Hearst deigns to sit down for a meal with Odell, who is finally able to reveal his purpose in Deadwood: he's come representing a group in Liberia who wants Hearst's partnership in a gold find.
Johnny runs around camp inviting the influential men to Al's latest meeting, which features, as usual, peaches. This time, Jewel adds her womanly touch and includes cinnamon, which nearly kills the allergic Harry Manning. At the meeting, Bullock shares a moving letter he's written to the family of the most recent dead Cornishman. The elders decide to publish the letter in The Pioneer, playing the decency angle.
Blazanov violates his solemn oath to keep all communication private and goes to Al with the news that Hearst has ordered backup muscle. Al's dealing with a lot tonight -- he pretty much tells Doc that "if you die, I'll kill you."
Joanie has made it back to her room with Jane, and finally, after we've waited for two and a half seasons, the girl on girl action is about to begin!
Y'all, can you believe we have gone past the half-way point of the last season of Deadwood? I'm seriously crushed about it. Even though this thing is a right beyatch to recap, and even though they sometimes use words that I, lover of ninety-nine percent of foul language, find disturbing, and EVEN THOUGH I sometimes have to use complex algorithms to diagram Al's sentences just so I can figure out what he's saying...I sure am going to miss it. I haven't said much about the cancellation, preferring instead to live in denial, but this was one of my favorite episodes in a while, so I thought I'd air my protest. I just think it's a crime, is all, and the thought of those wanks on Entourage getting another season, leaving us bereft of Al and the gang? It nauseates me as bad as one of Richardson's stews. I'm glad about the alleged two-hour wrap-up films (though the idea of recapping them causes me to consider filing in advance for some workman's comp), but it still ain't right and I hope HBO rues the fuckin' day.
We pick up in this episode right where the last one left off, which is weird -- I got very used to the start in the morning/end that night formula. In any case, Aunt Lou has made it to the hotel, breathing heavy from her run through the thoroughfare. E.B. sneers that Hearst has gone up to his rooms with Odell and wants notice when she's ready to serve dinner.
Hearst is showing Odell his sledgehammer handywork. "I knocked holes in these walls," he says. "Confinement gives me the fidgets." Odell politely remarks that he's set himself up comfortably. "Let me confide as well, Odell," Hearst says, busting an accidental rhyme, "that when people only say to me with other words what I have just said to them, I quickly grow impatient." Though he is inferior in every other distinction, Hearst does share that trait with Al. He asks Odell to tell him about the gold. Odell plays the innocent, presenting an assay and metallurgist report, but acting like he doesn't really understand them. Hearst reads the report and discovers that Odell is representing theThird Baptist Congregation, Monrovia Settlement. "The congregation has title to the find," Odell explains. "I'm first deacon, sir." Odell makes his move. "Being you were known to me through my mama's letters," he says, "the when the proposals started to come to us..." Hearst's ears perk up: "Proposals?" Odell continues the naïve act. "The different English proposals," he says, "to develop the find, yes, sir. I was sent to ask if you'd guide us." Hearst asks if the congregation is looking to partner with him, and Odell says however Hearst wants to do it is fine with him. "I do take in partners with the understanding that in dealing with the color, mine is the deciding voice," Hearst says, using "the color" the first of about ninety annoying times in this episode. Even Odell has to ask what he's talking about. "The gold," Hearst explains. "Securing and exploiting the gold." Finally, Odell shows him what he's really interested in: a big piece of gold, allegedly from the Liberian find. Hearst looks at it, studies it in the light and then puts it down without comment. "I can't imagine your mother's not nearly prepared our supper," he says to the surprised Odell, who asks him point blank what he thinks of the nugget. "It makes me hungry, Odell," Hearst says.
Things are just as irritating over at the No. 10, where Johnny has come to invite Tom Nuttall to Al's meeting. Hell, the Original Shit Stirrer (OSS), who I had so hoped was dead, is there as well. Tom is insistent on bring Harry to the Gem meeting, which he tells Johnny to convey to Al. Leon Rippy is doing something so weird this season -- what the hell is Tom so mad about? I mean, I guess having Steve around all the time is enough to piss anyone off, sure, but still...he's so adamantly pissy and I find it a contrast from the Nuttall of old. Speaking of Steve, he is also there, of course, and figures he ought to get an invite. Tom, irritated, points out that Hostetler never attended the meetings. "Prior to blowing off his fucking head," Steve retorts, "Hostetler was a n*gger. Last I looked I'm white!" The OSS makes a mumbled joke at this, while Harry tries to get out of going all together and Tom lights into dumb ol' Steve. "I do not vouch for you, nor presume to bring you uninvited, as I do Harry," Tom says, "because you are not the same quality person." Steve slurs that all Tom wants is a stupid wire wagon, anyway, and Johnny, uncomfortable with all this unfamiliar bullshit, makes his way out the back. Alone with Steve, the OSS plants his seed: "Can you certify the purity of your blood, Steve?" he asks, completely randomly and out of nowhere. "I only ask because your nose is...broad." For the first time EVER, Steve is speechless.
