I came to Deadwood late but since discovering the depth and unexpected beauty of the series have done my best to make up for lost time.

My love affair with the series caught fire when I taught an undergraduate seminar called Critical Media Studies: Deadwood and the Western, and was ably assisted by three graduate students who co-edited and contributed to a volume of student essays that you can purchase in print or view online free of charge.

This is the second volume of student essays in the Critical Media Studies Series, and I remain proud of their work.

Within the last year or so, I started getting messages from a former student (Jack McKinney is probably more passionate about the series than I am) that the rumors of a Deadwood movie were heating up.

In the wake of the abrupt cancellation of the show after three seasons, fans have been waiting over a decade for a little narrative closure, making the rumors of a movie welcome and having them confirmed with the release of a movie trailer a reason to celebrate (canned peaches, anyone?).

All of this Deadwood talk along with my keen anticipation of the release of the movie on HBO caused a bit of a dilemma after May 31 was announced as the date.

After years of seeing the majority of movies and favorite TV series solo then talking with friends about them or writing about them from time to time on this blog, I have discovered the unmitigated joy of collaborative viewing with someone who invariably enhances the experience (watching together in real time and analyzing together right away or comparing notes in a substantive way after viewing separately).

My boyfriend has been a sophisticated viewer (he will laugh at that, but it’s true) of various types of movies and television series for years. Dave Middleton’s a fan, so his enthusiasm level is high, but he is also very smart, so his insights and analysis intrigue me. It’s fun to learn from him, just as he learns from me. After all, learning should always be reciprocal — in the classroom or at the cinema or in the den in front of the television.

Deadwood is a case in point, but I am getting ahead of myself telling this story. Dave had never seen the series (shocking, I know!), but after Jack and I kept talking about it and as my excitement about the movie grew, he decided to jump in and binge watch all three series in the two weeks leading up to the release of the movie. Needless to say, I was impressed.

Not one to sit idly by, I did the same thing, which refreshed my memory of the series and gave us a lot to talk about after watching some of the episodes together and others separately in the days leading up to the movie premiere.

So, what did I think of the movie? I’m satisfied with it and have the closure I wanted.

[SPOILERS TO FOLLOW] Only one new character of any significance is introduced in the movie, which picks up about a decade after the series ends as a number of characters return to town to join those who never left Deadwood for a celebration of South Dakota becoming a state.

A young prostitute named Caroline Woolgarden (Jade Pettyjohn) gets off the train along with returning characters Alma Ellsworth (Molly Parker) and her daughter Sophia (Lily Keene). There is a train at this point in Deadwood, and the telephone has made an appearance, too, along with more permanent-looking structures and more fashionable clothing seen in town. I guess these are markers of progress!

The introduction of this new character may be one of the most controversial elements of the movie. Jack wrote to me after seeing the movie, “I was very satisfied. Short of getting a mini-series, I don’t know what more I could have asked for. My sole, real criticism is the inclusion of the Caroline character. While I see the appeal of having a new character that acts as a stimulus that stirs up past feelings for multiple characters, she was woefully underdeveloped and ultimately felt more like a distraction than anything else.”

Dave and I said some of the same things in the immediate aftermath of the movie, then after about 15 minutes, he had an insight that completely turned around my thinking on the matter. He suggested that Caroline represents the future and the developing options for women. She complements Trixie (and Joanie), but because of chances these women have taken and transitions they have made, her future is brighter than theirs. This is not to say it won’t be difficult for her but that times are changing in Deadwood bringing a sense of possibility.

That reading resonated with me, and I started thinking about how women have been backgrounded somewhat throughout the series but (despite the poster art for the movie!) how much purchase they have gained in society during the ten years that have passed, a position that is only enhanced by the ending of the movie.

Of course, Seth Bullock (Timothy Olyphant) and Al Swearengen (Ian McShane) are narrative linchpins in the series, but as Al fades away and Seth settles down, there is room in the movie for important women characters to advance and demonstrate their significance moving forward.

