust you as far as I could th'ow ya, but I enjoy the way you lie." These two were made for each other. Al toasts him, thanking him for his kind words, and Ellsworth says, "You're welcome, you connivin', heavy-thumbed motherfucker."
They only have a second to bask in the glow of this friendly chat before a shot goes off somewhere in the building. Al recognizes the sound of the shot to be one from "her Derringer." He goes from zero to sixty on the rage scale, tells Ellsworth to keep his own tab, and stomps off, muttering to Dan about how he had warned him about this particular whore.
We cut to Trixie's room. Trixie is one of the main girls working at the Gem and has just shot a john in the head for "beatin' on" her. Look, she told him not to beat on her. Dan asks her if she's got any more guns. She tells him, "No, I don't got anymore!" as if that was the dumbest question of the day. The john is sitting there with a hole in his head, saying, "Ticonderoga, New York...Barnett Robinson" over and over again in reference to a letter in his jacket pocket. Al finds the letter. "That's who to notify if this thing goes wrong," the almost-dead guy tells him.
Another of Al's henchmen, Johnny, comes in with the town doctor, Doc Cochran, played by the brilliant Brad Dourif. Doc takes a moment to say hello to Trixie, who says again that she told the guy not to beat on her, that he'd said she robbed him, and then started in beating on her. Al yells at her that no one asked for her version. Trixie simultaneously yells at the john that she did not rob him. He mumbles that he can't remember (you know, because he has a bullet in his brain now) and they all get quiet.
He's starting to twitch now, and reaches up to show Doc where Trixie shot him in the head. "Don't put your fingers in it," Doc cautions, and we see Dan blanch across the room. Everybody is perfectly still as the guy dies, moments later, then Al breaks the mood sending Dan out to "get the Chinaman."
Doc says he sure would like to know how the guy lived for twenty minutes after he was shot. Al tells him to "prospect in him 'til Dan brings the Chinaman." Good one, Al. As Johnny helps Doc out with the dead man, Al announces that Doc will drink free today and says he hopes any subsequent word of this incident will "keep the gun out of the whore's hand." Doc: "That wouldn't come from me." Al: "Bastard did himself in." Whores killing clients is bad for business, you know. Doc uses some tool to push the bullet out of the guy's brain as Al drags Trixie out to his office. Johnny is grossed out by the bullet thing, and Doc gives him a mini-medical lecture about there being something peculiar about the man's brain -- either that or all the current knowledge about the forebrain being the source for speech is wrong. "Of course," he goes on while Johnny cringes, "that won't matter to Mr. Wu's pigs." Now, none of us can wait to meet the Chinaman.
Back on the trail, we see Jane and Bill again, talking to their traveling companion Charlie Utter. They agree that Jane will stay with the stock as they go with the wagon into town. She says she should make it there by sundown. Charlie casually says, "Well, we'll know where to find you." This sets Jane off, and she gets in his face all, "What in the hell is that supposed to mean? That I enjoy a fucking drink? I wasn't aware that's outlawed!" Easy, lady. Damn. Bill smoothes the waters, thanking Jane for looking after the stock. She goes all smiles again, saying, "Excuse my ill humor," and gestures to Charlie with, "certain people wear on my fucking nerves."
Charlie shakes his head. It is universally agreed that Jane likes Bill better than him, and he can't figure out why. Perhaps it is Wild Bill's beautiful plumage of golden curls unfurling out from beneath his hat. Hee. The ladies love that, Charlie.
Jane calls out to a family going the opposite direction on the trail. She asks them if they know a short-cut into camp. We see her smile at the little girl sitting between her parents. The people are Swedish, it turns out, and the mother tells her they're going home, back to Minnesota.
Back in town, Bullock and Sol are trying to unload their stuff while some dude yells at them to get out of his way. Bullock tries to go Clench on the guy, but Sol intervenes, and in a gesture of good customer service, he gives the angry man a free latrine, compliments of Star & Bullock Hardware. Cute.
Back in Al's office, Trixie is explaining how the dead guy told her that he lost his stake gambling, that he lost it and was planning to go back east after one last roll in the hay. Al is not moved. She tries the thing again about the guy beatin' on her. Al gets in real close, and comments, seemingly with feeling, that she really had had the living shit beat out of her. Trixie is no fool, though. She flinches and tells him to "do what he has to do." Al: "Don't tell me what to do." I wasn't kidding before about him being hard. He throws her down and steps on her neck, saying, "Either way this comes out, we'll only have to do it once. What's it to be, Trixie?" She chokes for a second before giving up: "I'll be good."
