Hearst wakes up in jail after being humiliated by Bullock's ear boxing. He's pissed as hell. Unfortunately for everyone, Aunt Lou's son Odell picks this moment to show up in camp, looking to run a scheme on the big man. Aunt Lou ain't happy about it and employs the NG to try to encourage Odell to leave.
Leon, worried for his own neck and not as stupid as we once suspected, dumps Mrs. Ellsworth as a client and swears to never sell dope to her again. Alma tries to patch things up with her husband over her dope-related behavior, but it doesn't work -- he blames himself for her condition and moves out. Hearst is thrilled to learn of her condition via the snake-like Cy, who is desperately working every angle -- even lowering himself to bribe E.B. -- just to maintain some standing in camp.
Bullock and Al each figure the best idea would be to make a preemptive strike against Hearst, but Al thinks better of it and decides to consult the camp elders before gathering reinforcements.
Meanwhile, Jane, after helping the NG bury Hostetler, is once again falling apart and Joanie has to pick up the pieces.
George Hearst starts the morning with his ass in jail, and how I do love it. Charlie comes in complaining about the post, acting like Hearst is just another drunk drying out in his cell, which pisses Mr. Important right off. That's right, Hearsty -- ain't no V.I.P. section in Deadwood. "Is he only a goddamn fool or so stupid he thinks he's accomplished something?" Hearst drones to Charlie, who continues bringing in the mail. Charlie asks, all casual, who he's talking about, and Hearst says Charlie knows damn well. "I know from the sheriff locking you up between sundown when I left and my coming back now, you must have fucked up at the interval," Charlie shrugs. "Where you drunk?" Hearst doesn't like being on the punchline end of this joke, and suddenly he realizes this is not the first time he's seen the mailman. Charlie, continuing with his tongue firmly in his cheek says, yeah, they've seen each other in the hotel restaurant but weren't introduced. "I'm George Hearst," the big man says, frustrated. Charlie starts over, this time making it far more obvious that he knows exactly who this fool is. "Were you drunk, George Hearst?" he asks, staring him down and walking over to the adjacent cell. "This fellow didn't keep you up here, did he?" he asks, indicating the Cornishman there. "He didn't like, fart or snore too much for you, did he, Mr. Hearst?" He whips the sheet off the man in mock surprise: "Holy Shit! Jesus! The cocksucker's dead, George!" He is, indeed -- the dead Cornishman from last week. "Look, he's got a fuckin' knife in his chest. That ain't your fuckin' knife, is it, George Hearst?" Hearst looks at the body like it's some heap of garbage and gives Charlie his patented kill-ya-later stare.
The NG is back at the livery, hammering away on a trough trying to modify it into a big-enough casket for dear ol' Hostetler. "Goddamn fool," the NG says with tears in his voice. Jane, sober for now and there to help, says Hostetler won't be the first fool the worms work on. "I'll see to the burying with you," Jane says. "I owe a visit up there anyways." The NG says that helping him won't raise her popularity with her fellow white people. Jane rolls her eyes. "Question I wake to in the morning and pass out with at night: What's my popularity with my fellow white people?" The NG sighs, saying he supposes they ought to get Hostetler in his box. "He ain't pretty to look, though," he says, and after a pause, Jane tells him he isn't, either. Damn, Jane. A little less of the tough love when the man's got to bury his pal.
Bullock and Martha are having breakfast. The sheriff has apparently been telling her about Hostetler's untimely demise and how it drove him to go ahead and arrest Hearst. Martha points out the tragically obvious: "Hearst had no particular connection to Mr. Hostetler." Bullock tries to make a weak joke but can't pull it off. "It's gonna get bad here, Martha," he tells her. They are interrupted by a knock at the door. "It's Albert Swearengen," Al calls from without. May I say again how great it is that, when required, Al can be so polite? It must pain him terribly. He says he regrets the early hour, but that he must intrude to talk to Bullock. He is exceedingly polite to Martha, who offers him breakfast, which he declines. "I'd be grateful for coffee," he says, adding that their home is "swell, stem to stern." Martha excuses herself upstairs where she can eavesdrop on the men, who get right to it. "Last night from my balcony vantage, I watched you drag Hearst by the ear to Utter's Freight Office," Al says. "I was waitin' on you comin' out of Utter's, thinking that you might make a call on me, tell me what the fuck was going forward, but you did not appear. I finally asked myself, 'Could our Sheriff have took another route home, maybe through Chinaman's Alley? And what would that bespeak of his frame of mind?'" Now, Al is being pretty nice, so I don't know why Bullock has to get snitty, but he unleashes the morning's first mild clench. "It bespoke," he says, "I didn't fuckin' feel like talking to you."