Bullock walks up on his wife in the kitchen to deliver the unfortunate news that they will have to eat quickly. "Camp business, dear?" she asks, full-on Donna Reed style, as she pulls out a lovely roast. Poor Mrs. B. Bullock smiles a little at her frustration.
At the Gem, Dan is performing an exercise in futility, trying to open a can of peaches with a knife. He's mad about that, still mad about his Turner-fight wounds, and mad that he's got to go out in search of backup muscle on Al's orders. What I'm saying is, he's mad. Jewel comes in and announces that she's put cinnamon out on the tables. Dan's mad about this, too. "Cinnamon's good with peaches," Jewel insists, but Dan doesn't like it. "Do not put unauthorized cinnamon on the goddamn meetin' table," he fusses like an old lady. "That's all the fuck we need." Jewel says the cinnamon is just available as a choice. "Which is not your province to offer, Jewel," he snaps back, again. Jewel huffs. "Well, if food's not my province," she says, "then you can make your own fucking breakfast." None of this placates Dan. "I had best not come out of this goddamn kitchen," he rages on, "and find goddamn cinnamon on the fucking meeting table!" Frankly, it grosses me out that the Gem has a kitchen at all. Take a moment and imagine the ptomaine, people, as Dan continues to hack at the peaches can with a knife that has sliced open a hundred necks.
Doc is resting in his shack when Johnny comes banging on the door. He looks like he's barely holding himself together when he goes to answer it. He points to his throat, indicating that he can't talk. The mere effort of going to the door sets off a horrible coughing fit, terribly upsetting Johnny. "Jesus, Doc," he says, cringing. "All right, all right I'll tell him you can't come. Anyway, look, I hope you feel better." He leaves and Doc reclines again, this time right by the door. He can't make it back to his bed.
Aunt Lou is serving Odell and Hearst their dinner in the restaurant. They are getting a few looks, not the least of which is from Lou herself. "My best efforts," Hearst says, "do not yet persuade your mother to be indifferent to the opinions of others." Oh, yeah, Hearst -- you're a real integrationist hero. Aunt Lou says if having Odell eat in the dining room is all right with Mr. Hearst, it's all right with her. Here's what bugs the hell out of me about all Hearst scenes -- they are too freaking LONG and, I know you're not going to believe I'm saying this, but they are unnecessarily wordy. Yes, it's true, that I could watch Al speechify for nigh on twenty minutes, but this Hearst/gold/"color"/smugly powerful/blah blah drives me up a wall of boredom, and I live with an actual, multi-degreed historian, people -- one who writes books about Radicalism in the South from 1963-197zzzzzzzzz... -- so, I seriously thought I was immune to stories about historical men and whatever they did whenever they did it, but not so with Hearst. I don't know what it is. Maybe McRaney? I hate to say that, but maybe it IS. This character bugs me. I need him to get off the pot. Just DO something. Seven episodes of buildup? That's too much when we have other badass villains in town with whom we could be spending our time. All I want to see is him go down.
Anyway. They eat and talk and Hearst gets all smartypants and tries to catch Odell out by implying he's a drunk and, oh yeah, maybe that assay report is a fake. Odell doesn't take kindly to that and stands up to leave, alarming the others nearby, including E.B., who react like Odell is about to call a Black Panther rally up in the Grand Central. E.B. even pulls out his gun, which is great. "Now just calm down, son," Hearst says, smoothing it out. "If I have mistook you in some regard, you'll find I'm man enough to apologize. Now, just sit down, we'll finish our meal, and then maybe afterwards we'll take in the camp and, if you have any vices beyond your drinking, I might even offer you a cigar." Calmed, Odell sits down and E.B. breaths a sigh of relief as Richardson goes back to report to Aunt Lou." How's he doing?" she asks. Richardson: "Holding his fucking own."
Trixie is at Sol's pacing and smoking while he talks about his day. "Then I asked," Sol is saying, "'What good am I to myself or the camp standing sentinel over a coffee pot?' [Which was] why I cam home." Good point, Sol. I assume he's talking about being at the bank alone and with no business. You know, somebody needs to write the history of office coffee pots. At my former job, our big boss had her OWN coffee pot which the staff was not allowed to use or touch. This was part of our orientation, by the way, the rules about the private coffee pot and special gourmet coffee which was directly adjacent to the staff coffee pot and Folger's. Over time (and many, many sneaky coffee-switches perpetrated by various co-workers sympathetic to the cause) that coffee pot came to symbolize everything that was wrong with that organization. It was my nemesis. So, on my last day, I stole it.
