Spoiler Alert!
On March 11, 2004 in the fourth episode of the first season of Deadwood, the Shakespearean wild west series killed off Wild Bill Hickok in a nod to historical accuracy. As every poker player is no doubt aware, Wild Bill met his maker while holding two pair of aces and eights, known ever since as the “dead man’s hand.”
Bill’s untimely exit, powerfully depicted by Keith Carradine, left a moon-sized crater in the series, one that took weeks to fill. Fortunately, Timothy Olyphant and Ian McShane, two fine actors in their own right, stepped into the void and Deadwood went on to become one of TV’s classic — and most daring — Westerns.
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My point is that, even though we knew it was going to happen, Bill’s sudden departure was enough to nearly derail the series. I had to give myself more than one pep talk to convince myself to stick with it until it regained its footing.
Why am I revisiting a TV episode that’s more than twenty years old?
Spoiler alert!
In last Sunday’s installment of The Last of Us, the riveting HBO series based on the action-adventure video game, our hero Joel Miller (sturdily played by Burt Reynolds-look alike Pedro Pascal) was unceremoniously dispatched via golf club by Abby Anderson in her quest to avenge her dead father (and to stay true to the source material). Pascal, whose role as surrogate father to Bella followed the archetypal reluctant hero arc, anchored the show with an all-powerful center of gravity every bit the equal of Carradine’s Wild Bill.
As of this writing, the next episode is yet to air. Although I’ve decided to give the second season a second chance, I’m tiptoeing into it hesitantly, afraid the writers won’t be able to fill the black hole left by Joel’s absence. I’m guessing it too will take four episodes. If ever.
