As Deadwood is overrun by Hearst's men, Bullock issues contingency plans to Martha. Wu is caught in a Pinkerton stampede and delivers a cryptic message to Swearengen that is solved by the unlikeliest person. Barrett makes Merrick pay for embarrassing Hearst in The Pioneer while Morgan Earp calls out one of the "Pistoleros". As night falls, Langrishe mines Deadwood's talent pool with an amateur-night performance in front of his future theater, financed in part by a "loan" from Alma's bank.
In an age of plunder and greed, the richest gold strike in American History draws a throng of restless misfits to an outlaw settlement where everything - and everyone - has a price.
Welcome to Deadwood... a hell of a place to make your fortune.
The story begins two weeks after Custer's defeat at Little Big Horn, combining fictional and real-life characters and events in an epic morality tale. Located in the Black Hills Indian Cession, the "town" of Deadwood is an illegal settlement, a unhappy and uncivilized outpost that attracts a colorful array of characters looking to get rich - from outlaws and entrepreneurs to ex-soldiers and racketeers, Chinese laborers, prostitutes, city dudes andballoonfighters.