Sol tells her that he wishes she wouldn't smoke in the house, for which Trixie bitches him right out, as usual. "I wish, when asleep, you wouldn't snore and fuckin' fart," she snaps. "If I extinguish this fuckin' cigarette, it'll be in the middle of your fuckin' forehead." I wish, just once, they'd show Sol and Trixie when she wasn't beating him down about something. Tonight, though, her frustration is somewhat justified. She's still mad about her confrontation with Alma. "I'm glad she fucking fired me," she says. "I hate that fucking bank." Sol says what she's really mad about, obviously, is that Mrs. E is using dope again. "Yes, yes! That she's back on the dope disturbs me," she yells, adding that Alma's using puts everyone's lives in jeopardy, as no one will be safe when Hearst makes his move on her claim. She sighs, sitting down, asking what's to become of Sophia. They are interrupted by Johnny, coming to tell about the meeting. "All right, I'm coming," Sol says. "Uh," Johnny adds, "if you ain't et dessert yet, don't." Heee. Sol says all right and goes back to Trixie. "The Bullocks could take her," he says about Sophia. "Or...we could." Trixie is amazed. "You'd have us care for a child?" she asks. Sol looks very seriously at her and takes her hand. Sweet.
Alma is getting Sophia ready for bed, and dealing with a difficult truth. Near tears, she admits that Ellsworth did not come home the night. "I didn't feel his beard," Sophia repeats. "Possibly that's why," Alma says. "But he will be seeing you." She turns Sofia around to brush her hair again. "And everything will be all right." How badly do y'all feel for our little squarehead? Parents: killed. New mom: a junkie; also, skanking it up with the sheriff. Babysitters: drunks and prostitutes. Playroom: a corner. Finally she gets a good set of parents and they can't keep their shit together for more than six weeks? She learned English for these fools? Girlie needs to put her foot down.
Al's in his office with Cy waiting on the gathering to take place downstairs. Cy has been telling him about his recent meeting with Hearst. "I gave him a foolproof fucking approach to wind up with that woman's claim, and I could have been shit drawing flies," he says. "Hearst is that fucking focused on Bullock pulling his ear." Interesting -- Cy looks to be throwing in totally with Al, now, and you'd think Al would have some reaction to this turn of events, but that doesn't seem to be the case. He seems removed from it all, really, until he has to snap back to reality when Johnny knocks and says that everyone has been collected except Doc. "Where the fuck is he?" Al asks, and Johnny reports that he's too sick to come. Al broods on. "Uh, cinnamon's out for the peaches," Johnny mentions, casually. "Huh?" Al asks, but Johnny is already headed out the door saying it wasn't his fuckin' doing. "Giving Hearst Bullock is the only move that don't end with the camp in flames," Cy continues, "and that one only gets us up to 50/50." Al still isn't responding much, seeming lost in though. "It sounds," Cy adds, "as if Cochran's turned face to the wall." Al: "His fucking lungs." Cy mentions that, there being no other doctors in camp, they might put a notice in the Eastern papers. Al gives him the incredulous eyebrow. "Once we've ceased our weeping," he says. He looks down over the assembling meeting and cracks to Cy that had Hearst known their "might and guile" Hearst would have never left the Comstock. Come on, now, Al. Time to rally.
Dan's still pissy, trying to get the room cleared out for the meeting. He tells Earnie, who is being serviced by Dolly, that he has credit for a free tug tomorrow. "I'll spank it myself," Earnie says desperately to Dolly, as Dan lugs him out, "just watch me." Dan pushes him toward the back. "You'll spank it in front of a goddamn mule team." Ew. He shoves him out as the camp's tailor, Gustave (Medavoy!) bustles in, insisting to Johnny and Adams that he must see Al at once. "Mr. Swearengen! It's just as I imagined!" he shouts as he sees Al coming downstairs. "I have something so important to give to you." Al is nonplussed by the tiny weirdo. He asks the guy, who last season he would have very quickly stabbed, what he's got. "You mustn't ask me what," Gustave teases, "and you mustn't ask me why!" Dan steps in. "You must go fuck yourself," he says, prepared to dispatch this annoyance as he usually does. "Don't speak disgusting to me," he sing-songs, "or answer for Mr. Swearengen what is a very important answer!" Al, in his ruminating state of mind, actually invites the tailor up to his office much to the amazement of his employees, and asks to be notified when Bullock arrives.
We cut to the backroom at the Gem, where the whores are getting some time off and, you know, analyzing the goings-on of the camp. As they'll do. "Guess if you've got a pussy," one observes, "even owning a bank don't get you to that table."
