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Tell Him Something Pretty Robert Herritt REVIEWS & RECONSIDERATIONS Tell Him Something Pretty Robert Herritt he story goes that after he himself cover for what he wanted to submitted an early draft of do anyway. TDeadwood to HBO, David His maneuver was only fitting for Milch, the show’s creator, had some a show that so aptly dramatized the explaining to do. The script’s use of very human tendency to back-fill and obscenity was so brazen and volu- rationalize, to shoot first and give minous that it made even that net- answers later. In the world Milch work’s higher-ups, themselves no creates, reasoning, thought, speech, strangers to salty language, a little and even laws and institutions are uneasy. Surely a show set in a mining largely after-the-fact enterprises, camp during the 1870s Black Hills things people come up with to make Gold Rush had no need for dialogue sense of others’ actions, to make their so drenched in profanity. And wasn’t own actions intelligible, and, as in Milch’s choice of words — top-dol- Milch’s case, to ratify situations that lar expletives hardly unfamiliar to already obtain. Deadwood is a place today’s ears — anachronistic anyway? where the subterranean forces that If he wanted to work this blue, he’d shape human affairs are close to the have to provide a reason. surface, revealing the plans, theories, In reply to the executives, the customs, and laws that people impose former Yale literature instructor on their predicaments as mostly inci- penned a short essay, substantiated dental, their meaning a consequence with four pages of references, defend- of time and repetition. ing the foulness of his language as For those who haven’t had the true to the show’s time and place, as pleasure, Deadwood tells the story of well as to the characters themselves. how an illegal settlement on Sioux Whether his argument was sound land, populated by deviants and indi- or his research conclusive is mostly vidualists and lacking in formal laws, beside the point. Milch was deploy- gave rise to an organized community ing his skills as a theoretician to give and, eventually, a recognized part 68 ~ The New Atlantis Copyright 2019. All rights reserved. Print copies available at TheNewAtlantis.com/BackIssues. Tell Him Something Pretty of the Dakota Territory — today the months old. But its thoroughfare is city of Deadwood, South Dakota. already a lively site of commerce and Loosely based on historical charac- labor, lined with buildings in various ters and events, the story unfolds stages of completion and tents where over the course of three seasons, residents can purchase meat, whiskey, aired between 2004 and 2006, after and prospecting equipment. which the series was abruptly can- How civil society can arise so rap- celed before reaching anything like a idly in a place without law is among satisfying conclusion. the show’s richest themes. One could A feature-length movie, which pre- easily read Deadwood as a state-of- miered on HBO in May and is set a nature theory brought to life, a story decade on from the original series, is about how free adults guided by self- the closest the show’s devotees are interest might actually come togeth- likely to get to that long-awaited end- er to form a functioning society. Both ing. It also offers a welcome excuse Locke and Hobbes, two of the most for reconsidering Deadwood and its notable practitioners of this sort of lowly view of human reason — some- theory, cited America, and specifically thing I wanted to do anyway. Indian lands untouched by European influence, as a real-life instance of the ne of the first things to notice state of nature they each envisioned. Oabout Deadwood is how quickly “In the beginning,” Locke writes in the settlement comes into being. The his Second Treatise of Government, “all camp we see in the first episode is only the world was America.” HBO Deadwood under construction Summer 2019 ~ 69 Copyright 2019. All rights reserved. Print copies available at TheNewAtlantis.com/BackIssues. Robert Herritt Viewed as a genealogical thought the Dakota legislature might view experiment, the show reveals what the settlement’s legal standing. “We might be needed to get something don’t have to create it. It would be resembling a community off the disruptive if we did.” ground, and how that community might become a bona fide political his is just one of the ways in society through a series of events Twhich Deadwood inverts a cer- guided by no person in particular. tain rationalist picture of the social What begins as a practical endeavor and political — of top-down, techno- for furthering commerce and serving cratic