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Re:“I just chose words carefully” by fasterik on Monday August 31, 2026 @12:29PM (#49511641)
The claim comes from Milch himself. I don't know how much he was exaggerating, or how much of it may be true but didn't make it into the final shooting script.

E.B.'s soliloquy isn't in strict blank verse, but there is clearly some sort of metric structure.

  You have been tested, Al Swearengen.
  And your deepest purposes proved, there’s gold
  On the woman’s claim. You might as well have shouted
  It from the rooftops. That’s why I’m jumpin’
  Through hoops to get it back. Thorough as I fleeced
  The fool she married, I will fleece his widow, too.

  Using loyal associates like Eustace
  Bailey Farnum as my go-betweens and dupes.
  To explain why I want her bought out I’ll make
  A pretext of my fear of the Pinkertons.
  I’ll throw Farnum a token thief. Why should
  I reward E.B. with some small fractional
  Participation in the claim? Or let him
  Even lay by a little security
  And source of continuing income, for
  His declining years. What’s he ever done for me?

  Except let me terrify him every
  Goddamned day of his life ’til the idea
  Of bowel regularity is a forlorn
  Fuckin’ hope. Not to mention orderin’
  A man killed in one of E.B.’s rooms.
  So every fuckin’ free moment of his life
  E.B. has to spend scrubbin’ the bloodstains
  Off the goddamned floor! To keep from havin’
  To lower his rates. Goddamned that motherfucker!
Re:“I just chose words carefully” by delis-thumbs-7e on Monday August 31, 2026 @01:52PM (#49512632)
Most of the lines in that soliloquy is over 10 syllables, so it technically can’t be in pentameter. So either I am very confused about my understanding of the English poetry or this:

  Most of the show is written in iambic pentameter. I believe one way God says, “I too have a hand here” is in the rhythms and metrics of speech, that the metrics of speech are important and representative of our fellowship even in those of us who feel, mistakenly, that we are separate from each other as individuals.

  When a character in Deadwood, or anyone, talks in certain locutions, unbeknownst to themselves, they honor a divine presence.[1]
is a very contradictory statement indeed.

To be fair, I don’t care. I loved the series and now I started to read the script and oh man, it’s like a really good novel. Very much prose in no foxed meter, but damn if it isn’t great prose. I might just start reading through Deadwood scripts, since I watched the series to death anyway.

[1] https://lithub.com/david-milch-on-language-and-obscenity-in-...