Like Bullock and Swearengen, Langrishe was a real historical figure folded into Milch’s eloquent world-building. What certainly did not help was that so much precious season three screen time was given over to theatrical impresario Jack Langrishe ( Brian Cox) and his caravan of creaky thespians. Not even a pit-stop from Wyatt Earp and his shifty brother could invigorate the rest of Deadwood’s third season, which wrapped up with only the vaguest promise of a reckoning with the heartless Hearst. Where do you go from there? The answer was: nowhere, really. Witnessing desperate Dan pluck out his opponent’s peeper was the sort of operatic climax that can define an entire series.
This ugly, vicious fistfight between Al’s loyal lieutenant Dan and Hearst’s burly enforcer ended up being literally eye-popping TV. In episode five, the simmering tension between incumbent powerbroker Al and ruthless incomer Hearst – a mining bigwig with designs on Deadwood’s rich seams – exploded on to the main thoroughfare. It probably didn’t help that season three had already featured a memorable crescendo at its halfway point. Timothy Olyphant and John Hawkes in 2019’s Deadwood revival.
The Deadwood project, never far from the mud but always mythic in its scope, thus finished on a sombre downswing. Even if the rivalry of combustible lawman Seth Bullock ( Timothy Olyphant) and sulphurous saloon kingpin Al Swearengen ( Ian McShane) had been resolved – or at least put on hold in the common interest of the camp – the abrupt ending still left a bushel of plot threads dangling. That corporate bushwhacking robbed Milch of the opportunity to craft any proper closure.
Deadwood was cancelled by HBO in murky circumstances just before its third season aired in 2006. Perhaps that devotion lingers because they remember the sting of betrayal. Loyalty – a fluid commodity among the town’s dirtbags and desperadoes – has remained a constant among fans. Even now, to suggest this wildest of westerns is anything less than a masterpiece is to risk being lynched by its posse of admirers. Note: All our DVDs are new Australian region 4 DVDs made for Australian DVD players.W hen it debuted in 2004, David Milch’s 1870s-set gold rush drama combined brutal violence with goddamn gutter poetry. The women of Deadwood prove their mettle as Calamity Jane, Alma Garret, and whores Trixie and Joanie stake their claim in this dangerous town of scheming misfits, all learning the hard way. Seth Bullock is the new Sheriff and forced to stand his ground against two conniving brothel owners: cutthroat Al Swearengen, and his cheif rival, the cunning Cy Tolliver. Unsavoury new arrivals - looking to cash in on the lucrative anarchy - and a government of outsiders usher in an era of hard decisions and brutal power struggles among the camp's founders. For better or worse, times are changing, and the transformation from camp to town is imminent. A new day is dawning in the Black Hills outlaw camp of Deadwood.