Wild Bill and Charlie make their way into Deadwood's finest luxury hotel, run by the weaselliest little man in town, E.B. Farnum. "We heard rumors you might be comin'," he says, all oily, "we heard rumors you might be comin' from Cheyenne." Bill: "Here I am." E.B.: "Of course, if every rumor was true, we'd all have been scalped by now by the Sioux or the government would have tossed us out as treaty violators." Thanks for the history lesson, E.B.
He's babbling, and Bill and Charlie stare, waiting for him to shut up. He shakes their hands, and Charlie declares E.B. to have "mighty clammy hands." E.B.: "Damp palms run in my family." (Yeah, like his brother Darryl, and his other brother Darryl, for example.)
Bill and Charlie want two rooms, but E.B. can't fix it -- unless, he says, looking at Wild Bill, "you kill a guest." Wild Bill is less amused than you might expect. We cut back over to the Gem where E.B. has made it in record time to inform Al of the new gunslinger in town. Al rants about how nothing is ever easy, going all the way back to that damn Custer not holding up his end of the bargain up and losing to the Sioux. I believe he calls them the cocksucking Sioux, actually.
Dan comes in to tell him "the New York dude" is downstairs "sippin'" some whiskey. They all have a laugh at this guy, who they are clearly about to scam. Al tells E.B. to go out and get Tim Driscoll, who is key to their game, and that Tim should come in looking drunk and sorry for himself before E.B. comes back in to do his part.
While he's off getting Tim, we get to see Bullock and Sol open for business. Bullock is nervous, not a natural wares-hawker, and Sol has to step in and get the crowd moving over to their tent. Bullock has to clench on some guy hustling in front of their tent, and we see why the two of them are such good partners. They complement each other.
Back at the Gem, Al and his gang are putting the shine on the New York dude. The scam seems to be that they are setting this guy up to buy Tim Driscoll's worthless claim at a high price -- double teaming him, making him think Driscoll is going to sell to E.B., just to get the New York guy, Brom Garret, to go higher on his bid for the claim. We can see, as Garret is such a wuss dandy, that it's going to work but good. And we're right. Tim Driscoll comes in, acting drunk and stupid, and they start the hustle.
Meanwhile, Bill and Charlie have found their own place to get sauced, down the road. The barkeep, Tom Nuttall, sees them come in and practically rolls out the red carpet: "I'm respecting your privacy, not saying your name, but uh, I certainly know who you are, and I'd like to buy the round." The rest of the joint has their ears perked up, all recognizing Bill. The local newspaper man, A.W. Merrick, oozes over to introduce himself. Incidentally, the name of the town's paper is The Deadwood Pioneer. One of the bar's patrons tells his friends that thus far, he ain't impressed with Wild Bill Hickok. Merrick, however, is impressed, and asks Bill why he's come to Deadwood. "Warrant on me in Cheyenne," Bill answers. Charlie tells him to get off that subject, and they all laugh at a subsequent unfunny joke Bill makes because, hell, none of them want to get shot.
The little smelly jag who wasn't impressed announces to his friends his intention to gut Bill at poker as soon as he has the chance. He might just have the chance, we figure, since it is revealed in the bit of dialogue that Bill probably has a little gambling problem. He buys into a game, and Charlie can barely conceal his eye-roll.
Back at the Gem: Jewel, or "the gimp" as Al calls the saloon's palsied maid, is cleaning up Trixie's room. Trixie gives her money to get her another gun. "For in case they beat on you?" Jewel asks. Trixie: "Never mind what for."
Downstairs, Al, Tim Driscoll, and E.B. are running the scam on Garret. Driscoll is offering the claim at $14,000. They agree on the price, and Al makes them spit in their hands and shake on it. Garret is grossed out, but he does it. Gotta take a second to say that Tim Driscoll's alleged Irish accent is...not great. It's a small part, and only stands out because it may be the one spot of casting gone wrong in the whole episode.
E.B. comes in after the deal is made, and offers a higher price. Everybody gets mad. Driscoll reneges on the deal and the bidding goes open again. They push Garret all the way to $20,000 and the deal is made. Al looks peeved.
Back at Nuttall's place, Wild Bill is in the game. Charlie is drinking at the bar, frustrated, and mutters, "Comes to look for a business opportunity and sits there losing at poker." Nuttall: "Is he having a bad run? I can't see that far." Charlie: "You'd have to see back to Cheyenne."
