Garret Dillahunt played both Jack McCall and Francis Wolcott on Deadwood (after the first, murderous character fled the scene and was potentially executed, creator David Milch decided to bring him back in another violent — well, aren’t they all? — role). Now, it seems Dillahunt is playing a third role for Deadwood — the personal liaison to fans’ deepest fantasies. For he recently tweeted something people have been waiting on for almost ten years, since the HBO Western was cancelled:
Following this Tweet, he made an extremely good point — and though it’s unclear whether or not it’s a jab at Entourage, it’s certainly more fun to assume it is:
The show, which had an avid but not immense following, was originally cancelled in 2006, with a 6-episode final season offered to tie up loose ends. Milch had declined this offer originally due to its incompatibility with the temporal structure of the show (with each episode representing a day in a two-week period). Instead, he preferred to break the episodic structure entirely, and he and HBO had agreed on two two-hour specials. But hopes that this would happen faded as, over the years, actors like Ian McShane (who played the infamous Al Swearengen) declared the series completely “dead” in 2009.
Deadline reports that HBO has responded to Dillahunt’s hopeful/goading tweets, saying in a statement:
In reference to Garret Dillahunt’s tweet regarding the rumored Deadwood movie, there have only been very preliminary conversations.
But preliminary conversations are, at least, a bit more hopeful than what was thought after McShane’s finalizing declaration in 2009. With “dead” TV shows being resuscitated now more than ever before, the new TV climate of false endings seems wholly ready for a Deadwood follow-up.