Word: swearengen
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...operative word, however, was guy. Like many revolutions, this one liberated the men first. The shows focused on male antiheroes and their loud, angsty Y-chromosome dramas: Tony, The Shield's Vic Mackey, Rescue Me's Tommy Gavin, Dexter's serial killer Dexter Morgan, Deadwood's Al Swearengen, 24's Jack Bauer. These shows made TV more complex and challenging, but their definition of serious drama had a pronounced silverback streak...
...STARTS JUNE 11 Law is coming to the mining settlement of Deadwood. But order is not. Seth Bullock (Timothy Olyphant) is running for sheriff in the town's first election while misanthropic magnate George Hearst (Gerald McRaney) is ruthlessly moving in on the mining operations. Saloonkeeper Al Swearengen (Ian McShane) sees Hearst's thugs as a threat to his crime-and-vice monopoly. "Bloodletting on my premises-- that I ain't approved--I take as a f__ing affront," he says. HBO seems ready, foolishly, to let Season 3 be the western's last. It's worth hopping on this...
Many actors might play such a character with wicked intensity. McShane excels at bringing out Swearengen's contradictions, not just with bluster but also with "the slightest gesture and simple stare," in the words of Timothy Olyphant, who plays Seth Bullock, the town sheriff and Swearengen's headstrong counterweight. Swearengen is coarse yet intelligent, brutal yet subtle. "He is the primitive in the modern world," says McShane. "Swearengen is the smartest man in town, but he knows that because of his nature he will not be accepted. So he pulls the strings behind the scenes...
...second season (Sundays, 9 p.m. E.T.; premieres March 6), Swearengen is under pressure as the territory prepares to be absorbed by the expanding U.S., bringing the threat of law and competition from corporations and other opportunists. When he sees workers putting up telegraph poles, what is progress to others is an encroachment on his action. "By all means, let's plant poles all across the country!" he shouts. "Festoon the c___sucker with wires to hurry the sorry word and blinker our judgments! Ain't the state of things sorry enough? Don't we already face enough f____in' imponderables...
Just as a Shakespearean actor can make iambic pentameter sound natural, so McShane brings Milch's profane yet lofty dialogue to life. And he makes Swearengen the embodiment of the feral, vital greed that fueled a nation's growth. His character is loathsome but, McShane notes, also "the galvanizing force behind what the camp would become--a legitimate place for people to live." Civilization may be closing in on Al Swearengen's mining town, but his rich character offers Ian McShane plenty of gold yet to strike. --Reported by Jeanne McDowell/Los Angeles