Well, all the women in camp are too busy to attend anyway, what with the whoring and the drug addiction and the hot lesbian action. Oh, had I not mentioned that? Right, right. Jane, who we just saw drunk literally off her ass and vomiting in the street has made it back to Shaunnessey's with Joanie and is now receiving a sponge bath...on her wrist, from the latter. "Jesus Christ," Jane says. "Easy, easy, easy, easy. There'll be conversations left and right. Don't get too far up there on the fucking wrist." Ah, the lady, she protests too much, and I love it. Joanie asks if Jane wants to use the sponge on herself. "That's not the fucking point," Jane says, very boozily. "You just not be starting length and breadth conversations throughout the fucking camp or territory, or so on. Or do I suppose now I take off my fucking undershirt or the like and show my tits and so forth?!" Heeee. Reverse psychology, Jane, a brilliant strategy. Joanie's probably on to it, and won't play along. "I'll leave you to wash that part," she says, causing Jane to now reverse her position but, of course, reverse it angrily. "Who the fuck am I fucking kidding or putting on airs in front of?" she yells, taking off her shirt. "I been disrobed in front of every barnyard creature that hunts or pecks or rolls in the fucking mud. What the fuck do I have to be ashamed of at this late fucking date? Who cares anyway?!" Hell, Jane, nobody but YOU, it looks like. Finally shirtless, she steels herself. "Now," she says, like Joanie's the one badgering her, "go ahead and sponge my fucking tits and get it over with if that's what you fucking do." Joanie is very quiet. "It's nothing like that, Jane," she says. I gotta wonder, as much as Joanie might need some lovin' these days, does she really want it from Jane, anyway? I mean, the inebriated Jane who she just saw vomit? Jane is still nervous as hell. "Well, what's it like then," she asks. "I never had a sister." Joanie gets a sad look. "I had two," she says. "And I slept with both of them. I don't know why God let me or if he forgives me when I pray, but...but I'd never hurt you, Jane, or touch you if you didn't want." Jane is shaking now, with an equal mixture of fear and longing, and I must say, the way Robin Weigert plays this moment absolutely took my breath away with its truthfulness. "I believe that," Jane says, head down. "But I don't want to open my eyes. But you can go ahead and kiss me if that's what you fucking do." So, she does. Very sweetly and very softly, Joanie kisser her and Jane kisses back.
I am of two minds about this scene. Overall, I love it, not just because I like the two characters and want them to find joy in something for once, but because it's brilliantly acted and extremely authentic. The thing I don't totally love about it is that it seems tacked in like, "this stuff with Hearst and the meeting might be kind of boring, and you can only talk so much about peaches, so...let's have two chicks kissing! That's hott!" The co-opting of lesbian romance for male gratification really gets on my nerves, and I know that's not exactly what this is, but still. Both of these women's storylines separately break my heart, it's hard to imagine that the two of them calling up Black Hills U-Haul and shacking up together is going to be a good thing in the long run.
Back in Al's office, gayness of a different kind is going on. It seems Gustave was off on a buying trip in New York City and picked up a bunch of Liberace-style swatches. "Even though I have no reason why I should!" he trills, practically setting the place on fire as he waves lavender and gold fabric around in Al's stunned face. "Because who back at that camp would wear suits of such colors? But I have learned sometimes if you have a thing, the reason for the thing is that you have it!" Ah, and the reason, he figures, is to wrap Al's damaged hand to make it look...more fruity? Who the hell knows? Not Al, certainly. His face is totally slack with amazement as he sits listening to the tailor and wondering why on Earth he took this meeting. Gordon Clapp goes above and beyond, seriously, especially when he launches into an aside about how he's always thought Al was very handsome in the mornings when he goes out on the balcony to have his coffee. Al gives him the extreme eyebrow at this, but says nothing. I really love how Al deals with people who are very different from him. Like, sweet, crazy Rev. Smith, for example, and Merrick -- those guys, like Gustave, could not be less like Al. They are innocents compared to the rest of the people he deals with, and he treats them in a different way. Stern, but not abusive. Such is his behavior towards Gustave now as the little queen ridiculously wraps a piece of gold, flowered fabric around Al's hand and ties it with a flourish while Al's mouth hangs open in speechless shock. Finally, to his great relief, there is a knock at the door. "Please God, come in," he cries, and Johnny enters to say that Bullock has arrived. Al, not moving his newly adorned hand, thanks Gustave and tells him, firmly but not impolitely, to please leave. The tailor goes out with a satisfied gesture, all "my work here is done!" and Al lets him get out the door before swiftly removing the fabric.
