Deadwood episode review — 3.12 — Tell Him Something Pretty

Original air date: August 27, 2006
Director: Mark Tinker
Writer: Ted Mann

Rating: 9/10

As a finale to a fantastic series, this is definitely more than a little underwhelming. However, as an episode of television, it’s quite riveting.

The majority of the episode focuses on what everyone must do about Trixie in order to satisfy Hearst.

Trixie is convinced while hiding out with Sol that Swearengen will kill another prostitute and attempt to convince Hearst that he killed the right one. Sol finds that this is exactly the case.

The climax of the episode comes after they have dressed up the dead prostitute in Trixie’s clothing and Hearst comes to examine the body in front of Swearengen.

And elsewhere, Joanie has a confrontation with Cy Tolliver, for the first time in a very long time, and while it seems to go relatively normal, but after she leaves, Cy seems to have gone off the rails.

The episode and thus the show concludes with Hearst leaving town, and Bullock attempting to arrest him with the entire camp overlooking it. It doesn’t go well. And that’s pretty much the end of the show.

So the episode is great. It’s really emotional, from everything going on with Joanie, and obviously the incredible dilemma that Trixie finds herself in. The scene with Swearengen showing off the other prostitute’s body is very suspenseful.

But it doesn’t feel like a real conclusion to the series, of course, which isn’t too surprising, given that the show was not renewed.