I Like to Watch

"Deadwood" turns melancholy, "Brotherhood" hits its stride, and a "Project Runway" designer breaks the rules and gets the boot.

By Heather Havrilesky

Read more: TV, Arts & Entertainment, Heather Havrilesky, I Like to Watch

Aug. 6, 2006 | You know I love you, lumpy, but you expect way too much of me. Every week, I'm supposed to watch a wide variety of TV shows and then report back to you about them. Sounds simple enough, right? Well, it's not that simple, because I can't watch TV the way you watch TV. You can tune in for this and that, then just check out and spend two weeks watching the first two seasons of "The Wire" on DVD.

What? I'm not throwing it in your face, I know you told me that in confidence. I'm just saying, am I afforded that luxury? No, I'm not. I don't have time, because I have to keep up with the second season of "Flavor of Love." Yes, there is going to be a second season. See, you wouldn't know this stuff if I didn't tell you.

Oh my god, there you go again, with the "But it's your job!" thing. I don't need you to remind me what my job is, OK? I don't tell you what your job is, do I? What is your job, anyway?

Oh, right, you're on the job right now. Like that's so hard! What, I'm jealous? Give me a break. It just bugs me that you don't get it. You don't realize how much stuff I have to watch, and I'm always behind! Between the huge stack of DVDs of fall shows I need to watch immediately and the huge list of DVDs of great shows you've strongly recommended that I watch immediately, there's just too much to watch immediately. Plus, I'm halfway through the first season of "Battlestar Galactica," I just got the entire fourth season of "The Wire" in the mail (That's right, the brand newseason! Eat your heart out!) and to top it all off, Fox sent me the entire first season of "Prison Break," which I want to watch before the next season begins later this month. How am I supposed to keep up with all of it?

Of course! There you go, bringing film critics into this! Sugar dumpling, I'm sorry, but you're out of your league on this one. Film critics have the free time to become eccentric. Movies only last two hours, three hours tops! They can sit around reading back issues of "Film Threat" and cataloging Kurosawa's greatest works and studying documentaries on Werner Herzog. They have time to sip strong coffee and argue the merits of the French New Wave movement. I know, they don't change their sweaters or wash their hair all that often, but they can afford to look greasy and distracted, because they're experts in Godard or Hitchcock or God knows who. If a TV critic smelled that bad, people would just feel sorry for her. Hell, they do anyway.

Deadwooda, coulda, shoulda
OK, maybe I am a little jealous. It's just that (sniff) when you went into detail about that weekend that you spent curled up with the first two seasons of "Deadwood," not only did I wish that I hadn't watched the first two seasons of "Deadwood" as they aired so I could watch them all in one weekend like you did, but I wished I had the time to go back and experience the thrill of meeting that cocksucker Al Swearengen all over again.

There are only four more episodes of "Deadwood" (9 p.m. Sundays on HBO) left, you know, and then it's all over. And look where the characters are -- in the middle of a great big mess, and we'll never know how it all turns out, thanks to those filthy bean counters at HBO! What is wrong with them? What kind of a sick world do we live in, that a show this good has to go out like that?

Things are getting awfully melancholy in Deadwood lately, too. Alma Garrett is sliding into a junkie haze, Bullock is stomping around with smoke coming out of his ears, Doc is ailing, and even poor Merrick is getting strong-armed by Hearst. Swearengen is the only one with a cool enough head to try to navigate such roiling waters with some semblance of sense, but you still get the feeling that he half-expects the ship to be crushed against a rocky shore at any minute. That's the beauty of Swearengen: He has that mournful look in his eyes that makes it clear he's seen far worse troubles than this, and in fact, he'll be damn surprised if the whole thing doesn't end badly.

Hell, even seeing that crazed asshole Steve get what was coming to him turned out to be hopelessly sad. After weeks of listening to his angry racist diatribes, he tries to take the shoes off the General's horse and ends up getting kicked in the head so hard that he's brain-damaged to the point of being unable to talk or move. The General halfheartedly delays his trip to San Francisco in order to keep an eye on Steve and settle things with the bank, and he ends up making an uneasy peace with the whole ugly situation: In one of my favorite scenes of the season, the General chucks grits in Steve's face out of frustration and hatred for all the nasty man has put everyone, including the now-dead Hostetler, through. Steve just sits there, his face completely covered in grits, until it's almost unbearable to watch. Finally, the General himself can't take it, and pulls out a cloth and gently wipes the grits off Steve's face.

David Milch and the writers of "Deadwood" sure have a way of playing with our sympathies, turning us firmly against that stubborn ass Steve, then lending him a little humanity when he drinks himself into a stupor in apparent guilt over Hostetler's suicide, then forcing us to pity him completely after his pointless and avoidable accident with the horse. Of course, Steve's rage started with another accident with a horse, the one that killed Bullock's son, so it makes sense that he would be done in by the same random event that he blamed so squarely on Hostetler.

We get the same confused feelings of sympathy and anguish when Jack Langrishe adjusts Hearst's back: For all of Hearst's swagger and ruthlessness, he may be the loneliest man in the camp, and when you glance past his immediate business, he can seem downright desperate for a friend. Langrishe, who's accustomed to reading people, has no trouble recognizing this, and reports back to Swearengen that he may have found a way to manipulate Hearst in the future.

As dark as the town of Deadwood can feel, it's unlikely friendships like the one between Langrishe and Swearengen that make the show so moving and unforgettable. That's the mark of a great dramatic work: when the smallest, most insignificant moments grab at your heart. Whether it's the General clearing away the grits from Steve's face or Jewel asking Swearengen if there should be canned peaches at the upcoming meeting, the creators of this show know how to give us a taste of hope and sweetness at the oddest times. There may always be dark clouds on the horizon, but even as the storm moves in, there are these moments of grace between relative strangers. Aunt Lou and the General, Jane and Joanie, Al and Jack, Bullock and his wife -- somehow the mood of the show, and the richness of its characters, allow us to revel in the simplest exchange of confidences or the tiniest hints of humor.

Damn it, I love this show almost as much as I love you, my little bovine dumpling. I still can't believe there are only four more episodes left!

Next page: The joys and pitfalls of marathon viewing