Out in the thoroughfare, Hearst is showing Odell around the camp and talking a lot of bullshit about "the color" and driving me crazy. This time, though, gold is not the only color they're talking about. Gold transcends all colors, Hearst says. It is the great equalizer -- since Odell has gold and access to gold, it doesn't matter that he's black in a white man's world. "Every defect in a man and in others' way of taking him," Hearst says, "our agreement that gold has value gives us power to rise above." Nice writing. The conversation turns to Hearst's recent problems in Deadwood. "Just before you and I met, Odell, the camp's Sheriff released me from a jail cell," he says. Odell finds that hard to believe. "I hate these places, Odell, because the truth that I know, the promise that I bring, the necessities I'm prepared to accept make me outcast," he sighs heavily and we see that his eyes are brimming with tears. "Isn't that foolish? Isn't that foolishness?" he says, like a grown man crying about being bullied as a child. "An old man disabused long ago of certain yearnings and hopes as to how he would be held by his fellows, and yet I weep." Odell pauses, not knowing how to react to this show of emotion, so like any man, he just ignores it and asks if Hearst intends to send someone back with him to Liberia. "Yes, I do, son," Hearst says. "I want to send you to help your people...and take this place down like Gomorrah." Eh, shut up, you big baby. Maybe the other fellas in town would like you better if you didn't go around chopping their hands off and sending your goons to fight them in the streets. Just saying.
The elders meeting is going on over at the Gem. Al still seems kind of removed from it all, almost nonchalant. "All being affected," he says, "we might consider some facts as a group." Man, I like it so much better when Al is telling everyone what to do. Bullock tells everyone about arresting Hearst and Cy grouses that he didn't ask anyone in the camp's counsel before doing it. "Do you propose that?" Bullock clenches, defensive. "Getting a say-so before I do my duty?" Like a teenage girl, he jerks his sheriff badge off and slams it down on the table. Instead of protesting, Cy takes him up on it, saying that Bullock relinquishing his badge might put them in better standing with Hearst. "Bullock's tin won't placate Hearst," Al says, tiredly. "Give it the fuck back to him." Reluctantly, Cy drops it back on the table, and the meeting goes on. Harry Mannnig, accompanying Tom, has apparently really only come for the peaches, and he is wolfing them down to beat the band. E.B. stands officiously. "Shall I, as mayor, initiate proceedings by giving my own opinions, however titular and insubstantial and merely honorific the position?" he asks, barely reaching an upright position before thinking better against it and sitting down again. Ignoring him, Al wonders aloud what the best course of action would be should Hearst decide to retaliate for his arrest. "My instinct's to act alone, chart the course for fucking carnage," he says. "That this would be general among 'em whose parents were so dim as to bring them -- the fucking innocents is what give me fucking pause." Aw, Al's thinking of the youngsters. He believes the children are our future, no doubt. Again, against what we would expect to be his character, he invites alternative suggestions from those gathered. Charlie, however, is fully on his side about the ass-kicking plan. "As I've expressed to the sheriff and Mr. Star, and siding with your instincts, to protect the innocents, I'd send them from the camp," he says. "Then fall on Hearst and his in their lair before they fall on us in ours...as Wild Bill would have done." They all take a moment to reflect on this whole WWWBD? Angle, and in the silence, Bullock hands Merrick a letter, much to everyone's confusion.
It's a letter Bullock has written to the family of the most recently murdered Cornishman, Pasco Carwen. Al demands that Merrick read it aloud. It is really quite a good letter, one I have a hard time believing Bullock wrote on his own without Martha's or Sol's help. "Pasco's funeral occurred today and was attended by coworkers and friends who all shared the same high opinion of him. Everything was done by kind hands that was possible under the circumstances, and a Christian burial was given him," Merrick reads. "I was not personally acquainted with Mr. Carwen, save for one encounter where he demonstrated grief and deep compassion at the passing of a friend. His memory I am sure will always be with those who knew and loved him, among whose number I imagine you as first." Very moving, especially as read by Merrick, except that Merrick doesn't get it at all and asks what he's supposed to do with it. "What's your fucking paper for?" Al asks, frustrated. "You fucking publish as witness, for Hearst and others to read!" The others sit in stunned quiet as Al turns to Bullock. "That's a very nice fucking letter."
Merrick returns to his print shop to find Blazanov waiting for him. Intense, the telegraph operator asks Merrick to take him back to see Al. "Well, I will, of course, Mr. Blazanov," Merrick assures him, "though no activity you may contemplate, for example, the making of friends with his female employees, requires Mr. Swearengen's personal approval." No, Blazy says, he needs to see Al for another reason. Merrick puts his coat back on and heads up the stairs. The very nervous Blazy grabs his hand for support, and his friend nods to him as if to reassure him that everything will be okay.