Al suggests that he could have come by, said the night was busy and that they'd talk another time. Yyyeah, I'm sure that would have gone over very easy with the guy who occasionally stabs people just for fun. In any case, instead of stabbing Bullock now, he takes the empathetic route. "I too, Bullock, when suspecting I've fucked the dog, keenly seek some solitude," Al says. "Our hour is wrong. Having lost his man Turner, being embarrassed by you, Hearst will be on the muscle, and we who will be his wrath's object ought to stay close and confide. Our alternative is flight. Does that appeal?" Seth says no, it doesn't, and Al is in agreement." We ain't that sort," he says, "which is maybe more the pity." Upstairs, Martha steels herself and comes down asking Bullock to walk her to school. Al thanks her for the coffee. "You're very welcome, Mr. Swearengen," she says, and Al leaves the Bullocks to stare wistfully and worriedly at each other.
At the Ellsworth home, a time-honored, nightmarish tradition of womanhood is being enacted: Alma is brushing and fixing Sophia's hair. Let us briefly travel forward in our time machine to 1980, to a cul-de-sac on Ashland Drive in Birmingham, Alabama to where a very cute eight-year-old Al Lowe stood trembling with frustration and rage every single morning of her life while her mother wrangled the dreaded green brush through her hair before school. I literally had to grip the counter, white-knuckled, trying to clamp my flight instinct, and I am quite sure my mother, the incomparable JoLowe, fantasized many times about stuffing me in the linen closet forever -- and she wasn't even addicted to laudanum. Or...WAS she? Oh my God, that would explain so much. Anyway, such is the irritation shown in this small scene. "Owie!" Sophia says, accompanied by a total sourpuss face while Mrs. E attempts to tame down a big tangle. Sophia pouts that Ellsworth did not come in and kiss her goodnight last night. The writers do a lot of work to get around Sophia ever calling Ellsworth "daddy" or "pa" or anything like that, and I have to wonder why. Alma kind of chokes up in frustration when she lies that Mr. Ellsworth went to the diggings extra early, and, telling Sophia to wait there for a moment before they go to school, she rushes from the room, ostensibly to do more smack or maybe to keep Sophia from seeing her cry.
Outside, we come upon Leon giving Steve a run for his money in the Thoroughfare Soliloquy Contest. He's high as the devil, ranting to his reflection in a mud puddle. This talking-to-myself thing is starting to get on my nerves. What are we watching, here, Days of Our Lives? I love also how it's so common an occurrence for some resident of the camp to just stand in the street raving to himself that no one ever even blinks an eye. Can't these idiots take a page out of Al's book and get themselves a severed head in a box with which to consult over troubling matters? Anyway, Leon's all crazy and paranoid and now believes that when he holds up his end of the bargain for Cy and helps Mrs. E to an overdose, Cy will want to dispose of him. Leon's pretty awesome, I have to admit, especially when a hoople rides through his puddle and he goes full on Pee Wee Herman, flailing and yelling that he hopes the guy's happy with the whopping eighty-three cents he probably made today in the streams. To himself, again, he declares that he's not without cards up his sleeves, and with that, he navigates his way through the muck to the bank...
... where he finds Mrs. E, whose eyes light up to see him. Less pleased is Trixie, who huffs that she's going out for a smoke. Leon cuts right to the chase. "My Celestial ain't in position," he says, meaning he has no dope for her. "I ain't sure when he will be. Maybe you need to make a different arrangement." Alma must be jonesing, because she gets snippy from the jump. "I wonder, Leon, if we don't now approach a turn in our conversation," she says, bitchily, "having to do with increasing your fee." Dang, Mrs. E! How you gonna call your drug dealer dishonest like that? Especially since, this time, he's doing it for your own good. "If I was you, lady," he snaps back, "instead of cracking fucking wise I might be thinking of different ways of spending my idle time." Good advice, even from a junkie. When she snits that she can't help but notice that he is high, himself, he retorts that he is, plans on staying that way, and will not be supplying her any further. With that, he leaves her sitting there, mad and confused, and reels out of the bank...
... where he is immediately accosted by Trixie with her famous, deadly little firearm, sticking it right in his ear. "If you keep selling her dope, I will fucking kill you," she says, and is surprised when Leon is more than happy to oblige. "Fine, I agree," he says. "You have shown me the light." Trixie doesn't quite understand that someone is actually doing what she says for once, so she keeps up the threats. "I don't want to see her high again," she says. Leon is pissed. "Promise me this, you meddling c*nt, if you do, before you head out to kill me, you'll ask her where she got her stuff," he says through his teeth. "I am no longer the lady's supplier!" Reluctantly, Trixie takes the gun away and Leon, having lived through another near death experience, asks if he can go.
