From Timothy Olyphant as Sheriff Seth Bullock and Robin Weigert as Calamity Jane, to Paula Malcomson as prostitute Trixie and W.
#Deadwood season 3 recap tv
Deadwood suggested that, at its best, society can even us all out, can make us realize there’s more to life than our own self-interest.Īnd throughout it all, Milch’s dialogue - which has been called Shakespearean so often that it’s a cliché, but he really did write much of the show in iambic pentameter - sang out as some of the best and most lyrical in TV history, spoken by some of its finest actors. Throughout its three-season run, Deadwood tackled all of the ideas that lay at the center of our society, from the way that we all agree that money will represent value (when there’s no real reason it has to) to how even the worst among us might become better people and citizens. There were no gods just men and women, struggling to get by. There were leaders, certainly, but events that happened at the lowest levels of the mining camp rippled outward to affect those at the very top. Milch expanded this idea to the community at his show’s center.
The show’s first season frequently invoked the New Testament’s 1 Corinthians 12, in which Paul explains that the church is one body made up of many smaller parts (or, rather, people). Their negotiations led to a slightly more perfect union with every episode. But in the eye of creator David Milch, they were all part of the series’ true main character: the gold rush town of the title, which is a real place. Not so with Deadwood, which is about the impulses that give birth to civilization, the idea that living in a society necessarily requires the slow negotiation of the self with other selves.īy the time Deadwood ended, it featured more than five dozen regular or recurring characters, any one of whom could take over any scene they were in. And many of these dramas are about what it means to try to tear civilization apart. They’re about navigating civilization - whether poorly or well. HBOįor the most part, the great TV dramas of the post- Sopranos era (so roughly 1999 to the present) ask how we function in a modern society that seems designed to turn us into cogs in a giant, implacable system that couldn’t care less about us. Deadwood is the bedrock that all other great dramas are built atop Deadwood boasts one of the best casts around.
#Deadwood season 3 recap series
The series will change your life - and I don’t say that lightly. So allow me to etch Deadwood’s name upon the sky. While its two more-or-less contemporaries on HBO, The Sopranos and The Wire, have seemed to weather all storms, Deadwood has been held back for some reason. Deadwood not only deserves recognition as one of the best TV shows of all time - I think you could make a real argument that it’s the best show of all time.Īnd yet this landmark series, a cornerstone of great TV drama, is in danger of being forgotten as times change and tastes shift.
But all too often, modern TV fans just haven’t seen Deadwood, or are somewhat surprised when critics sing its praises. More than anything, watching it reminded me of how rich and wonderful this series is.
#Deadwood season 3 recap movie
The movie is terrific (and I’ll post a full review of it soon). That’s what’s airing Friday night, and it makes a glorious swan song for the series. And they never got their movies, or a real indication that any would ever be made - until 2018, when HBO greenlit a single, two-hour conclusion. Heck, I’ve seen it already, and I’m still not entirely sure it exists.ĭeadwood aired for three seasons on HBO, from 2004 to 2006, with the sting of an untimely cancellation eased somewhat by the network’s promise of two movies to wrap up the series’ story. If you’re a longtime Deadwood fan, Deadwood: The Movie, airing on HBO Friday night, must feel a little like a mirage.