Harry and Tom Nuttall are making their way back to the No. 10. Tom doesn't seem to notice that uh, Harry is choking to death. He rattles on about the fire wagon that Harry neglected to mention at the meeting and doesn't notice that Harry is seriously ill until he collapses on the boardwalk. Tom freaks and calls for help.
Aunt Lou is fussing around her room, worried about what she's heard from Odell about his meeting with Hearst. "As like to kill you as take passage with you to Liberia, his man you meeting in New York," she says. Odell counters that if Hearst really wanted him dead, he could just kill him in Deadwood. Lou violently warns him against trying to know Hearst's mind. Odell retorts that these stakes he's playing for might be big, but that this is what Lou sent him off for in the first place -- to become a man. "I sent you," Lou says, "so the hell that was coming here for n*ggers wouldn't burn you up. I can't undo what I done, Odell, any more than you can, searching out hurt." Odell assures her he's not searching out hurt, but Lou's on a roll. "We all get our portion," she says. "We don't need to draw it to us." He gets frustrated with her drama. "You hear me, mama?" he asks. "I ain't searching no goddamn hurt out." Lou gets fiery, and tells him to watch his mouth. "All right, mama," Odell snaps back. "No bad language. If you'd kept me to raise me, maybe I'd know." This breaks poor Lou, who begins to sob. She reminds him that the NG is holding $742 for him to use to get out of camp, and frantically searches for her good brooch to add to the money. Seeing her desperation, he finally tells her that when he read in her old letters that she had stayed in the Comstock while Hearst went on to Deadwood, he tried to get to camp quickly so he'd be gone again before she knew about it. "I ain't come here to hurt you," he says, as she continues to wail. "I prayed to see you every day you was gone," she cries, falling on his chest and saying she's sorry. It brings tears to my eyes, her motherly guilt is so strong. She continues to weep as he tries to comfort her.
Blazanov is meeting with Al. He's broken his sacred code to show him Hearst's latest telegram communiqués. He reads: "'Bricks. Twenty-five bricks. Stop. Addition to initial order. Stop. First means of delivery. Stop.' Do you believe, Mr. Swearengen, Mr. Hearst orders more bricks?" Al: "No. What do you believe?" Blazanov says he believes Hearst orders more humans. "To do harm!" he says. < "As we saw on our walk. Leave to die in a country strange to them, men apart from their families, working to give them support." He shakes his head firmly and screws up the last of his courage: "Fuck confidentiality of communications!" he says. Al is impressed with his emotion. "Why not fuck a woman, instead?" he says, offering the Gem's services. Blazanov brushes this aside. "I hope so, eventually," he says, and goes out to deliver the bricks message to Hearst.
E.B. comes back to the hotel to find Richardson in prayer that the meeting had gone well. "Very touching," E.B. says. "Now, clear your mind of the meeting and account for the negro with Hearst." They do an hilarious bit of Who's On First. Richardson: "They're both in her room." E.B. sighs. "Despite your best efforts, Richardson," he says, "an answer of some ambiguity." He slaps Richardson with his gloves. "Is she with them?" Richardson, with his rheumy eyes, answers "One." E.B. remains confused. "One what?" he asks. "Of them," Richardson answers, ever the Costello. "Is with her." E.B. is losing it. "Who?" he asks in high frustration. "Aunt Leeew," Richardson says. E.B.: "Who is with Aunt Lou?" Richardson says her son is with her. E.B. exhales heavily. "And where," he asks, "is Hearst?" Richardson: "His reeewwm." Sighing, E.B. says he will now retire and, after making several more rude remarks about poor Richardson's origins, finally mentions that he guesses the meeting went quite well. Richardson smiles, his prayers answered. When E.B.'s Day of Judgment comes as lo, it will come for all of us, he will have a lot of answering to do to Richardson's god.
Back at the Gem, the meeting is over and the boys are trying to make sense of it all. Of course, the only one who doesn't have enough brains to at least pretend to have understood it, is Johnny. Dan and Adams listen as he tries to suss it out for the rest of us. "Uh, the attitude on people leaving definitely stepped forward from the attitude they wore coming in," he states. "I mean, no one's trying to quarrel about that." Dan asks what his problem is, then and Johnny heaves the sigh of the dumb: "I'm asking," he admits, "what was decided." See, though, the thing is -- Dan and Adams don't really know, either. Adams shoots Dan an Emmy-worthy glace of "you tell him!" Hell, none of us know, other than to kind of figure it was a passive-aggressive move made by a bunch of men who really didn't know what else to do. "They're publishing the letter as witness," Dan says, as if it's the most obvious thing in the world, "a witness in the sense that...uh..." He looks desperately back at Adams who tries to come to his rescue. "Witness the letter," he says, "...its content." Dan's continues to cut his eyes to Adams while smugly acting like this explains everything. "Yeah, the letter's contents is witness that...Bullock wrote a nice fucking letter," he says. Adams throws his hand up like the matter has been explained. "And it proves...that that's the sort we are here, the caring sort that would write a letter of that ilk," Dan goes on, still looking confusedly at Adams for backup while pretending Johnny is the stupid one. "Furthermore, we don't give a fuck who knows it, George fucking Hearst included." (Of all the lines Dan has spoken in three seasons, these are my favorite. This is country boy logic at it's very best -- yeah, you bet your ass I killed somebody and ripped out his eyeball, but we're good people and I'll kill you, too, if you don't agree.) Adams agrees that fuckin' Hearst, especially, is someone they don't care who knows how superior they are. Johnny has a lightbulb moment at the mention of Hearst, asking if he's supposed to be the letter's witness. "Better late than fuckin' never, Johnny," Dan says, relieved that this exchange is over. Jewel comes out from the back to be further harangued by Dan who calls her Little Miss Fucking Cinnamon. She musters all her muscular control and flips him the bird.
