Same rules as before, but with a twist.
In interests of fostering discussion rather than just making a random list, you HAVE to provide an explanation of at least two sentences or 50 words or your selection is invalid. It’s a lot more fun for everyone if we get a dialogue going rather than just listing back and forth.
Also, since the actor and show are important, let’s make sure we list those too. Like this:
1. Al Swearengen - Ian McShane - DEADWOOD
Because in a town without law, he is the word and he is God. Al is the glue that held both the town–and the show–together for three masterful seasons. Remember how everything went to shit when Al was laid up in bed with kidney stones in season 2? There should be enough proof there for you, but if not, I point you to almost every other scene in the three years of Deadwood. (Oh, one more: The opening scene to Deadwood’s finest hour, “E.B. Was Left Out” where Al gets the “sum up the show” scene when he tells newspaper editor Merrick: "Pain, or damage, don’t end the world. Or despair. Or fuckin’ beatings. The world ends when you’re dead. Until then, you’ve got more punishments in store. Stand it like a man, and give some back."
Al was intelligent, he was scary, he was sympathetic, fatherly, and, of course, he was fucking funny as hell. After Tony Soprano, it didn’t seem like HBO could come up with a more murderous, profane character–but David Milch did, and Ian McShane needs to be handed sympathy Emmy after sympathy Emmy for being ignored so egrariously over the last two years. You’ve got one more chance to do right by him, you Academy cocksuckers–I implore you not to fuck it up.
I think Silas Adams said it better than I ever could when he said in the finale, “When he ain’t lyin’, Al’s the most honorable man you’ll ever meet.” A-fuckin-men to that.