Trixie's already back in the bank, locking the door behind her. She goes straight to Alma's desk and stares her down. "I know," she says. Alma turns the haughty knob straight up to eleven. "Do you?" she asks, pulling herself to her full sitting height. Trixie: "Yes, your ladyship, I do. And just heard from that shitbag Leon, you've got a new supplier." Mrs. E snootily assures her she's quite mistaken "however well intended, beyond your proper province." Trixie's had enough of this rich lady's bullshit: "Fuck you, Mrs. Ellsworth." I mean, exactly -- you'd be pissed as well if you'd gotten the tramp off the smack in the first place; helped take care of her ward for weeks while narrowly avoiding Al's boot; stood by her during all her bangulatin' with Bullock; rallied around when she found out she was pregnant with a mini-Clench; and then held her hand when it was time to end that pregnancy. If anyone is getting above their raisin' here it is most certainly Mrs. Dope Fiend Part 2: Laudanum Boogaloo. I was hoping for a bit more of a catfight, here, because...well, as rightfully mad as Trixie is, we've already seen that Alma is sick to death of people trying to boss her around. Instead, she purses her lips in her superior way and fires Trixie. "Alack for me," Trixie says, full of scorn." How I hoped I could work here, forever."
Cy is coming down from his meeting with Hearst, bitching about what an asshole his new boss is. "I don't need any more friends than what I got," he chuckles evilly, since he totally doesn't have any friends, "and I give up clocking that cocksucker upstairs." E.B., at his desk, cautiously agrees that Hearst is an inscrutable figure. Cy ain't here to chat. He lays two hundred dollars down on the desk and communicates with E.B. the only way he'll understand: with money and threats. "[Hearst's] first activities impinging on me I don't hear about beforehand from you," he says, full of menace, "I'm gonna cut your fucking throat." EB gets the shakes. "You see that 200 I've given you?" Cy asks, pointing to the cash. E.B.: "I do, yes, at the margin of vision." Cy: "That argues there's a better way." Cy's barely out the door before E.B. orders Richardson to take the desk and scurries straight out the door.
In the back of the hotel, Aunt Lou is celebrating her reunion with her son, Odell. She can't believe he's come to see her all the way from Liberia. Odell is more concerned that Hearst will be mad he's in his mother's room, though I can't even fathom the egomania that would allow that to be the case, and neither can Lou. "How is he gonna mind you come see your mother?" she asks. "He give me this room." She does her excellent Hearst impression, recounting his righteous gesture in giving her the crappy room in the first place: "'You stay here, Aunt Lou. Who says what, no goddamn nevermind to me.'" They laugh at Hearst, the cracker-assiest cracker ever. But, oops, they've laughed too soon. In walks Hearst, getting uppity about the very thing they were just laughing at. "Well, well, well," he says, full-ON passive-aggressive, "you've company in your room, Aunt Lou." She nervously introduces Odell to Hearst, who has somehow never met him, or seemingly even heard of him. Aunt Lou scrambles around offering her boss some breakfast, but Hearst won't be distracted. "You made yourself at home, Odell," he says, "here in the room I set aside for your mother." Aunt Lou, even more nervous now, says that she asked Odell in, herself. Why in the world Hearst would begrudge her that, I don't know, except that I suppose it goes to further show his unbelievable control freakiness, which is so pronounced, he makes Al practically look like Gandhi in comparison. "Well, now that your mama has invited you in, I suppose we might say on the spur of the moment," he says, because he's a dick, "I hope that you'll accept my invitation, as well, as the hotel's owner and your mother's employer." He fixes the almost-trembling Odell with his Manson lamps, saying "Please, Odell, won't you stay?" Odell, as much as he can, blanches, thanking Hearst several times for his kindness. He and his mother cannot conceal their relief when Hearst leaves.
