Welcome to 12 Days of Deadwood, in which Matt Zoller Seitz, author of the upcoming A Lie Agreed Upon: The Deadwood Chronicles, revisits the first season of the landmark HBO drama one episode at a time. Up today: “Mr. Wu,” written by Bryan McDonald and directed by Daniel Minahan, which originally aired on May 23, 2004.
As the community of Deadwood grows, the speaking parts grow with it. E.B. Farnum’s dim employee Richardson (Ralph Richeson) makes his first onscreen appearance in “Mr. Wu,” along with Hostetler (Richard Gant), a stable owner previously talked about but not seen, and Silas Adams (Titus Welliver), a Yankton debt collector who ends up serving as a sounding board for Al and a silent witness to the episode’s climactic drowning. (“No one’s looking to fuck you up the ass,” Al assures Silas after inviting him to the bathhouse. “I gotta execute someone.”)
At the center of the tale is a vivid supporting player stepping into the spotlight after scowling in the wings: Keone Young’s Mr. Wu, boss of Chinatown, head honcho of laundry, dope dealing, and corpse disposal, and Al’s equal in fearsomeness, if not social standing.
The backbone of the hour is a story line about Al helping Wu in a crisis. This turns out to be another case where self-interest and civic-mindedness ironically intertwine. Seems a couple of addicts murdered a courier bearing a ball of dope that was supposed to be split between Wu and Al. It takes a drawing, some pantomiming, and a lot of Wu’s-on-first to sort this out because neither speaks the other’s language. The situation is delicate because one of the robbers (Larry Cedar’s faro dealer Leon) works for Cy and is paid as a spy by Al, while the other (Dean Rader-Duval’s Jimmy Irons) is employed by Al exclusively. Even though Cy isn’t financially affected by the theft/murder, he’s a cold-blooded opportunist; Al warns Wu that if he offs both robbers, Cy might try to paint Al as a race traitor and spark a white riot that would end Chinese lives. (Silas proves Al was right to have a good feeling about him by figuring all of this out on his own.)
Al gets involved for self-interested reasons — it’s his dope, too — but the patience and cunning he displays not only confirm that he’s a wiz with tedious but necessary gangster details, but he is himself an exemplar of qualities he attributed to Cy in “Plague”: brass fucking balls and a long-term vision for the future. Every move that Al makes here is thought out both in terms of the moment and the moment beyond the moment.
Disregarding the camp’s norms, Wu storms into the Gem via the front entrance. Al lets the faux pas pass and bids him to come upstairs over Johnny’s sputtering objections; then he asks him to leave through the back, but the patience he displays while devising a common language with Wu, and the way he handles the revenge killing, confirms that he recognizes Wu as his counterpart, and his snarling about “celestials” (and for that matter, “dirt-worshippers”) is more a matter of bad socialization and political opportunism than a manifestation of Jack McCall–style, gut-level loathing. Al would happily kill both robbers if he could. But he convinces Wu to settle for one vengeance killing because two could invite blowback disproportionate to the offense, and neither wants that.
The masterstroke comes when Al makes Jimmy draw straws to determine whether he or Leon will have to “apologize” to Wu (by dying). Leon will describe having been spared as if by coin toss, even though Al pre-certified Jimmy’s demise by offering straws of identical length. “I saw a fair procedure!” Leon yelps, snatching the dregs of the bathhouse dope as Jimmy goes full fathom five.
Cy will be unnerved or troubled by Al’s actions when Leon finally tells him what happened to Jimmy. But he might not obsess beyond that because Al played things right. Cy’s guy lived. Cy only cares about his own bottom line and being spared the necessity of doing work or dealing with drama he didn’t create.
Al and Wu’s underworld team-up initially seems offered in contrast to communal advances shown elsewhere, but in hindsight, it seems like a rougher cousin of mundane actions that happen in rooms and out on the streets. This hour is about Deadwood continuing to transform into Deadwood, whatever that means. (We believe in Deadwood’s purpose, not knowing it.) The camp is creating itself. The process entails the invention of offices, institutions, and rituals. Ultimately, this is all about community and fellow-feeling and the mass consciousness summoned by agreement upon illusions. It’s about love.
Seth goes to E.B. with a proposal to use a portion of local taxes to pay for the creation of a dump and an infirmary, possibly in Hostetler’s livery stable (and notice how Hostetler, a Black man, demands a baseline of respect from Seth just as Wu demands it from Al). Smug E.B. offers to “take it under advisement.” Seth takes the proposal to the Pioneer, which will offer it directly to the reading public. (A.W. Merrick was right about the fourth estate serving as an unofficial partner in governance.) Although E.B.’s restaurant was on track to serve as Deadwood’s other unofficial civic meeting chamber, the place has gotten so crowded that buffet patrons find themselves waiting forever for one of a handful of available tables; much is made of the logistics of Joanie offering a seat for Charlie, and Merrick shaming post-meal loiterers into giving one up for Alma and Sofia. Merrick proposes bypassing all that by forming a walking club called the Ambulators. Charlie, Seth, and Sol aren’t feeling it, but it’s the thought (the spirit) that counts. (The way Sol says “Merrick,” it almost sounds like he’s saying “Mayor.”)
Joanie admits to Eddie that she’s only been pretending to look for property to lease because she doesn’t want to accept seed money from a man who made her kill a teenage girl. Eddie then proposes the episode’s second civic-minded criminal act: He’s going to avenge himself against the boss who fucked him up by robbing him and giving some of the haul to Joanie.
The Gem, meanwhile, continues to foster a sense of community beyond its utility as a place where people can get laid, drunk, and high. The new upright piano ordered by Al amplifies the sense that the joint is turning into a home away from home as well as a base of operations. The piano is simultaneously a device for public delivery of music, drama, and story, and a way to entice strangers to create their own tiny and ephemeral community built around song and dance. The tumor-afflicted Reverend Smith, cloudy-eyed and increasingly forgetful, takes solace in the sound. Just like earlier when he made Wu exit through the Gem’s back entrance after entering through the front, Al wavers between warmly indulging the Reverend (who reminds him of his similarly afflicted brother) and commanding him to get the fuck out (the sight of a man of God “kickin’ up his heels like a four-bit strumpet” allegedly dampening the vice biz).
The importance of rituals as social glue is most vividly affirmed in scenes near the end. The Reverend wanders into Sol and Seth’s hardware store and admits not recognizing them as his friends even though he understands the significance of the space (“I watched goods in the tent this structure replaced”). The partners bear witness to the Reverend’s distress without passing judgment and channel A.W.s spirit by inviting him on a nighttime stroll.
We may be reminded of A.W.’s description of what made E.B.’s restaurant significant. “It was the meandering conversations, the lingering with men of character, some of whom are walking with me now, that was such pleasure to experience, and such joy now to recall.” His words ring in our minds like an old familiar tune as Sol, Seth, and the Reverend ambulate. Love is the morning and the evening stroll.
