[Earlier this year, I shared with Vaughn one of my favorite TV shows and cultural works of all time, Deadwood. Watching and talking about it with her made me realize how many AmericanStudies layers it features, so this week I’ll blog about a handful of them, leading up to a weekend post where I’ll develop my overarching reading of the show’s American ideas!]
On how a frustrating character helps us understand 21st century America, and, because it’s Deadwood, another and even more interesting layer.
As I alluded to briefly in Monday’s post, because it was unexpectedly and unceremoniously canceled after its third season (thank goodness we got the 2019 movie, at least!) Deadwood in its final season features some new characters and plot threads that take up more attention than likely would have been the case had David Milch known he was close to wrapping up. That includes the Earp brothers about whom I wrote on Monday, who are at least only present for a pair of episodes; as well as the arrival of Jack Langrishe (Brian Cox) and his theater company, on whom the show spends a good bit of screen time and who certainly feel that they need more story to justify the amount of time we spend with them (although I do love what Langrishe adds to our perspective on his apparently old friend Al Swearengen, as well as the small ways Langrishe does what he can to support Al against the villainous George Hearst). But it also includes the characters and plot threads on whom I’ll focus in the week’s two final posts, each of which feels like a potential distraction but which when we think more about them actually open up key layers to the show’s community, themes, and legacies.
I’ll admit that the first time I watched Deadwood, I was as thoroughly annoyed by Steve the Drunk (Michael Harney) as the rest of the camp seems to be. Not because he’s a drunk (so is Jane Cannary, one of my favorite TV characters of all time), but because, among other reasons: he believes himself to be superior to everyone else yet whines incessantly about all the wrongs that have been done to him; wants power and prestige in the community but would rather wallow in self-pity and attack others than do anything to improve himself or that community; and expresses constant white supremacist prejudice and hate, leading directly to the destruction of one of the camp’s most genuinely impressive figures, the Black man known as Hostetler. Sound like anybody we know here in 2026? And I don’t just mean Trump, although yes; I mean also and especially the prototypical MAGA male who has been Trump’s most loyal supporter since he made his national political reputation baselessly and hatefully attacking the first Black president and then whining about the consequences he paid for those attacks. For example, while Trump has been a scion of privilege throughout his life, the average MAGA male and his family have experienced some significant setbacks, as seems to be the case for Steve; they’re just so, so wrong about what and who to blame for those difficulties.
All of which is made even clearer, yet also more thoughtfully complicated, by Steve’s evolving relationship to the show’s other most consistently present Black character, Samuel “Nigger General” Fields (Franklyn Ajaye; he calls himself by that nickname, although I still don’t enjoy writing it). Samuel is a friend of Hostetler’s, and Steve thus includes him in the same hate he directs Hostetler’s way, even threatening Samuel with lynching on multiple occasions. But at the same time, Steve desperately wants Samuel’s friendship, to the point that when Samuel is about to leave town, Steve tries to unshoe his horse to stop him, and gets kicked in the head and permanently disabled as a result—leaving Samuel to care for him, which he surprisingly and movingly does. Moreover, we eventually learn that Steve’s last name is also Fields, suggesting at least a parallel between the two men if not indeed a hidden familial relationship (there’s a joke in one scene that Steve is worried that he has a “Black nose,” and maybe it’s not just a joke after all). In any case, what Steve apparently wants more than anything is to be part of a community, even—if not especially—with those toward whom he targets his vocal but misdirected hate. There’s a lesson there for MAGA men, if only they could learn it before they get themselves—and us all—further kicked in the head.
Next DeadwoodStudying tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What do you think? Takes on Deadwood you’d share?
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