---
title: 'Deadwood, Take Two'
date: '2008-07-28T04:49:54-04:00'
permalink: /deadwood-take-two/
tags:
    - watching
---

R. and I have been rewatching [Deadwood](http://www.hbo.com/deadwood), starting from the beginning, over the last few weeks, and I’ve found myself rather astonished by a few things:

1\. How many small details and insinuations I’ve picked up that simply eluded me the first time around. I can’t count the number of times I’ve said “oh! That’s what that was about!”

2\. How quickly my language has once again been infected by [Deadwood-speak](/how-much-do-i-fucking-love-heather-havrilesky/), not just in my choice of nouns and adjectives, but in syntax.

3\. How absolutely brilliant the series was, not just in a use of language that comes as close as I can imagine to the Shakespearean, and not just in its stunning visual sense, but in its characterizations, its performances, and in the degree to which it made me care about a time and a place that I’d never before had the least interest in.

4\. How insanely fucking furious I am made by the decisions of HBO/David Milch/whomever else involved, first to [pull the plug](http://www.salon.com/ent/tv/review/2006/06/11/i_like/) on the fourth and final season, and now to [eliminate what pathetic little shred of hope remained](http://www.zap2it.com/tv/news/zap-fitb-deadwooddead,0,5443047.story) for any kind of even half-assed conclusion to the series.