E.B. has arrived at Al's with his fresh bribe from Cy, and throws it down on Al's desk. "Here, Al, is your answer," he says, triumphant. You can't blame him for thinking Al's using Cy to double-triple-cross test him with the money, but this one, single time, he's wrong. Al tells E.B. that he was not the money's source. E.B. looks nauseated. "I see," he says, sidling back towards the money. "In that case you may view my behavior as a random display of loyalty." E.B. explains that the money came from Cy, who wants him to keep tabs and report on Hearst's comings and goings. "How could I not believe it was you orchestrating the approach as some form of test?" he asks, confused. "The alternative would have Tolliver, knowing my history with you, believing nonetheless that he could approach me, swaying my loyalty as if I had no morals more than a street whore." I love how offended E.B. is at the notion that someone thinks he can be bought, when he's been nothing else since this show premiered. Al ponders the money. "Ain't to Tolliver's standard," he says, "the baldness of it." E.B. agrees. "It's Hearst!" he says. "Hearst...is he Caesar, to have fights to the death for diversion? Murder his workers at whim? Smash passages in the fucking wall? A man of less wealth would be in fucking restraints." Haven't I been asking the very same things? Al explains it to all of us in one scary phrase: "We're in the presence of the new." And E.B. practically says the lines right out of my head. "Fuck the fucking new!" he yells, before again getting jumpy. "Jesus Christ, Al. Is it over for us here?" Oh, E.B., I so desperately feel you -- how could Hearst (HBO) threaten the sanctity of this town (show) you've (we've) worked so hard to understand, Deadwood (Deadwood)? Al tells him to go back to the hotel, but E.B. implores him, Princess Leia-style, to "save us. Think of something!" Al: "Have I ever not?"
At the hardware store, Bullock, Sol and Charlie consider their options in this Hearst v. Everybody in the Universe showdown that they know is on the way. Sol: "There's leaving the camp." Bullock immediately says no. Charlie has other suggestions. "One thing, if he knew it was coming, Bill was not shy of drawing first," he says of their mutual friend Hickok. "Seth locked up Hearst instead of that," Sol says, proud. "Oh, I get it," Charlie retorts, rolling his eyes. "What does that mean?" Sol asks, confused that Charlie would snark at him. "It means, Mr. Star," Charlie says, impatient, "that after leading him by the ear through camp for all to fucking see, Seth installs Hearst in a cell adjoining a man he's had killed [so] that the knife still protrudes out of his chest." Now it's the hardware boys' turn to go pale. "And as much as me and Hearst conversed, I made him address my ass," Charlie continues, perhaps regretting letting his temper get away with him this morning. "So do let's don't pretend Hearst will feel he was treated legal or civilized, or that his bidness with us is finished. Hearst is fuckin' comin'...bringing us back to Bill and doing unto others first." Charlie thinks they should go to Hearst's diggings and smite all his backup muscle before they can rise up against the rest of the camp. "And his muscle you fail to murder before they arouse," he adds, "you bring to chase you to camp. Judas goat the cocksuckers for Swearengen's men and Tolliver's to mow down from fuckin' ambush while we're up seeing to Hearst!" It's a dramatic and moving proposal, but Sol, ever reasonable, finds the flaw. "There'll be nothing left of the camp," he says. Charlie's exhausted. "How much you figure will stand," he asks, "once Hearst had his fuckin' say?"
Steve is bitching loudly at Nuttall's about the apparently new house policy that just anybody can come in there and drink. He ought to be thankful, since if such a policy exists, it's surely the only reason he's permitted in the building. He's just warming up to his new line of bullshit when the NG walks in, causing him to whip around and turn his back like the coward he is. "Ain't meaning to be here long," the NG assures everyone. "Ain't looking to drink." He says he's only come in to speak to Odell. "Go ahead and do somersaults or peel bananas with each other for all I give a fuck," Steve slurs. "The whole place has gone to shit anyhow." Having never met the NG, Odell is confused. "What could we have to talk about?" he asks, quietly. "Your mama did me a kindness," the NG says, "and she asked me to talk to you. I guess I also got to tell you she give me $742 to give to you if you just get the hell out of camp." Down the bar, Steve's ears perk up at the mention of the cash. They perk up even further when Odell asks the NG's name and he reveals it to be Samuel Fields. Ah ha! Now Steve knows that he and the NG have the same name. Excellent. His eyes go wide as the NG continues discussing Odell's options for the future. "Now my plan," he says, "I got twelve hundred left to me by a tall n*gger who after he sold his fucking livery to Steve there, blew his fucking head off. Past that $742 in my pocket that I'm trying to give you, my plan is get to San Francisco, buy enough white pussy to stretch from the harbor to the closest rooming house that'll have me and then fuck my way to the Pacific Ocean." Good plan, NG. He pauses before going on, saying he knows Aunt Lou sent Odell away. "Mmm hmm, not far," Odell confirms. "Fucking Africa." The NG laughs. "Damn...what'd you say made her mad?" Odell: "Called her 'Mama.'" Aw, Odell. "So now," the NG says, seeing all, "you want to run a little something on her boss, which would be a waste of that high yellow skin, Odell." Too right, NG, but Odell isn't in the mood to listen. He slams his drink back, says they're done talking, and walks out. Y'all... are they trying to make me think Hearst is Odell's daddy? All this sir/son, high yellow, nervous Aunt Lou stuff...Major Dad, indeed.
