Thanks for the link! I finally saw the Deadwood finale, and am among the baffled.

The more I think about the Deadwood finale, the braver it seems to me. After asking us to sympathize with the citizens of the town, it turns the most transitional character - the guy they'd converted from outright villain to an anti-hero of sorts - back into a cold-hearted murderer, killing the most innocent character yet to die deliberately, and then showed us that the outright good guys of the show would simply accept this sacrifice with the barest glimmer of revulsion. My god! I've been writing an article about the way Deadwood rejects the Hobbesian view of life in favor of Locke's neutral democracy, but this subverted my whole thesis. The characters never turned away from Hobbes' state of nature, all nasty, brutish, and short, but instead constructed a Lockean facade about it. When the chips were down, they were all - every single goddamn one of them - ready to sacrifice everything they claimed to hold dear just to save their skins. Deadwood isn't about the progressive force of civilization; it's about the adaptability of people to different aspects of brutality.

I may change my mind about all this again.

On a less philosophical note, some impressive cocksucker has counted The Number of Fucks In Deadwood.

I'm glad someone out there is tracking these important statistics.

Imteresting take, Corwood. It fits with some of what I've been thinking all season. It seemed like the story was trying to be civilization replacing the rule of the strong over the weak via something like the Invisible Hand, but I could never quite make that work. Because that wasn't what was going on, it's just what seemed to happen, I guess.

It's gonna take more thinking.

Isadora Duncan's husband (I have forgotten his name, but I remember his attitude) used to say that people should read novels like they listened to symphonies - all in one go with minimum distractions, reading straight through without stopping to, you know, live in between. I have a strong urge to watch all iof Deadwood that way - I feel like I will understand it better if I can hold it all in my head at once, which I might just be able to do if I just immerse myself in the DVDs for however long it takes.

I could do that, but I'd feel as though I couldn't speak to decent citizens in the thoroughfare afterward. Just the Chief. ETA: Any other Wire fiends see the behind the scenes documentary things? Very cool.

When the chips were down, they were all - every single goddamn one of them - ready to sacrifice everything they claimed to hold dear just to save their skins.

I'm not sure it was necessarily their own skins they were trying to save, in at least some of the cases. Unless by "their skins" you mean the town, because I think, in at least Bullock's case, it was more the avoidance of a larger bloodbath that prompted his going along with everything, much as he may have relished a confrontation with Hearst and his men on some level.

I really wish there hadn't been anyone around who could be passed off as Trixie, though - while I had no desire to see her killed, it would have prompted some serious conflict amongst those in on the whole situation.

The Alamo Drafthouse is doing this tonight, but, alas, I have band practice.

The Alamo Drafthouse is doing this tonight, but, alas, I have band practice.

All of my Austin friends out here, including my beloved S, have spoken glowingly many times of the Alamo Drafthouse. Next time I'm in Austin, I really need to check the place out. And possibly meet up with Mr. Industries and fam.

Sounds like the coolest bar not to (recently) have a body on its pool table.ETA: Great, Sean, thought perhaps I was blinded by protestations of McNulty love.

Next time I'm in Austin, I really need to check the place out. And possibly meet up with Mr. Industries and fam.

You definitely should do the former, but you absolutely must do the latter.

The Alamo's a theater, Erika! Best damn theater in the whole damn world, matter of fact.