Apparently, Wild Bill has lost his knack for poker, and stays in hands when he ought not. Charlie goes on to set up a deal with Nuttall to have Bill play exclusively in his bar. Bill is a natural draw for the crowds, and Charlie arranges for Nuttall to pay Bill a certain amount a night "to gamble or piss away," and the rest Charlie would hold in trust for Bill's future. Nuttall grins like Charlie's trying to put one over on Bill, but he's telling the truth. "Listen to me," Charlie says. "That man's recently married. He needs to put his stake together. That's all I'd be in this for." He loves Bill; that's clear.
In E.B.'s hotel, we find Garret's wife, Alma, taking her nightly dose of laudanum. Because that's what laudanum addicts do. Is it any wonder she's hooked on the junk, married to her goofy husband? Wait 'til she finds out he just bought a claim from three obvious swindlers with all their money in the world. Like, right now, when Brom walks in and teaches her the hand-spit shake they just used to seal the deal downstairs. "And then," she asks, "did everyone dry their hands?"
Even doped up, she can feel that he got taken, and when she finds out he went all the way to twenty thousand, she merely sighs and says, "Oh, well." We find out Brom has serious Daddy issues when he huffs out that the bank will no doubt contact "Father" when he writes to renew his line of credit.
Finally, in the , dialogue-free scene, we meet the much lauded Mr. Wu and his pigs, as the Doc looks on to see the Chinaman dumping the dead john into the sty. The pigs...eat him. Soylent Green is people, y'all.
Back at the Gem, Al is hounding Driscoll over taking Garret all the way to twenty thousand. He's mad about it -- he doesn't want to pay Driscoll his percentage of the money, even the percentage of the $14,000 they originally agreed on. This sends Driscoll into a rant about how when times get hard, the English in Al really comes out. It's hilarious. "Fucking toime of trial, the fucking Anglish in you come out. Fine!" He agrees to take "foive hundred" credit at the gambling tables now and talk about the rest later, and Al continues to turn the screws, asking him if they're holding markers on him. This sets Driscoll off again. "Jaysus. You're holding markers all right. You've been holding markers against me and my kind for the past several centuries across both sides of the foikin' water!" Tim Driscoll, early representative of the IRA. He ends up getting twenty dollars off Al, and leaves as E.B. slimes to Al about how he couldn't believe Driscoll took Garret to twenty thousand.
In Bullock and Sol's hardware tent, the salesmen are making arrangements with a reverend in town to sit with their merchandise for a few hours while they get some supper. They learn that Reverend Smith, who is awfully sweet, is saving money to bring his family out by working a farm during the day and watching folks' goods at night. "And then," he adds, "Sabbaths, I preach Christ crucified and raised from the dead." The friends share a look, before changing the subject. We learn that Bullock is from Ontario (note to Wing Chun: are all Canadian men quite this hot? If so, prepare guest room), and Sol was born in Austria, and raised in Ohio. The two of them met up in Montana and have been in love -- I MEAN -- best friends ever since. Reverend Smith: "The Lord is our final comfort, but it's a solace having friends. I know that from past experience." Truer words have never been spoken. I found this scene to be quite touching. This pilot episode has introduced us to a few sets of friends, now, and this ties it together nicely.
The guys are happy with their sales for the evening and tell the reverend they'll be back soon. Leaving their tent, they come on a very shady dude riding up on a horse. They all look each other over, Bullock with his hand on his gun. Forgoing introductions, the stranger says, "I seen a terrible thing tonight." Bullock: "What'd you see?" Stranger: "I seen white people dead and scalped and men, women, children with their arms and legs hacked off."
Whoa. Bullock immediately clenches and asks where and how many dead. The stranger is warming to his story now and says it was a whole family on the road to Spearfish and "Oh, my GOD, it's them heathen, BLOODTHIRSTY SAVAGES!" During this bit of drama, Reverend Smith steps out and asks again how many it was that had died. The guy tells him it was a whole family -- parents and two children. "The Metz family took the Spearfish road, going home to Minnesota," the rev says. Stranger: "Then that was probably them, then." Reverend: "They had three children. Were there three?" The stranger looks a little nervous, but says that there might have been three -- they were all hacked and spread around. Bullock raises one eyebrow at the dude and suggests he probably needs a drink.
Meanwhile, Wild Bill is getting his ass handed to him at the poker table. The sloe-eyed customer, Jack McCall, who earlier said he was planning on gutting Bill at poker, is living his dream. Wild Bill might have a little self-esteem issue, y'all, I'm just saying. Like, maybe he has too much of it. They get in a little verbal altercation, and McCall asks if they can shake hands to relieve the atmosphere. McCall: "I mean, how stupid do you think I am?" Hickok: "I don't know. I just met you."