Trixie (Paula Malcomson) owns The Gem after Al dies and — unable to think about herself “running women” — seems poised to move the place from brothel to dance hall, an improvement related to her new sense of self-worth, a condition she wants to impress upon Caroline. At the end of the movie, Trixie has it all.

She wears Al’s coat while walking the balcony alone in his place, and she looks across the way through a window at her husband, Sol Star (John Hawkes), who is seated and holding their baby boy inside their home. This reversal, Trixie in the public sphere and Sol in the private sphere, is a radical inversion, but her smile at him demonstrates their connection and the strength of their union, perhaps a parallel to South Dakota entering into a different type of union because it has taken both the Stars and Deadwood quite a while to reach this level of respectability.

No one doubts that series creator and writer David Milch is brilliant, and the changes he brings to the Deadwood franchise here offer testimony to his perseverance in confronting childhood abuse, addictions of various sorts, and encroaching dementia. I believe Milch addresses overcoming adversity most powerfully in the movie not with Seth and Al or even Charlie Utter (Dayton Callie), whom Jack convincingly argues as “seen through the lens of the finale, it becomes shockingly obvious that Charlie was always at the heart of the series.”

No, I don’t think the end of the story makes any of these men the lasting bearer of meaning, and certainly not George Hearst (Gerald McRaney), who is driven away from Deadwood for the second time (the first was the end of the third season of the series) and, it seems to me, has always been more of a symbol of the excesses of capitalism than a discrete character, even though there is an individual in history who bears the same name and shares some biographical data.

For me, the movie ends the story of David Milch’s Deadwood in a new and more hopeful place built around the perseverance of the women characters. Trixie and Caroline have already been discussed, and Alma, too, in a lesser sense. Her story is wistful, even sad in her solitude, but she does save the town and make a modest move toward settling an old score with Hearst. That is something, even if her longing for Seth Bullock and what might have been is still painful to watch.

Martha Bullock (Anna Gunn) cannot get back the first husband and their son she has lost — the former before the series starts and the latter at the end of the second season of the series — but her relationship with Seth is loving, and her life with him and their three children seems fulfilling. Viewers sense that she has the life she wants and brings decorum to the town of Deadwood.

The most joyful of women, however, may be the two who have suffered the most. Childhood traumas abound among the denizens of Deadwood, and the abuse inflicted on these characters in years past usually comes back to haunt their present and often informs their actions. For Joanie Stubbs (Kim Dickins) and Calamity Jane (Robin Weigert), their past demons almost keep them apart, which may be what makes their tentative then tender coupling such a delight to observe.

That Joanie has inherited the Bella Union from the man who “turned her out,” Cy Tolliver (played in the series by Powers Boothe), and Trixie has inherited The Gem from Al, following their similar history, seems a step toward justice. Joanie and Trixie seem destined to lead the women they employ with a gentler touch than the two have experienced.

Last night I received a text from another former student that started out, “So, I thought the Deadwood movie was perfectly awful.” I was kind of tired and thought to myself, “I can’t deal with this right now. I need to write about Deadwood, and I’ll just let my blog post be my answer to him.”

Tonight when I sat down to write the aforementioned post, I went back to the (rather lengthy) text. The second line John Hendricks wrote was, “And I say that in jest. It was amazing to see the characters again. I would have liked more closure…” and he went on a bit before asking what I thought of the movie and more.

Why yes, John, I have seen Ray Donovan, and without Paula Malcomson’s character, that series has lost its way (I’ve stopped watching with the move to New York from Los Angeles), and I agree with you that it was just amazing to see those characters again in the HBO movie.

I had occasion once to talk with one of the producers of Deadwood a couple of years after the production of the series, and based on his working experience, I believe the collaboration during production along with Milch’s way with words are a large part of what draws viewers to the narrative.

Collaboration is a key element in any project, and I can’t think about the series any other way.

Thank you, students, for writing such terrific analyses of Deadwood for our book, thank you Jack and John for thinking of me and telling me what you think of the movie, and thank you Dave for making the whole experience so much more…yes…more…that’s it!…so much more than it would have been otherwise.

If it weren’t so late, I think I’d settle in and watch the movie again, feeling certain that there is more there to be discussed. That’s a good measure of its success.