So I just finished rewatching Season 3. Seasons 1 and 2 were as good as I remember but Season 3, alas, is a pile of shit. Maybe it's because it was born before the concept of binge-watching, and so doesn't hold up in that format, but the whole thing seemed like a collection of pointless asides by second-tier characters that went nowhere and served no purpose other than to fill in the gaps between displays of Hearst's Thanosian malevolence.
Joanie Stubbs had nothing to do, literally and figuratively, until they clumsily manufactured some bi-curiosity with Jane and then took that absolutely nowhere. Speaking of Jane, she spent the entire season spouting drunken, spittle-flecked rants about nothing. Cy Tolliver did absolutely fuck all. Farnham was reduced merely to rambling semi-coherently to himself in dark, empty rooms. Ellsworth was sidelined and then killed and then forgotten. Mrs Ellsworth was simply a device to ratchet up the tension between Hearst and Bullock (although they stopped short of fully fridging her) while she was suddenly back on and then suddenly back off the laudanum. Doc Cochran was at death's door mid-season yet seemed so much better by the end. Racist Steve was racist, a lot, and then got kicked in the head by a horse. Hostetler was Steve's foil and then killed himself in what seemed like a Pythonesque sketch ending when they couldn't think how to end it so they'd just have someone shoot someone. And what the fuck was the point of the entire screentime - which was substantial - devoted to Langrishe and his band of players who contributed absolutely fuck all to the plot, the intrigue, the entertainment of the show? See also the brothers Earp.
So that was that. But there was the burning tension, that was built and built and built between Hearst and the camp's denizens. He chopped off Al's finger; he threatened to rape and then took pot shots at Mrs Ellsworth; he had the newspaper publisher attacked; he brought in wave after wave of Pinkertons; he...he...he....made a lot of dark speeches, bought Mrs Ellsworth's mine - which is what he came to do - and then left. None of the mutual death promises made between Hearst and Swearengen/Bullock/Tolliver/Utter/Farnham ever saw any pay-off, completely defying (in a bad way, not an avante garde way) Checkov's gun theory. Hearst just rides out on the stage, roll credits. The most plot noteworthy parts of the finale was that Al murdered a Trixie lookalike and Tolliver murdered Leon but then stopped short of murdering one of his girls because she whipped out her tits.
Oy.
