This essay contains minor “Deadwood” spoilers. It can be read without having watched the show.
Within the first seven minutes of Deadwood’s 11th episode, we shift from a quiet morning between a couple in their bedroom to a chaotic scene of characters as they bump and shove into each other at the only restaurant in town. In this time we see exchanges between no less than 10 main and secondary characters and their interweaving stories. It’s in this context that the integrity of this newly formed city begins to crack. This episode vividly illustrates the power a shifting narrative has to be used as a method of discovery. When I refer to a shifting narrative, in some respects I’m talking about a frame story (much like One Thousand and One Nights), but more than that, I’m talking about a frame story with a particularly disjointing rhythm. Through this disjointing rhythm, we can discover something previously hidden, the inevitable corruption of Deadwood. Here a battle is being fought between spiritual and material wealth, a battle between integrity and corruption, and in this episode, the technique of a shifting narrative provides a tool to view the angles of each perspective.
Aside from the cramped restaurant, other things are starting to take place in Deadwood. As the characters leave the crowded restaurant, we cut to Reverend Smith in the middle of a medical tent. In a stupor, he leans on a cross-like sign that reads “QUARANTINE”. The Reverend is suffering from an increasingly aggressive brain tumour. A man comes in asking for a prayer. Smith, relieved that God has sent him an opportunity to draw wisdom from the divine, starts to pray for the man. Only a few lines into the prayer, the Reverend stops, realizing he’s forgotten the words.
Previously, the Reverend had insisted that this affliction was part of God’s plan and only saw his deteriorating condition as a divine test. The reality of his condition only crystallizes for him once he is confronted with another character’s view. As the man watches the reverend walk off in a blank stare, the man also witnesses the spiritual leader of the camp, and the naive defender of integrity, vanish.
15 minutes, 13 characters, and 6 interwoven stories later, we see Tom Nutall enter Al Swearenger’s office. Tom and Al share mutual respect and fondness for one another as some of the earliest frontiersmen in the camp. Al has become the most recognizable figure in the camp, providing booze and hookers at his saloon, and enjoys a level of power among its members. Tom is there to ask Al if one of Tom’s friends can be sheriff. Neither of them wants a sheriff, but Tom reasons that with the camp growing it’s inevitable that someone will fill the role. Tom wants it to be someone he recognizes, rather than just another stranger and points out how he doesn’t know anyone in town anymore. Al assumes Tom was bribed, but Tom insists it’s just about keeping the spirit of the town.
Much like the Reverend, Tom is one of the last few simple and honest characters that remain. Tom strikes a sharp contrast when sitting across from Al, who is cunning and calculating. Tom and Al both witnessed the birth of Deadwood, but where one saw an opportunity for a community of free-spirited revelry, the other saw an opportunity for profit and power. Tom sits in the light under Al’s window, believing he’s just witnessed a sign that the old spirit of the camp will live on, but as Al walks into the darkness and opens the door, it becomes clear to us that the only path available to the citizens of Deadwood is through the darkness.
10 minutes, 9 characters, and 4 interwoven stories later, the sleazy hotel owner E.B. Barnum holds up a bible in a caricature of Reverend Smith, as it’s announced that a spineless man will be sheriff. The scene cuts and we see Al Swearanger leaning on the balcony of his saloon, looking down at the town of Deadwood, watching the Reverend hilariously preach to cattle about circumcision and uncircumcision.
Eventually, the Reverend starts to ask “What shall separate us from the love of Christ?” He begins to question the many forces that separate humans from the divine love of the universe, whether it be hunger, or war…or gold and silver. As the Reverend grows in his fervour, Al turns his back but cannot ignore the question, and so looks to the preacher. Tears fill his eyes as the Reverend cluelessly waves and smiles at Al. This is the pinnacle moment to tell us who Al is and what Deadwood will become. Al swigs his bottle of whiskey and walks back into his office as the Reverend loses balance from spastic waving, and falls against a food stall.
The preacher cannot tell he has just given his most powerful sermon, and Al cannot bear witness to who he truly is. Yet, only when one perspective witnesses the other can space be created where the viewer, us, discovers something about these characters that is not obvious to either of them. These shifting perspectives not only tells us about the people, but also the place. This place does not know what it is yet, but its truth is becoming clear with each new set of eyes that swing back and forth between the lives of this town. In the first half of this episode, we have already witnessed the slow degradation of integrity and the gradual corruption that will sink into the bedrock of this town, as oscillating eyes begin to define it. Deadwood is the story of civilization and how it grows and changes. This growth is only possible with the meandering perambulations of perspectives. Without the multitude of intersecting stories, not only would Deadwood fail to grow and develop into a city, but so would we ourselves have failed to know what this city is, and in turn, who we are in this city.
