Shades o' Grey

I've been watching Deadwood lately as it airs in syndication up here in Canada, and I've also been watching American Gothic on my lunch breaks with my office mate, Nick. They have a number of things in common, both cancelled before their time, both feature Sarah Paulson, and both have initially unsympathetic characters who do not necessarily remain so.

I heard a lot of buzz about Deadwood before I ever saw an episode. Most of that buzz was centered around Al Swearengen and what a great character he was. So I hunkered down when the pilot was on, eager to see what kind of guy this Swearengen really was. And I found him to be foul, crude, villainous and completely unlikeable. I mean, he wanted to kill a little girl to protect his road agents. Not exactly the stuff heroes are made of.

Still, I hung around because I found the show itself enjoyable enough. I really like Calamity Jane, and though his role was short, I thought Keith Carradine as Wild Bill Hickock was fantastic. But I remained skeptical of Al Swearengen. Then David Milch and company did something interesting - the brought in the character of Cy Tolliver, eerily played by Powers Boothe. Next to sociopathic Tolliver, Swearengen became a reasonable and downright genial character. And later with the introduction of George Hearst even Tolliver starts to look like a halfway decent person.

American Gothic did something similar with Sheriff Lucas Buck. At this point in the viewing, I'm not really sure what Lucas is. He's more than human, possibly the devil, but I don't think he has that much pull. He generally bends the wills of others so that their actions suit him. In the first few episodes he generally uses his powers for selfish means, but about six episodes in, he uses his powers to rid the town of some toughs who are terrorizing its denizens. There's no real benefit in it for him, other than to have the town on his side, but he does it because he's protecting his home. And next to the bullies who are terrorizing people, Lucas definitely looks to be the lesser of the two evils. The devil you know, indeed.

The other method that both shows employ to make these characters more relatable is humour. Both Lucas and Al get some of the funniest lines in their shows and while it doesn't lessen their evil tendencies (all the best bad guys have fun with their evil) it does make the audience warm up to them more.

And just because they become more human, it doesn't mean they aren't meanies anymore. But they have become moustache-twirling villains to men with reason and thought to their evil and that's the best kind of bad guy to have around.