More sadness back at the damn Ellsworth house. I wish this shit right here would get resolved. We get it! Alma's on the dope; Ellsworth doesn't like it; Sophia's sad about it; we're all sad about it; forever and ever, amen. Alma stands over the sleeping Sophia. She goes quickly from the room to keep from bursting into tears, walking downstairs and repeating over and over that she wants to be good. Ellsworth knocks on the front door and, wiping her eyes, Alma answers. They say good evening, and she practically collapses on a stair. "For being gone," Ellsworth jokes, "I notice I'm frequently back." Alma smiles, and he says he's come to kiss Sophia good night. Ellsworth, how 'bout kissing your wife good night, huh? Just do it. You're a handsome man, she needs you. Do it! They have more stilted Sophia-related conversation before Alma finally busts out with the truth. "The thing I did that made you leave last night," she says referring to the dope, "the thing I was coming home to do again...I pray now to forego forever." Now here is Ellsworth's chance to sweep her up and say great, that he'll help her and they'll all get through it because they are tough and have been through worse, blah blah blah, new start. But, no...he doesn't say that. "Not having me in this house is gonna improve your odds," he says, instead. Alma scoffs a bit. "I started using spirits at seventeen, Ellsworth, with no premonition we'd marry," she tells him, and I think: AH! Now Ellsworth will step up. But he doesn't. "Well, my feeling's that being vessel of purposes not your own, your eye was out for relief," he explains. "But glimpsing since how being your own vessel is preferable let the pressure come off and you're liable to do all right." Ugh. And, huh? Alma assures him that he is no pressure, but he just goes on. "My...friendly hands'll always be out to both of you," he says, and I just fast forward through the rest because it pisses me off and ain't right. I don't know, he goes to kiss Sophia goodnight, yadda yadda scratchy beard, we GET it. I mean, I hate to be like that about these characters, because I love them, but we've seen this scene a few times now. I'd like to see Ellsworth fight for his good position.
Hearst is laid up on his bedroom floor when Blazanov arrives, delivering the telegram about the "bricks." Blazy looks nauseated by the whole exchange, especially when Hearst crows about how the new bricks coming to town and tips him twenty bucks. "That's all right, son," Hearst says, when the honest Russian points this out. "Thanks for doing your job well."
Langrishe joins Al in his office. "We'd a meetin'," Al tells him. "I ought to have asked you, too." Jack brushes this off. "What topic commended my presence?" he asks. "Reprobates? The elderly?" He refers, of course, to the men in his troupe: Chesterton who is dying, and Bellegarde who can't wait for him to be finished. But no, Al says, the meeting was about fuckin' Hearst. "Fuckin' Hearst, that took an axe to my left middle digit, sends for twenty-five more thugs to take the tool to the whole fucking camp," he says. He raises his eyebrows and asks the unanswerable: "Why am I fucking optimistic?" Langrishe asks if the meeting yielded a strategy. "We heard the fuckin' reading of a letter," he says, explaining its subject, and still in pseudo shock that anything might be solved with such peaceful tactics. Jack, too, is surprised and asks if the letter calls out Hearst as the murderer of the Cornishman. "Never once mentioning Hearst," Al says, incredulous. "Expressing sympathy to the family, respect for the way the man lived. We decided Merrick would publish in the paper." Langrishe thinks it over. "Strategy some may call ingenuous," he says, "others merely off the point." Al, still shaking his head: "I sit mystified I was moved to endorse it." Langrishe rallies round. "Mystified, Al, at proclaiming a law beyond law to a man who's beyond law himself? Its publication invoking a decency whose scrutiny applies to him as to all his fellows," he says with growing theatrics. "I call that strategy cunningly sophisticated, befitting and becoming the man who sits before me!" As if on cue, Al stands and goes out to yell down to the bar. "Open the place back up!" he demands. "Tell the whores if their legs ain't in the air, they'd better be off their asses!" Back in his office, he slams the door behind him and asks his friend what's going on with him. "Our opening is delayed. An old man is dying -- one of my actors. And..." he sighs, "I'm sad." I swear, I don't think I, nor Al, have ever heard the word "sad" used in Deadwood. It strikes Al so powerfully that he strides directly to his desk to pull out the whiskey. "Oh!" Langrishe cries, pretending to protest, "...perhaps just the one." The McShane/Cox combo is so magnificent.