Merrick, the newspaper guy, is still bloating on to Charlie Utter at the bar about Custer and the government. He finishes a big speech by saying that he believes that within a year Deadwood will be annexed into the Dakota territory and that those living there "will be restored to the bosom of the nation." Wild Bill: "Does bosom mean tit?" Poker buddy: "Same thing."
At this moment Bullock and Sol come in with the stranger. The guy is looking real nervous, now, and tries to shrug them off by saying he'd just as soon do his drinking and get a piece of ass. Bullock: "First, you want people to know about that family." Stranger: "Yeah, well, what harm is it in me meeting my needs before I circulate my news?" Dude's a real prize. Bullock reminds him that there might be that third child, still alive, and the news needs to be circulated. The guy tries to weasel out of it, again, but Bullock clenches him. The stranger gets mad and says he "ain't going back out there tonight, so you mind your own goddamn business!" Sol gets into it, now, and says in a loud voice so everyone can hear, "You say a family is massacred by Indians on the road to Spearfish and ONE CHILD may still be ALIVE out there and it's no one's concern in this saloon?"
That did it. Charlie pipes up, "What's this about a massacre?" The stranger starts yelling again that he is not going back out there tonight. He's getting up a good head of steam when Wild Bill Hickok stands up from his poker table, saying, "Ride out, and show us the place." Hell, what's the guy gonna say? No? Bill "g'arn-tees" his scalp. Bill asks Bullock, "You'll ride?" Bullock: "Yeah, we'll ride." Merrick: "Uh...may I ride? I'd be honored to ride!" Hee. Bullock puts the clench on the stranger and says "here we go." While making their way to their horses, Bill and Bullock talk Marshal-talk. Bullock: "The fella's story on this don't hold water." Bill: "No. It don't."
In Al's office at the Gem, Al explains to Dan how Garret being pushed to twenty thousand is a bad thing, as he has only been there three days, and for him to wire his family for more money is likely to cause his family to send out the Pinkerton detectives. Since that would put a severe cramp in Al's style, he tells Dan that Garret will have to be "seen to" in the few days while prospecting on the claim. Dan is delighted to hear this, but slightly less delighted to hear that Tim Driscoll will also need seeing to. Johnny comes in with a little tattletale dope-fiend informant who had been over at Nuttall's to hear the story about the massacred family. He gives this information to Al, who asks if the stranger had looked happy to be riding back out with Hickok and the other. "He didn't look too happy."
Al finds out the informant, Jimmy, has told a few people downstairs this story before coming up, and knocks Johnny out for allowing that to happen. Johnny is awesome, by the way. "Al, I brawt'em as soon as I h'ard!" Al's pissed, though -- he knows his business will suffer if the guys downstairs get riled up about Indians. "I guarantee at this minute my entire fucking action downstairs is fucked up! Nobody's drinkin', nobody's gamblin', nobody's chasin' tail. I have to DEAL with that."
Wild Bill leads his posse out into the night as Dan shoots a round into the air inside the Gem, shouting, "Al's got words!" No kidding. Al tells the crowd he knows word is circulating about this massacre. "Now, it's not for me to tell anyone in this camp what to do," he starts, and goes on to suggest that the men in the crowd should use that night to get their plans in order, and ride off in the morning, clear-headed, rather than riding off into darkest night to God knows what. To that end, he offers, starting tomorrow, a personal fifty-dollar bounty on every decapitated head of "as many of these godless heathen cocksuckers" as anyone can bring in. "That's all I have to say on that subject," he closes, "except round's on the house. And God rest the souls of that poor family." He gives the drunks time enough to say "Amen" before the big finish: "And pussy's half price fifteen minutes."
The crowd, of course, whoops it up big, forgetting all about the Indians. Through the window, we see Calamity Jane, who must have finally arrived in camp, upending a bottle of liquor. The whores are in their chambers, getting themselves ready for half price. Jewel comes in to give Trixie her new gun. Jane stumbles drunk in to the bar, yelling for Bill and Charlie. Across the room, Johnny goes up to Al, who chuffs him on the arm all fatherly-like. Johnny bears no hard feelings for the punch he just got in the face, and tells Al he realizes he has a lot on his mind. Al postulates that the Spearfish massacre was more likely carried out by Persimmon Phil than Indians. Johnny: "Ah...make it look like Indians..." Al: "That is his specialty." Meanwhile, someone at the bar must have told Jane the story. She turns around, yelling about "injuns" killing white people. Dan tells Al "that's the sewer mouth that follows Hickok around." How any of these people could call any one of their fellow citizens a sewer mouth is beyond me.
