I'll try this one last time. If nobody cares, I'll drop it.
But this week the discussion revolves around my favorite ep of the show, "The Trial of Jack McCall".
Here is what I was once moved to post after rewatching it a few years back.
Here is what I'll be posting on Alan's blog tomorrow:
I've *SO* been looking forward to this week. This is my favorite episode of the 36. Every single scene, every single line, even every single actor we meet this episode and never see again (the guy who drags Andy into the woods; Jack's lawyer; the kid Cy sends to Nebraska), you just can't speak highly enough about any of them.
--For fun, I've memorized Al's "Where's your ***********' flag? Where's your ****ing navy or the like?" speech. I never get tired of saying it out loud, though I can never, NEVER make it all the way through it without tripping over a word or two. How I.McS. could do it AND negotiate a flight of stairs at the same time will always leave me in wonder. He rocked this entire episode (well, he rocked the whole series, of course, but like I said, this episode is my favorite, and he's a big part of the reason why).
--"Hickok breaks my balls from the afterlife!" is a Hall of Fame line. So is, "That hardware ********** has been an on-going pain in my balls since him and his partner showed up." And I'll never forget being able to fend off my nagging mother with, "Anything else on your schedule that I'm behind on?"
--Billy Sanderson's soliloquy, his best scene in the show's run. He just can't keep his hands in his pockets, waving them around while dramatizing "fear of the Pinkertons!", wiping his brow over-dramatically. Love that guy, my favorite character on the show.
--Jeffrey Jones plays a much bigger role later in the series, but I think this was his best episode. The "please don't try to bribe me," line, his silent reactions during the trial, the toast he makes at the Gem, and above all, the chilling emotion in his voice when he repeats, "They turned him loose!"
--The only thing I couldn't get was the preacher's "parts is parts!" speech. They spent so much time on it, I knew it had to mean SOMETHING, but I could never figure it. Luckily, one DVD or other explained that the town needs all it's people, the same way the body needs all its parts--because that's what the show is about, that's who the main character is: not Al, not Seth, but THE TOWN. That's why Milch couldn't continue when the network wanted to cut his budget in half. The network told him, "Just lose all those extras and livestock, shoot interiors!", which of course would be impossible; it would be cutting out the main character, the town!
--Before the show premiered, two things in HBO's trailer had me excited about it: Last week's "Listen to the thunder.", and this week's exchange between two serious men:
"Sometimes I wish we could just hit 'em on the head, rob 'em, and dump their bodies in the creek."
"But that would be wrong!"