Deadwood - The Complete Second Season

I got this for my husband as a gift & he's gotten me hooked on the show now! The one draw back about this show is the language. Every few words is a cuss word & really isn't necessary to get their point across. However, the show is interesting about life in the west. Very adult content.

David Milch and Company struck a rich vein of creative ore with Season 1 of Deadwood: brilliant, profane, quirky, hilarious, unexpected and unique; and, Season 2 falls in stride to continue the tale of the lawless boom town full of the ambitious, the broken, the crazed and the lost, and to further Milch's exploration of themes both broad and intimate concerning how individuals behave, one to another, and how they organize themselves when there is no other ostensible organizing principle beyond greed but which, in reality, only masks the inherent and instinctive human desire for structure and family, albeit here, some mighty dysfunctional families at that.

Beginning with a brutal showdown fight between Bullock (Tim Olyphant) and Al Swearengen (Ian McShane) which is actually not a culmination but really the beginning of their close bonding as allies, Milch then takes the unprecedented step of side-tracking his magnificent and audience-popular central character Swearengen for several episodes to allow a fuller exploration of other characters and their relationships. With the Boss down and out of action, the followers and hangers-on scramble in panic, indecision and vulnerability. Meanwhile we are introduced to new characters and themes, most notably the chilling psychopath Wolcott, and the aging and desperately mercenary Maddie, and following on the heels of all is the toweringly ruthless George Hearst, making his appearance finally at Season's end and debuting what will be an absolutely brilliant turn by Gerald McRaney that will continue and expand in Season 3. This Season contains within it a tragedy and its aftermath that is handled with superb sensitivity and depicted with tact and understatement that I found very moving.

Deadwood would never be a series for a general audience, and I would recommend it soley to those whose tastes I know well. It is not a Western, if your idea of Westerns are cowboy movies. It is not reality, no more than the lives of English Kings are the reality of Shakespeare's plays. The reality of Deadwood, as detailed in the DVD extras, is merely a starting place for the imaginative spell Milch weaves with character and dialogue and mood and atmosphere. It is obvious there are many who are deaf, dumb and blind to the simple pleasures of droll dialogue, quirky asides and a convulted plot that many times finds numerous side trips and diversions on its way to often ambiguous conclusion. So be it.

Deadwood is obviously not for all tastes, and delicate sensibilities need not apply. It remains obsinately, brilliantly, profanely eloquent with difficult and flawed characters, priceless dialogue, and themes big and small for those who love it. It wears its ecentricities proudly and it is a feast of terrific acting by a fine ensemble cast, in a marvelous set, that is lit, photographed and directed in a series that is superior to most films, let alone most television. And for those who hate it and those of us who love it, Season 3 gets even more eccentric and weird, God bless it!

We purchased season 1, 2 and 3 of Deadwood. Fantastic HBO series. It is too bad that there was not a 4th season. Buy with confidence. We love it.

If you have seen the HBO series you will want to own this, it stays in your blood. Not for viewing by children or teenagers at all. Very strong language and situations. Realistic and brutal at times, but in all cases it follows closely the real events of the founding of Deadwood.

Again, the title of this review says it all. Too bad HBO didn't do a fourth season!