Glad as I was to see Hearst get shot on last week's Deadwood, I was far more excited by how it went down. Trixie - Deadwood's lead whore, and thereby both textually and subtextually the town's high priestess of female power - found out that Hearst had Ellsworth shot, and being sister-in-arms to Ellsworth's grieving widow, Trixie took up her pistol, ripped her blouse open to bear her breasts, and stormed into Farnum's hotel, where Hearst was staying. She knocked on Hearst's door and just as he opened it, she lifted her skirts and showed him her vagina... and then she shot him in the chest.

I knew David Milch was a smart son of a bitch and I knew Deadwood was constructed on both a literal and a mythic level, but damn, he nailed that shit. Deeper feminine knowledge that was news to me a year ago, being used on one of the most celebrated programs on television with absolutely no regard to whether the audience understands it or not? That is serious power. Deadwood's use of the whores has been fascinating throughout, and I'll get into the whole flashing-your-vagina thing in a later post, but for now, let's just bask in the small victory: they got it on television, they didn't have to dumb it down to the rubes, and they scored a major artistic and feminist hit just two and a half scant years after Janet Jackson's tortured nipple was declared "obscene."

Deadwood's a powerful place. I suppose we should have seen it before, and it's going to suck when it's gone.