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Profane. Complex. It's not just HBO. It's Deadwood. And for viewers who pay close attention to the excellent series, their patience will be rewarded.

By CHASE SQUIRES
Published March 5, 2005

If you don't get Deadwood, HBO's enigma wrapped in a mystery wrapped in mud, blood and a blue streak of profanity - don't cuss yourself.

The truth is buried deep. Real deep.

Co-executive producer Gregg Fienberg, a veteran of TV's confounding Twin Peaks, said that sometimes even he has a hard time penetrating the vision of creator-writer David Milch.

But fear not. Beyond the muddy streets, there is meaning, and good things come to those who watch and pay attention, Fienberg said.

Deadwood begins its second season Sunday in a run that promises a collision of the mining outpost's raw incivility and the encroachment of government and order. New forces will assert their influences: politicians, lawmen, women, scoundrels, capitalism and telegraph wires.

"Modernism is sort of taking over," Fienberg said in a telephone interview this week. "It's what happens with any place that comes with the discovery of vast resources. The forces of society are going to take over."

For starters, women appear to be ranging beyond the role of prostitute or servant. But to focus on just that aspect of the new season is to miss the point, Fienberg said.

True, gold-claim owner Alma Garrett (Molly Parker) is a growing force. She has money, and everyone wants a cut. True, madam Joanie Stubbs (Kim Dickens) is beginning to flex her influence in a town where women are in short supply.

And indeed, prostitute Trixie (Paula Malcomson), has survived the first season under the brutal hand of saloon owner/criminal kingpin Al Swearengen (Golden Globe winner Ian McShane), emerging stronger in the second go-round.

But Fienberg said every episode is interconnected, so focusing on one theme misses the bigger picture - like staring at a single dot in a pointillistic painting.

Milch is asking a lot of viewers.

For starters, the brutality and gruff language is exhausting. The stream of profanity became a topic of discussion and humor in its first season. A Web site that claims to have counted every f-word in the first season tallied 831, an average of 69.3 per episode or 1.23 f-words per minute.

Milch doesn't let up with the new season. The first episode opens with a sex scene and rolls out 62 f-bombs, following that with 103 more in the second episode (plus a dead guy gets fed to the hogs, again.)

Get over it, Fienberg urged. The language of Deadwood is vulgar. It's not going to change. The FCC won't touch it because it's on HBO, not broadcast television. Turn this show on, and you're asking for it.

Milch claims the swearing is part of the realism. A long, rambling interview with him printed in the New Yorker last month portrays him manically dictating his dialogue to a roomful of writers from the floor of a trailer.

"It's definitely a challenge, the depth to which he writes," Fienberg said last week. "The truth is, what you're dealing with is a master storyteller, one of the master storytellers in all of writing. I challenge anyone to put the depth to which this man writes up against anything."

Sometimes things don't connect to the main story until the end. When Episode 12 rolls around, viewers better know what happened in Episode 1.

The key, Fienberg said, is to keep an eye on the horizon. The rest will fall into place.

"How a person plays out his own individual needs, but plays into the collective, that's the theme of the series," he said.

Malcomson cut to the point of the story even further.

In a telephone interview, the conversation drifted through her character's destination, her own experiences as an actor, working with Milch, and then, she struck a nugget. She said she hadn't thought much about what she was going to say before she said it, but there it was.

"It's really about the town, as the main character. That's what it's sort of all about," Malcomson said. "I think that's why it's really hard to talk about. . . . When you're in it, you're in it. You kind of deal with what's going on around you. I probably have to watch the show to understand. It's a strange, strange thing."

Milch could probably better explain that the main character isn't a foul-mouthed saloon owner or a prostitute or an unwilling sheriff, Malcomson said. He could probably explain better that the show is about society.

"But he'll invoke Dante and the Bible and talk for four hours before he'll tell you that," she said.

Television could stand to give the audience credit more often for being smarter than expected, Fienberg said.

Give viewers something as tough as beef jerky to chew on, a huge theme, and they'll gnaw through, Fienberg said.

Just not all at once. Even those closest to Milch don't always get it the first time.

"Going through post-production, I might see a show 10, 20, maybe more, times before it hits the air, and then I'll see something new when I watch it on the air," Fienberg said.

"David pays you off for being loyal."

- Chase Squires can be reached at 727 893-8739 or squires@sptimes.com

REVIEW: Deadwood, the second season, premieres Sunday at 9 on HBO.

[Last modified March 4, 2005, 09:31:37]