Doc is at the No. 10, seeing to Harry. "Folded up on the boardwalk beside me like a goddamn accordion," Tom tells him, sending Doc into a coughing fit. "You're wheezing bad as me, Doc," Harry says. "Did you eat cinnamon, too?" The shit-stirrer is there, acting like he's Doc's nurse or something. "Have you adverse reactions to other food or condiments, Harry?" he asks, earning Harry's wrath. "Eggplant shreds the roof of my mouth," he says, "if it's any of your fucking business." Doc declares him all right and tells him not to eat cinnamon anymore. "Or eggplant?" Harry adds, nervously. "Not if it shreds your mouth," Doc tells him, like he's stupid which, come on, he is. Still hacking, Doc goes to leave asking Tom how the meeting went. "Oh, it was all right," Tom says. "Um, needless to say, we missed you." Siiiiiiigh -- I'll say it again, kill Doc and I will call down fire and brimstone and various other deadly items.
Doc tries to make his way back to his cabin, but is interrupted by Al, demanding his presence, from the Gem balcony. He reluctantly complies.
Steve has arrived back at the livery to find the NG asleep in a hay loft. "I wonder what you think you're fucking doing," he shouts, and the NG explains that he is laying down before his big exit tomorrow. "I will ask the questions here!" Steve yells, though he is actually asking the questions. "This is my place. Do you think it's yours? It is not. It is mine, bought and paid for. And if I wanted to shit this instant in the middle of this stable, no man, black or white, could gainsay me!" Nice priorities you've set for yourself, Steve. I mean, we all have to have goals. The NG points out that Steve can do whatever he wants; that he's even already fucked a horse. Steve, though, upright citizen as he is, says he won't stoop to getting into that subject again. Instead he asks the NG where he's going in the morning. "West. San Francisco," he answers. "I'm hoping that chestnut's owner might go with me." Steve's eyes get wary. "The demon n*gger that appeared at the bar..." he says, talking about Odell. The NG says yes, the very same. Steve decides to test out some of his new management skills he learned from his Franklin Covey dayplanner. "I don't suppose," he asks, "knowing I'd be vigilant against theft and intolerant to tardiness, you'd be inclined to stay on and work here?" The NG responds with a firm "no." Steve goes hard right. "Nor would I want to fucking have you!" he says, turning to go to his room. "And do not come and try to murder me as I sleep! And... I will not come and try to murder you." He stomps into his room and tries to slam the door, but it doesn't latch. He blames it on the NG -- "Black fucking bastard!" -- who could not give less of a damn.
In the Gem's office, Doc's asking Al what he wanted. "Fucking sick, I'm told," Al says, dryly. Doc insists he just has a chest cold. Al gives it to him straight: "You're a lunger." He messes with Gustave's swatches, trying to conceal his concern, while Doc has yet another coughing fit. "Fucking samples, Doc," he boozily tries to explain. "Notions from that tailor as to how we cover my stump." Doc ignores all this nonsense. "I've believed for the last dozen years that disease is airborne," he says, "and I won't make others sick." Al looks at him with a little bit of fear in his eyes. "No one gets out alive, Doc," he says, as Doc, still hacking, gets up and leaves. Al watches him go, thinks for a moment and, snatching up the samples, follows him out. Doc is already downstairs when Al calls from the interior balcony. "Jesus Christ! The fuckin' gimp finds something useful to do in the fucking brace you made her!" he rages. "Do you think you could treat 'being Johnny' -- always struggling to fashion a thought?! Every fucking night I, that could cut a throat but sleep the sleep of the just, spend six fucking wakings trying to find a piss pot with my dribble, and wondering when I got to be so old." Tough love, Al. The best prescription. He throws the swatches down at Doc and completes his instruction. "Pick a fucking swatch for a spit rag, use the others for masks, and go about your fucking business!" he says, turning back into his office as if these pieces of fabric settle the whole matter. "I ain't learning a new Doc's quirks!" He slams the door, leaving the Doc to wonder what the hell he's supposed to do . I mean, "Don't die, or I'll kill you," is a pretty strong message. The piano starts up again and with that, he rallies, and after picking up the pile of swatches he goes out, coughing.