Sinister Cinema: Wild Bill Hickok in Deadwood

Our pal from Brooklyn Nathan Ward is kind of going nuts with Wild West stuff recently, and naturally he watched the new Deadwood movie, which led to some somber musings about the show being juggled differently, so Keith Carradine as Will Bill Hickok (as above) could have played in more episodes. 

Which reminds me of one of my favorite moments on TV, quite possibly the best in-joke I’ve ever seen (although, yes, it’d be hard to beat out that Newhart ending — for my purposes, I’ll call it a tie).

Took place on Raising Hope, pretty sure it was the episode where Keith Carradine guest-starred. (Deeper and deeper in-jokes, since KC is father of series star Martha Plimpton.) Garrett Dillahunt also starred, as a doofus named Burt Chance — he played Jack McCall in Deadwood, the dude who gun-sharked Hickok. He comes out of a coma and does a McCall line — especially in context, completely unexpected and funny as hell.

Up till that very moment, I thought that McCall’s droopy “dead” eyelid was done in makeup. Had no idea Dillahunt wrangled it himself.

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