“Something Very Expensive,” Deadwood (writer and director: Steve Shill)
My response to Deadwood was a stage by stage affair. It took about four episodes in the first season for me to go “this is a show I’m gonna watch because it’s on HBO and looks interesting” to “this is an interesting, good show.” By the end of the first season, it was a show verging on greatness. This episode catapulted this beyond greatness into the realm of “very special/holy-mother-of-GOD!!!” It’s a stunning episode, extremely well written and directed, with a mastestroke casting decision at it’s core. Garrett Dillahunt, poet-laureate of country rubes and plain simpletons, asssayed an intriguing character in the first season of Deadwood, but was killed off and many of us assumed that would be the end of him. But Milch, in a creative maneuver, recast Dillahunt as the suavely sociopathic Wolcott, a man tortured by demons and with a flair for violence and prostitues. Kim Dickens gives her finest performance in the series thus far, and the Yankton plot thickens (as do many others). But it’s the scene that cements this as a decade classic. The writing (achieving a level of poetry that is rare even on this show, let alone television in general – so richly eloquent I’ve committed it to memory), the direction (the way the camera weaves by obstacles; the claustrophobically beautiful murder sequences) and the acting (Dillahunt is so cooly evil that it remains one of the decade’s finest performances). The attention to detail is always top notch, but there’s a moment during the murder sequence that always sends chills up my spine (Wolcott moving the knife in the background) for it’s visual elegance. A remarkable hour of television.