Deadwood
Amateur Night
TV Flash files “Amateur Night” as hour 33 of 36 in the TV Flash guide — Deadwood (2004–2006) on HBO, season 3, episode 9, aired 2006-08-06, 60 min.
From the desk
How this hour is filed
This leaf is S03E09: listed hour 33 of 36 in the Deadwood guide, hour 9 of 12 in season 3. It aired 2006-08-06 (60 min). The listed hour before it is “Leviathan Smiles” (S03E08). Next is “A Constant Throb” (S03E10).
Catalog log
Broadcast listing — not a TV Flash recap.
As Deadwood is overrun by Hearst's men, Bullock issues contingency plans to Martha. Wu is caught in a Pinkerton stampede and delivers a cryptic message, that is solved by the unlikeliest person, to Swearengen. Barrett makes Merrick pay for embarrassing Hearst in "The Pioneer", while Morgan Earp calls out one of the "Pistoleros". As night falls, Langrishe mines Deadwood's talent pool with an amateur-night performance in front of his future theater, financed in part by a "loan" from Alma's bank.
Viewer FAQ
Where does Amateur Night sit in the Deadwood guide?
S03E09 is listed hour 33 of 36 — hour 9 of 12 in season 3, season 3 episode 9.
When did Deadwood S03E09 air?
Amateur Night aired 2006-08-06 and is listed at 60 minutes.
Where should I start?
The first hour, titled Deadwood. The language is the learning curve. Give it two episodes before deciding the profanity is the only instrument.
In the series
Why this series still plays
Watch it to hear a western think out loud. Three HBO seasons of municipal dirt, gold, and syntax that no other camp show matched — then a cancellation that left the thoroughfare mid-charter. The movie coda is a later telegram. The weekly run is the language lab.
Picture a thoroughfare that is mostly mud and already a legislature. Deadwood, South Dakota, 1870s — gold, whiskey, and men who swear like the King James Bible got drunk in a saloon. David Milch did not revive the western as costume parade. He revived it as a language lab: Ian McShane’s Al Swearengen conducting municipal politics from a balcony, Timothy Olyphant’s Bullock wearing law like a poorly fitted coat. On the palate: tobacco haze, wet boards, and three-act profanity that Standards & Practices of an…
Filed against
- Timothy Olyphant as Seth Bullock
Timothy Olyphant’s jawline enforced Deadwood as Seth Bullock — neo-western cool with deadly timing on HBO’s mud-and-profanity masterpiece. Lawman restraint against camp chaos, Milch’s syntax as civic music, three seasons the network cut…
- Ian McShane as Al Swearengen
Ian McShane’s Al Swearengen conducts Deadwood from a balcony — Shakespearean profanity, municipal politics, and a mud-street camp clawing toward civilization. David Milch revived the western as a language lab; McShane is the lab’s…
- Molly Parker as Alma Garret
Molly Parker’s Alma Garret is Deadwood’s gold as a woman who has to learn the camp’s language — widow, claim, and civic plot inside David Milch’s three-season HBO mud opera. Shakespeare in the profanity; she is the Eastern voice the…
- John Hawkes as Sol Star
John Hawkes’s Sol Star helps Deadwood claw from mud toward a town — Milch’s language lab with blood on the floor, gold as a civic engine. Not the balcony villain; the camp merchant in a three-season run HBO cut short. On TV Flash he is…
- Paula Malcomson as Trixie
Paula Malcomson’s Trixie is Deadwood’s thoroughfare in a woman’s voice — Milch profanity as civic music, a camp clawing toward order, blood on the floor of an HBO language lab. Three seasons, then a cancellation mid-charter. TV Flash…
- Brad Dourif as Doc Cochran
Brad Dourif’s Doc Cochran patched wounds and conscience on Deadwood — HBO mud-and-profanity masterpiece with a medic who saw every sin up close. Nervous brilliance under frontier grime. TV Flash keeps him in the neo-western infirmary of…