Worst Episode Ever

Worst Episode, Ever!

So, Joe and I are big Deadwood fans--that's the very dark western that's been running on HBO for the past three seasons. After a rather long and slow build-up, we had great expectations for the series finale.

Well, I sat through the final episode and all I can say is, "What a crock!" Got to be one of the worst episodes, and worst series finales, in the history of TV. It was as though the writers set out to give the audience a big "middle finger."

Let us count the sins:"

1. Hurst got off Scott-free after a season and a half of sociopath behavior, including ordering the murders of half-a-dozen characters.


2. This whole season, Swearengen has been coming off as rather an honorable and likeable criminal. He started out as the show's villain, before Hurst showed up. In the final episode, he slits the throat of an "innocent" prostitute in his employ in order to keep Hurst from murdering Trixie, the whore who shot Hurst. Why build Swearengen up to be a "good guy" and then knock him back down at the end? Why did he and the others choose to cop out of the battle with Hurst?


3. Bullock was oddly taken out of a couple of the last episodes to "campaign for sheriff." Why? Clearly the hands of the authors were visible in this machination, to keep Bullock out of the way for other action.


4. The widow sold her claim to Hurst in order to be able to stay in town, then left at the end, right behind Hurst's stagecoach! Both her husbands died in vain.


5. The Earp brothers appeared in the last third of the season for a couple of episodes, giving hope that they might stick around to battle Hurst. No way the writers could have conceived of that, I guess. Instead, the Earp boys just uselessly disappeared after Bullock told them to leave town.


6. There's more, but that basically runs the gamut of the important stuff.

On other fronts, not much new to report. I finished the Project Management class and got an A. Next up, Presentation Skills for Technical Communicators in about a month. On other projects for ML, I've been quite busy. Which is great! I'll never get back to Europe without money!

The weather here has been quite pleasant. Low 80s at the worst. A great Early Autumn preview.

More ruminations later....

David