Jane learns that all these people have decided to ride out tomorrow, and derides all these men for not going out that night. "I'm going now," she says. "I know the road to Spearfish. And I don't drink where I'm the only fucking one with balls."
Al, in his dark corner, says to let her go, as she ain't taking any business with her, and before he walks away, turns to Dan with, "And don't forget to kill Tim." Poor Dan.
The rescue aid society rides up with torches to the scene of the crime on the Spearfish road. A pack of wolves has gotten at the bodies and...urrrggh, one of them runs off into the woods with a LEG in its MOUTH.
Bullock swings his torch around, Lord of the Rings-style, and scatters the dogs. They all look on in horror at the very gross remains before them. Bullock sees two wolves still sniffing around some bushes, and goes over and finds the surviving child. It's the cute little girl Jane smiled at early that morning as her family was heading back to Minnesota. They bundle up the kid and head back to camp.
Daybreak has come by the time they meet Jane coming the other way. Wild Bill tips his hat to her, and she looks so grateful, you nearly want to cry. A silent agreement goes on between Bill, Bullock, and Jane, and the child is handed off to Jane to be carried back to camp. It's sweet, but maybe unnecessary. Bullock's already carrying her. They're all going back to the same place. Why hand her off? In any case, she's glad to take her and all the men look on at this display of estrogen with fascination -- all except the shady stranger, of course, who is looking worried.
We cut to Alma Garret in bed, sneaking one eye open in the early morning light as she watches her husband get dressed up in his dandified prospecting outfit. She pretends to be asleep, despite his obvious desire that she wake up and see him in his finery. Goof. In the Gem, Al is walking upstairs to bed, as Ellsworth shares a drink with Trixie. He nicely offers her a dollar a minute to talk about her injuries, in case she wants to get anything off her chest. She rebuffs him with, "What I got on my chest don't concern you, Ellsworth." Ellsworth should feel lucky to hear that, as she has her new gun stuck in her cleavage. Sensing her sincere animosity, he raises a toast: "Fuck us all, anyway, for the limber-dicked cocksuckers we are." Well said.
In the hotel, Dan approaches a guest room with a huge knife. He takes a key from E.B., opens the door, says, "Just hush, Tim," and quickly dispatches Tim Driscoll. It's my favorite scene in the episode, and it takes ten seconds.
As Brom Garret waits in the street for the murdering Dan, the rescuers ride back into town with the kid, yelling for Doc to wake up. He comes out of his shack, hung over, and takes the child from Jane. As he turns to take the kid inside, Jane pulls her gun on him, saying, "Wait for me, goddammit! Just hold on, 'til I'm with you." Charlie has to tell Doc not to worry, that Jane's just excitable.
Bullock dismounts his horse and walks toward the stranger. Bill asks Sol what kind of hand his friend is with a gun. Sol: "I don't feel qualified to say." The stranger says he's done his duty and guesses he can be moving on. Bullock suggests that he stick around and see if the kid lives. "Nah," the guy says. "That little one will be in my prayers."
This is too much for Bullock, who puts his hand on his gun and tells the guy to get off his horse. The dude professes his innocence, but nobody's buying it. He yells that it was the Indians. Bullock: "Too much ransacking, and too many goods left behind. Someone was after money." During this conversation, Wild Bill makes his way up to Bullock. The shady guy once again claims his innocence, asking that if he had had something to do with the killing, why'd he come to the camp? Bill: "Maybe when it got thick out there, you ran. Maybe the others was going to ground, but you had to have pussy...I've felt that way sometimes after a kill." Bullock: "Get down off your horse, or face the consequences." The guy looks to get down off his horse, sure, but he actually goes for his gun and Bullock and Wild Bill draw and shoot in tandem. The dude goes down. Bill asks, "Was that you, or me, Montana?" Bullock doesn't even blink as he answers, "My money'd be on you."
Everything's quiet as Dan comes out of the hotel, wiping his hands of Tim Driscoll, to join Garret for the prospecting trip. They nod at each other and get on their way as the newspaper man takes out his pad and pencil to make a note of the dead man, shot through the eye, and Mrs. Garret, who has seen it all through the window, doses up with her morning laudanum.
Al has seen it through his window, as well. His face bears no expression as he goes back to bed, contemplating the start of another complicated day. Trixie knocks and comes in, places her new gun on his bedside table, takes off her dress, gets in bed, and lays her head on Al's chest. His eyes, as the music carries us out, are more dead than anything in Deadwood.