Deadwood "Jewel's Boot Is Made for Walking" Review (1x11)

“If we didn’t hate them too much to be curious about the world, we’d wonder what they have to say.”

“Jewel’s Boot Is Made for Walking” deals with the intersection between the past and the present, with the question of who a person becomes when he or she arrives in Deadwood. These people all have their reasons for coming here, but this episode allows us more insight into the pasts of several characters; it sets up the finale, but it also makes for some interesting characterizations surrounding people like Alma and Al and Seth.

For Alma, her story is marked by the arrival of her father, Otis Russell, who turns out not to be quite as warm or inviting as he seems at first. He’s driven by ulterior motives, and we start to wonder whether him being in the town is actually a good thing for Alma; now, her past is coming into play, and Russell even suggests that Seth go after her. Seth responds by mentioning his wife and daughter–a fact about his own past that we learned a few episodes ago–and again, these characters are forced to confront the question of who they are in Deadwood. Is this place a clean slate? Should we look to the past in order to explain certain things? With civilization creeping in, does the past also inevitably creep in? How will the characters approach the future?

That last question is weighing heavily on Seth’s mind right now. He’s been grappling with the lawman vs. hardware guy debate since the beginning of the series, and here, it’s being ramped up a notch due to Con Stapleton being appointed sheriff. You can tell that Al would like to have Seth as sheriff, as while the two have their differences, they understand each other; they each know what makes the other tick, and their dynamic would probably help keep things running smoother more so than whatever Stapleton has up his sleeve. Stapleton’s a bit of a wild card, and this may end up biting Al in the ass at some point.

Lots of things are occupying Al’s mind, though, and it’s evident that there’s an undercurrent of unease here. He’s still dealing with Silas Adams, Cy, and Leon, and trouble’s brewing on the horizon; this seems to be represented by Reverend Smith’s steady decline, something that Al finds incredibly difficult to watch. To make matters worse for him, he finds out from Seth that Sol and Trixie got it on, and it’s certainly a blow to him because he realizes that no matter what, he will never be able to provide what Sol provides. Heading into the finale, it’s all up in the air for Al Swearengen.

And so, we arrive at the final monologue. It’s one of the best pieces of writing I have ever encountered, and Ian McShane is absolutely stellar throughout. At one point, he says that he doesn’t “look fuckin’ backwards”, that he does “what [he has] to do and [goes] on”, and this brings up that major theme of the episode: the past and the role it plays in both the present and the future. We learn that Al grew up in an orphanage in Chicago and that Mrs. Anderson was both fat and an abusive piece of shit, and this is a piece of information that may alter our perceptions of him just a bit. Al would tell us, though, not to look fuckin’ back because believe him: no one gives a fuck.

GRADE: B+

OTHER THOUGHTS:

-Cocksucker count: 7

Total cocksucker count: 122

-Al monologue of the week: Hey, you suck my dick and shut the fuck up, huh? Come here. Come on. The place where I found you is where this warrant’s from. Could you believe that I may have stuck a knife in someone’s guts 12 hours before you got on the wagon we headed out for fuckin’ Laramie in? No! Because I don’t look fuckin’ backwards. I do what I have to do and go on. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, what? You got a stagecoach to catch or somethin’, huh? Slow the fuck up. Did you know the orphanage part of the building you lived in, behind it, she ran a whorehouse, huh? Oh, so you knew? So, so what are you fuckin’ lookin’ at then, huh? God. Now, I’ll tell you somethin’ you don’t know. Before she ran a girls’ orphanage, fat Mrs. Fucking Anderson ran the boys’ orphanage on fucking Euclid avenue, as I would see her fat ass waddling out the boys’ dormitory at 5 o’clock in the fucking mornin’, every fuckin’ morning she blew her stupid fuckin’ cowbell and woke us all the fuck up. And my fuckin’ mother dropped me the fuck off there with 7 dollars and 60 some odd fuckin’ cents on her way to suckin’ cock in…in Georgia. And I didn’t get to count the fuckin’ cents before the fuckin’ door opened, and there, Mrs. Fat Ass Fuckin’ Anderson, who sold you to me. I had to give her 7 dollars and 60 odd fuckin’ cents that my mother shoved in my fuckin’ hand before she hammered 1,2,3,4 times on the fuckin’ door and scurried off down fuckin’ Euclid Avenue, probably 30 fuckin’ years before you were fuckin’ born. Then around Cape Horn and up to San Francisco, where she probably became Mayor or some other type success story, unless by some fucking chance she wound up as a ditch for fuckin’ cum. Now, fucking go faster, hmm? Okay, go ahead and spit it out. You don’t need to swallow. You just spit it out. Mmm. Anyways.

– “Do you swear before this witness to uphold whatever laws may be put in force
subsequently?” “Yeah, if I can. Yeah.”

-Another thing we learn: Alma was all about those Wild Bill stories when she was a kid. Makes sense, considering her relationship with him early on in the series.

– “For chrissakes, Mr. Starr. My cherry is obstructing my work, sir. Would you take it from me, for free?”

-The scene between Andy and the Reverend…man, every scene with the Reverend has to break your heart, doesn’t it?

- “Circumcision…is indeed profiteth if thou keepest the law, but if, uh…if thou are a transgressor of the law, thy circumcision become uncircumcision. Therefore, if uh, thy uncircumcision uh, keeps the uh, the righteousness of the lay, shall not his uncircumcision that is by nature fulfilling his lay shall judge thee, who by—by letter and uh, circumcision, transgresses the law.”

-On Doc and Jewel: this is the subplot that the title is derived from. I’m not entirely sure how it fits in thematically, to be honest–it’ll come to me at some point–but it’s another story that showcases pure compassion.