A passing remark referencing the town of Deadwood in 1923 Season 2, Episode 6, “The Mountain Enamel of Monsters,” has led sharp-eared viewers to marvel if the Yellowstone spinoff suits inside the iconic HBO western sequence, Deadwood. Whereas the idea is simply half-serious, Deadwood, South Dakota, was one of many busiest hubs of westward growth through the nineteenth century. It turned notorious for its blood-soaked historical past involving Western heroes and villains like Wyatt Earp, Wild Invoice Hickok, and extra.
Given Deadwood‘s monumental success on HBO from 2004 to 2006, it could not be surprising if 1923 creator Taylor Sheridan paid affectionate homage to the groundbreaking David Milch western sequence. A geographic character in its personal proper, it is value questioning if South Dakota’s infamous metropolis hyperlinks 1923 to Deadwood or if the shared location is incidental.

1923
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2022 – 2024
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Paramount+
‘1923’ Mentions Deadwood in Season 2, Episode 6
In 1923 Season 2, Episode 6, the dramatic focus stays on Spencer Dutton’s (Brandon Sklenar) arrival in Montana through practice. Jacob Dutton (Harrison Ford) fears that the sadistic Whitfield (Timothy Dalton) will homicide Spencer earlier than he reaches the Dutton Household Ranch. Banner Creighton (Jerome Flynn) and Sheriff McDowell (Robert Patrick) ship their goons to catch Spencer in Livingston. Elsewhere, Jack (Darren Mann) tries to present Jacob backup however is shot to dying by two of Creighton’s males.
In the course of the violent melee, Jacob and different survivors briefly utter Deadwood, the notorious South Dakota metropolis named by its settlers for the useless bushes positioned within the metropolis’s gulch. The town marked by dying turns into a possible vacation spot for Spencer to keep away from captivity, with the town talked about a number of instances as a portentous place to go to. Certainly, even when the town is not reached, the deadly shootouts and hypothermic deaths featured within the episode trace at Deadwood as an ominous location.
HBO’s ‘Deadwood’ Highlights South Dakota’s Historic Corruption
Created by David Milch for HBO, Deadwood is taken into account with The Wire and The Sopranos as one of many best, format-changing TV sequence in historical past. Launched in 2004, the profanity-laced western sequence issues the immoral exploits of Al Swearengen (Ian McShane), a corrupt saloon operator, brothel proprietor, city boss, and unlawful racketeer whose unchecked energy led to felony extra and irreversible corruption within the 1870s.
Together with Swearengen, Deadwood adopted real-life historic figures who constructed the titular metropolis, together with ironmongery shop proprietor and Sheriff Seth Bullock (Timothy Olyphant), Martha Bullock (Anna Gunn), Sol Star (John Hawkes), Wild Invoice Hicock (Keith Carradine), A.W. Merrick (Jeffrey Jones), Calamity Jane (Robin Weigert), and several other different composite characters. Regardless of lasting solely three seasons and 36 episodes, Deadwood gained eight Primetime Emmys and is rated #140 on IMDb’s Prime 250 TV Exhibits.
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Most of the characters within the present have been impressed by the real-life folks in Deadwood.
Though 1923 doesn’t happen within the Deadwood TV universe per se, Seth Bullock arrives in Deadwood after leaving his marshal put up in Montana. In fact, Montana is the house of Yellowstone and its spinoffs, which begs the query: how shut are Bozeman and Deadwood?
‘Deadwood’s Wealthy Historical past Mirrored in Pop Tradition
From 1876 to 1879, Deadwood, South Dakota, witnessed a inhabitants increase attributable to the invention of gold and the push for enrichment. With extra folks and cash got here larger energy struggles and corruption. Following the Black Hills Gold Rush in 1876-77, roughly 25,000 folks flocked to the town, together with Western icons like Wyatt Earp, and people featured within the Deadwood TV present.
But, removed from being dramatized as late because the 2000s, Deadwood Metropolis was featured within the 1953 western musical film Calamity Jane, starring Doris Day because the empowered saloon proprietor and sharpshooter identified for serving to the downtrodden. Simply as no one would accuse 1923 of sharing the Calamity Jane narrative universe, linking 1923 with the Deadwood sequence can be a stretch (though, there’s nothing stopping you from dreaming massive and making an enormous Deadwood Western Cinematic Universe in your thoughts).
Relatively, Deadwood was such a traditionally related metropolis through the time interval featured in each reveals that omitting it from 1923 would pressure credibility. Practically each frontier settler handed by means of, or no less than knew about, Deadwood and its deep-seated historical past. Different motion pictures set in Deadwood embody Wild Invoice, Buffalo Women, Little Huge Man, Thunderheart, Unhealthy Man at Deadwood, and extra.

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20 years after its premiere, Deadwood’s beating coronary heart lies in its sense of group.
Past historic relevance, the bodily proximity of Bozeman to Deadwood is the important thing hyperlink between 1923 and Deadwood. Separated by roughly 430 miles, frontier women and men ventured alongside the identical perilous path connecting the 2 locations in Montana and South Dakota. As such, it stands to purpose that these in Montana would point out Deadwood, not as a result of the 2 TV westerns are linked narratively, however slightly geographically, traditionally, and culturally.
As for Deadwood, its legacy was honored within the 2019 function movie, Deadwood: The Film, which follows Bullock and Swearengen a decade later. Likelihood is, the town can be featured in one other Western film or TV present, impartial of HBO’s Deadwood or Paramount’s Yellowstone spinoffs.
Deadwood is offered to stream on Max and 1923 on Paramount+