S02.E11: The Whores Can Come

[purist]

Quote

Death in the camp spooks the superstitious, and the impending funeral causes much sorrow. Cy is convinced that Andy - who will officiate at the service - is back in town to run a game. Wu asks Swearengen to back him against the "San Francisco cocksucker". Bullock encourages his wife to stay in Deadwood.

[purist]

Shocking opening to the episode, with Al sniffing the air and then the viewer finding out it's coming from a bonfire of dead Chinese women. Wu was very angry - does anyone know what he was saying? He looked devastated in Al's office when Al said he wouldn't help him with the San Francisco cocksuckah, too.

Seth and Martha were so inarticulate in their grief. First Seth wordlessly making William's coffin, and then all through the episode they hardly said a word to each other, and didn't touch - not during the discussion of the funeral service, not during the service itself - until the very end. I so badly wanted them to give each other a hug!

I love seeing Jane and Joanie becoming friends. How great was it to see Jane in just her long johns, angrily getting ready for her bath. She's usually covered in layers and layers of clothes (not to mention layers of self-loathing).

The short scene with Alma and Trixie in Alma's room, when they were discussing Ellsworth's marriage proposal, was great - especially Trixie casually taking Alma's glass out of her hands and sniffing it, to make sure it wasn't laudanum, which Alma didn't take offence at. Also, Trixie ceding to Alma the decision of whether or not to accept the proposal with this line: 'Few choices as are ours [i.e. women's] to make, others should stay the fuck out of the process.'

Other bits I noted:

• Al telling Jarry that William was his godson was outrageous and hilarious.
• Al not wanting to attend the funeral but craning his neck to see it from his balcony - I guess it brought back bad memories of his brother who died?
• The painful contrast between William's small dead body and Mose Manuel's enormous living body, with the doc tending to him.
• Sweet scene between Ellsworth, Alma and Sophia when Alma said yes to the proposal. Good to see that Ellsworth and Sophia are still poking their tongues out at each other.
• Cy is still needling Wolcott about 'the precipice' and going over it (i.e. killing the women at the Chez Ami). God, I hate Cy.

And Trixie giving us an insight into her complicated relationship with Al after Sol asks, 'Why did you go to him?' i.e. when William was dying. She replies: 'I lived most of my life a whore, and as much as he's a misery, the pimp's a whore's familiar. So the sudden strange or violent draws her to him.' And then she gives Sol hope by saying, 'Not that I wouldn't learn another way.'