If you don’t know by now that I am a huge lover of HBO’s Deadwood, then you haven’t been paying attention. I spent an entire weekend watching Season 1 on DVD years ago and have been hooked ever since.
This is one of my favorite scenes of all three seasons. It’s gritty and shows an awful lot about life. On one hand, you have Dan Dority who is a natural killer but so likable that it’s impossible to want him to lose this fight to the death. On the other hand, you have Captain Turner who is so calm and cool in his badassery that it’s hard to want him dead. But in those days, the “everybody wins” attitude we have now didn’t fly. Someone would lose, someone would die.
At one point during the fight, Captain Turner is about to finish off Dority and it breaks your heart. We knew The Captain was probably stronger of the two but again, no one wanted Dority to die. Swearengen knows he’s about to lose his right hand man and you can see on his face the moment when he accepts Dan’s death. But then the Captain hesitates, being advised by his boss (George Hearst) to drag out the fight. This proved to be a bad decision and Dority wins in the end. It’s a confusing thing, feeling happy because Dan makes it but sad at the same time that a strong fighter like The Captain is beat.
What does this have to do with barbells? Dunno. We were in Maryland all weekend at a Starting Strength seminar and I’m taking a break from finishing some follow up work from the seminar. I needed some entertainment and this worked.
Deadwood Urban Dictionary word of the day:
Captain Turner-The act of dislodging one’s eyeball from its socket with only a finger.