Hearst is in the hotel dining room, at a loss. "The n*gger I appointed to dine with does not appear," he says to Richardson, who is the only person around. "As well," he goes on, "since his mother's not here to serve us." He pauses before polling Richardson on what he knows of last night. "My stomach hurt," Richardson offers, continuing to stir his stew pot. "I was discomfited otherwise," Hearst says, not exactly commiserating. He finally realizes that making small talk with Richardson is not an easy task. "Stupid, aren't ya?" he asks the poor cook, who answers innocently yes, he is. Hearst sighs. "Better than what some of these others are," he says and, thinking there's no harm to reveal his sincere evil to the dim Richardson, says that Deadwood as a whole displeases him. "I'm taking measures to bring it down." Richardson just goes on stirring. "Alll riiiight," he says, and I just about weep with joy at the brilliance. Abruptly, Hearst turns and leaves, and we see that E.B. has been spying from his room. "Does he speak of the hotel?" he asks aloud with a voice of dread. "Or even more?"
Al's continuing to give Dan instructions on how to hire the muscle he needs, and it's getting on Dan's nerves. "That they're armed and awake don't have to mean they're fucking hired," Al says. "Yeah," Dan says, knowing how to do this damn job, "and when I feel a shit coming on I'll remember to drop my pants." Al insists that "the obvious merits utterance -- character is fucking pertinent." Dan, still stiff and in pain, has had enough of his nitpicking and is about to go when Bullock comes in. "Charlie Utter thinks it has to come to blood," he tells Al, who says that Charlie is likely right. Bullock says that Charlie also thinks they should strike Hearst before he can come to them. Now, Al's been just planning for nothing less, but at this point, something comes over him to reconsider. "Believe me, even now in the forest, the blade would be between my teeth, me and you making our way stealthily forward," he tells Bullock. "And as to us and him, if blood's what it finally comes to, a hundred years from now the forest is what they'll find here." He takes a drink. "Dewy morning's lost its appeal for me," he says. "I prefer to wake indoors." Calling to Dan, he cancels the whole gun-hiring plan. "Come," he says, slapping guiding Bullock towards the door. "Need of canned peaches, Johnny. Let's collect the camp elders. Be baffled among friends, huh?" Yay! Everything makes more sense with peaches. If we could just drop peaches down in the Gaza strip, maybe people would pause bombing the shit out of each other for a few minutes long enough to ask themselves what they hell they're doing.
The NG returns to the livery and breaks the bad news that he was not able to talk Odell out of his Hearst plan. Aunt Lou shakes her head and takes off for the hotel.
All purposes lead to the thoroughfare as Hearst stands on the porch of the hotel, Al and Bullock emerge from the Gem, and Odell walks over from Nuttall's. Hearst has the brass BALLS to nod to Al and the sheriff, and bid them a friendly good evening. Al very stoically bids him one back as Odell comes into the picture. "Fuckin' late, son," Hearst says. Odell apologizes and they start to walk into the hotel, but Hearst just can't resist pausing to stick it to Al. He flips him a bird, asking in a seemingly innocent voice how the finger is. "All right, Mr. Hearst," Al says, calm as you please, and Hearst is almost inside when Bullock can't hold it in any longer. "How's the fuckin' ear?" he calls out, and we see Hearst pause ever so momentarily to record the slight. "Good, Bullock, good," Al sighs, wondering why nobody can keep their 'tude to themselves lately. "By dissembling our feelings we keep the strategic edge." Aunt Lou runs past now, on her way to the hotel. "You don't get him. You don't take him from me," she says over and over to herself. "Not quick," Al notes as she runs by, "but she does seem full of purpose."
Meanwhile, as the sun goes down, Jane is fully drunk, laid out by the livery on a plank. "People are fucking people, and that is fucked up!" she announces to the world at large. Joanie walks up and sees here there. "Who are you talking to, Jane?" she asks. "I wondered where you were. I'd hoped you come stay with me instead of going back to all this." Jane is offended. "Whatever you mean by this," she says, "I have been recently engaged in complicated negotiations with n*ggers...who equal any other creature walking upright being able to fuck themselves up." Joanie ignores this, trying to pull Jane up to her feet to join her at Shaunessey's. "You ain't got the fucking manpower to pull my ass up," Jane slurs, awfully drunk and warning Joanie of her unsteady state. "You're putting yourself very much in danger, my friend. Very, very, very, ver...very, very much in danger." She ain't kidding. Joanie holds her up, pitifully, as Jane pukes all over the ground. "That's all right, Jane," she says, supporting her friend as best she can. "Come on."