deliberation as the ideal of prospectors takes on a life of its own, proper action. What the series shows growing into something worth sus- us time and again is a sequence of taining for its own sake. unplanned, impulsive, or unexpected By Deadwood’s third season, actions, the professed motivations even a murderous operator like Al for which are tacked on to suit other Swearengen — owner of the Gem purposes. saloon, pimp, thief, and the camp’s de So it is with one of the first sea- facto boss — has expanded his con- son’s pivotal events, the murder of cerns beyond his own gain. As he Wild Bill Hickok by Jack McCall, tells his friend Jack Langrishe, head who shoots the legendary gunfighter of a touring theater troupe, one eve- in the back in a fit of confused rage. ning while standing on the Gem’s During a meeting with his assigned balcony, aside from satisfying his attorney, McCall admits, “I’m a hard sexual desires, “I’ve no...ambition case for you, counselor. And no mis- past trading to my favor.” That might take, everyone in there saw me shoot have been true when he first arrived him.” “If you’ll let me set our strate- in Deadwood, but not anymore, as gy,” his lawyer replies, “I don’t think Langrishe is quick to remind him: we’ll dispute what people saw.” “Bullshit! A thing of this order you’d as soon not see ruined or in cinders.” McCall: Now, I guess you’re here Such is the process by which the to break me out. political realm emerges in Deadwood. Lawyer: Son, did James But- When laws and institutions appear ler Hickok ever kill a relative of on the scene, they aren’t instru- yours? ments of progress, but of stability and maintenance. They are ways of McCall: James Butler Hickok? protecting and perpetuating order that has arisen already. “Deadwood Lawyer: Wild Bill Hickok. Did he exists,” a corrupt magistrate tells ever kill a brother of yours or, or Swearengen as they consider how the like? 70 ~ The New Atlantis Copyright 2019. All rights reserved. Print copies available at TheNewAtlantis.com/BackIssues. Tell Him Something Pretty HBO Jack McCall (Garret Dillahunt) and his lawyer (uncredited) in a meat locker serving as a makeshift jail. McCall: A brother? it with the same respect it has the natives, claiming its riches for them- Lawyer: I’m asking you if what selves and their “ne’er-do-well cous- happened in that saloon was ins and brothers-in-law.” In this way, vengeance — for the death of a Milch shows how our retellings of family member? Possibly a broth- events, and our recounting of our er in Abilene. Or the like. own motivations, are often tools for obscuring some unsavory reality, or McCall: A brother in Abilene. at least making it more palatable. McCall’s defense will rest not on They are, as Swearengen says in the denying he killed Hickok, but on closing line of the series, attempts to contriving a suitable reason for why “tell [us] something pretty.” he did. The murderer’s exoneration How fitting, then, that someone is helped along by the fact that more like E. B. Farnum, a man governed than a few residents have a stake almost entirely by greed, envy, and in it, not least Swearengen. As he resentment, is also the most skilled sees things, convicting and executing talker, forever dressing up his unscru- a murderer might hurt the camp’s pulous nature with verbiage conspic- chances of getting annexed to the uously ornate even by Deadwood’s United States: The nation’s lawmak- standards. Farnum also secures him- ers could claim that Deadwood is self the title of mayor, a post even he a renegade government, and treat admits is “largely ceremonial.” Summer 2019 ~ 71 Copyright 2019. All rights reserved. Print copies available at TheNewAtlantis.com/BackIssues. Robert Herritt Deadwood’s most honest residents to himself than are most of the oth- are the ones least adept at ratio- ers. What sets him apart is that he nalizing their feelings and actions. admits as much. This is certainly true of Trixie, who begins the series as a prostitute at the hat our thoughts and reasons Gem and Swearengen’s lover. Unlike Tare, in a sense, downstream Farnum, the intricacy and vulgarity from the true causes of our behavior of Trixie’s speech is a true expres- might seem like a view at home in sion of her complicated thoughts, a materialist picture of the world. judgments, and emotions. She seems But what we see in Deadwood is always to speak directly from her something different altogether: an soul, making no effort to apologize, environment suffused with agency in much less to justify herself. which our individual intentions play Something similar can be said of only a small part.
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