|
|
|
“ |
Conversely, can you imagine Johnnie Cochran in Deadwood? Please do. 'If the cocksucker looks filthy, he must be guilty! If the whore won't commit, she must be made to submit!' |
” |
|
Episode Report Card |
Al Lowe
A
78 users
A
|
|
|
|
Deadwood is "mourning" Wild Bill Hickok in the only way they know how: by gawking at him. He's laid out in a tent in the middle of the thoroughfare and men are filing by, waving flies off his dead face, while the street merchant formerly known as "Soapy" hawks tufts of hair from the Indian head brought into camp in the last episode. Next to that line, two more lines are formed for those wanting to get involved in the trial of Wild Bill's killer, Jack McCall. Merrick is taking ballots of potential jurors and names of those currently residing in Deadwood who have been "admitted to the bar" to serve as lawyers representing both sides. Now...I don't know what law school was like back then, at all, but is it depressing to anyone else to imagine that lawyering was such a bad job that so many of them ended up in Deadwood? Conversely, can you imagine Johnnie Cochran in Deadwood? Please do. "If the cocksucker looks filthy, he must be guilty! If the whore won't commit, she must be made to submit!"
On the Gem's balcony above all the commotion, Al and Cy talk it over. Cy wonders how far into the process Merrick will stay involved. "Until them shysters take over," Al says with contempt, looking at the lawyers. Glancing across the way, he sees Mrs. G in her room at the hotel, all dressed in black and looking anxiously out her window. "I don't know what's become of the woman who was Mr. Hickok's friend," she tells Doc, who is there checking on the little squarehead girl. He says Jane is probably drunk over Bill's murder, and Mrs. G tsks that that's as well may be, but there is a child to be considered. Doc is just excited that the little girl is recovering very well, and ignores the implication that Mrs. G is not interested in looking after her. He does notice that Mrs. Garret is awfully nervy, and says that he doesn't see her "medicine" anywhere. She tells him she broke the bottle and he goes to pull out another one. "No," she says emphatically, and he comments that he doesn't see this as a good time to quit the laudanum. "Oh, what a pleasant surprise, Doctor," she bitches in a whisper, "to hear you admit the limits of your knowledge." I can't figure why Doc doesn't stab her with a scalpel or something, but he merely asks if she's made any travel plans. She tells him how Hickok had arranged with Bullock to serve as her proxy on the claim, and Doc says, relieved, that this will free her up to leave camp. Doc's a bit of a busybody, but he ain't wrong. She gives him and the kid a nauseated look.
In line to see Bill's body, Bullock can't deal with Soapy's hollering about the hair of the "dead heathen," on sale now. A guy behind him in line chooses the wrong moment to chat him up about the great boots Bullock sold him from the hardware store, and clenching out a "glad you're satisfied," Bullock charges over to Soapy and tells him to "cut that shit out." Soapy is nonplussed, saying there's no law against what he's doing. "No law either," Bullock says, "against me breaking your fucking jaw [if] you don't quit it." He snatches the stuff from Soapy and throws it in the fire, then turning on Tom Nuttall about this whole Bill-on-display thing going on. "Got him out here like some goddamn circus freak!" Tom says that whoa, he's not making money off this, that people just wanted to see Bill and pay their respects. He had tried, he says, to put him in a more discreet location, but the tent got trampled. Bullock is still mad, and stalks off.
continue to pg 2