S1, E3

Cy Tolliver (left) is the new guy in town, the operator of the Bella Donna casino. Al Swearengen, caught unawares at his arriving in town, curses up a storm, is furious, but then puts on a suit and walks across the street to greet the new competition. One of the ladies who's part of Tolliver's management team, whose name is Stubbs, sashays into the background of this photo. I guess she would be a counterpart to Trixie. 

I'm in the middle of Episode Four as I write this. I am at this stage I get with TV dramas where, on the one hand I am telling myself, "This really isn't that good. I'm barely paying attention to it. I'll just play it for background noise," and then the next thing I know, an entire hour has passed.

In this case, the "this isn't that good" sense of disappointment came, in part, due to the arrival of the new characters shown above. Al's new competition, the Bella Donna casino, puts him on his heels and also requires him, in some sense, to make amends with the people he'd been starting miniature wars with. This means, in particular, Seth Bullock--and so the promising animosity between the two men gets shifted abruptly to the back burner early in the episode. Al calls Bullock and his partner in for a meeting, and basically gives them what they're asking for. So much for standing on principles. So much for their intriguing little feud!

Whenever we start to meet Cy Tolliver and his Bella Donna crew, I find myself getting uncomfortable--it's like, too many characters. I don't want to get to know them as well as the characters I already know!

A lot of the episode concerns some other secondary characters whose fates I do already know, and yet it's kind of interesting to see them spool out as I expect them to. Wild Bill Hickok, on his way down the drain, playing a last few hands of poker before he goes. Brom Garret, an out-of-his-depth New Yorker whose future is less promising than Hickok's and who engenders far less sympathy. God, don't let this be me--what a fool ... Useful only for the beautiful widow he's leaving behind.

BUT ANYWAY, the episode re-grabbed a surprising level of energy in the latter fourth, when, as Al's most-trusted assistant Dan Dority is off in the woods to do the errand of killing Brom Garret, Al himself is closing in on the simpering E.B. Farnum. Al realizes, as he's reconnoitering and feeling out the new game in town as they get ready to open on the first day--he sees Farnum walking in and out of the new casino and somehow he instantly knows that Farnum has gone behind his back.

So Al calls Farnum up to his office and hovers over him, menacing, threatening death. Farnum admits his involvement, begs for his life. And then, Al lets him go. By the next episode, Farnum will again grow comfortable, will again start seeking opportunities to steal a few dollars here and there as a middleman. In a way, the episode gives us a close look at Farnum--through Al's eyes, as Al ultimately decides whether he will live or die.

I am looking for excuses to stop watching the show; at the same time, this on-line summary is growing and being born rather quickly, and in that sense I suppose I'm along for the ride.

This episode took on surprising tension midway through when Al cast his gaze malevolently on E.B. Farmum (left), who we learn had advance notice of the arrival of the competing casino and chose not to say anything. Al does what he can to encourage Farnum to be grateful to him for not slitting his throat over the slight.

[More notes on a repeat viewing: More characters memorable in their weirdness: the Reverend, played by Ray McKinnon, presiding over a funeral. The reporter Merrick, trying to get a quote from Bullock at said funeral--"will you not edify my readers?" "I don't know what 'edify' means." Another character who starts finding his voice in this episode is the Coward Jack McCall. This is before he earns the coward moniker--he's just talking trash with Hickok over poker. He is fucking full of it. Then Wild Bill, winning a hand for once, goes at him--starts calling him a cunt. McCall's like, "I will not get in a gunfight with you, Wild Bill." And Bill's like, "But you will run your cunt mouth at me. And I will take it to play poker."

Meanwhile we've got the great Calamity Jane and Charlie Utter trying to get the little girl into a hotel, since they no longer have to keep her hiding in a wagon far from camp--Al is no longer set on having the girl killed.

Then, the main set piece of the episode, perhaps, is Al dressing up in a tuxedo (with help from Trixie) to go across the street and introduce himself to Cy Tolliver. Cy is an interesting character--a creep, but not quite a match for Al. His story arc ... it never really comes full circle. Anyway, coming to watch this again, I resent his intrusion into the story less. He's real. They all are.]