So Let's Talk About That Jeopardy! Episode

This space contains spoilers for the April 23, 2026 episode of Jeopardy. Please do not read further if you do not want this spoiled.

Many people dream of going on Jeopardy. Pretty much no one dreams of arriving and having to face a 29-game champion.

On the plane ride to Los Angeles, I heard a rumor that there was a super-champion as well as a couple known extremely strong players taping the day prior to when I arrived, and my heart sank. I figured I had a decent shot at winning against players that were below the super-champion tier, but the odds would be pretty long against someone of that caliber. At the beginning of the tape day, it was revealed that the super-champ made it through what must have been a pretty tough set of opponents, as Jamie Ding, who had been quietly sitting among the group to that point, was pointed out as the active 26-game winner by the coordinators. 

I don't want to speak for Jamie, but if I were in his shoes, I would probably have been just as quiet. It must be really uncomfortable being amongst 10 new hopefuls who are achieving their lifelong dream and knowing that they're crestfallen that you, one of the best Jeopardy players of all time, are sitting there likely to crush their hopes of becoming a Jeopardy champion. You're not doing anything wrong, just playing your game and competing, but at the same time, your success means everyone else's failure at something they want really, really badly.

I can report that everything you've seen on screen about Jamie's sportsmanship and kindness to his competitors is just as real off-camera. He was helpful to all of us sacks of nervousness in the green room, giving us tips on how to time the buzzer. He didn't want anyone to have a rough go out there. To the extent that being a 26+ game winner can be in a "tough spot," it does make for an awkward situation with the other contestants, but he handled it with grace.

After seeing him win in mostly dominant fashion the first few games of the day, my mindset had completed its shift from the "try to win a few games!" from a few days prior to "just don't make an ass of yourself." Before walking out on that stage, I was ready to accept several versions of getting crushed as an acceptable outcome as the culmination of about eight years of grinding my way up from knowing basically nothing about anything. The thought was depressing.

Making matters worse were the rehearsals from earlier in the day. I was one of the poorer performers in the trial runs that Jeopardy! lets contestants do to warm up and get used to the buzzer system. Jimmy McGuire, the stage manager and former "Clue Crew" member, read off questions from a sample game and I had a real tough time getting in on the buzzer against the other first-timers. The questions they ask you at this stage of the game are similar to what you'd get in the audition and the online tests, maybe like $800-level clues from Double Jeopardy. There were plenty that the other contestants were getting that I didn't know. About my only bright spot was seeing Ken Jennings himself, who came out to give the contestants words of encouragement (while humorously having his phone out and being on hold with his bank).

I was shaking just watching the first couple games of the day and after lunch, I was selected to play the fourth round. I pounded a cup of coffee and after that, despite all the nerves of earlier in the day, I felt...fine. The coffee made me too wired to be super nervous, and that helped out a LOT. The Chicago Bulls intro music played as the contestants took the podiums (I had no idea that Jeopardy did this!), and before long, we were ready to go.

The Jeopardy! Round

To beat Jamie, I was going to need a favorable category selection. I felt like the closer the board stuck to meat-and-potatoes Jeopardy material (science, geography, history, literature, art, classical music, all the classic go-to's), the better chance I would have. Of recurring categories, I struggle most with wordplay, fashion, food, cars, animals, and classic rock / pre-2000s pop music. Fortunately, most of these already appeared earlier in my tape day. Ken revealed the categories one by one.

All things considered, this was great. We've got two pretty straightforward history/science categories and although "Words for the Young" was a vocabulary category in which I did EXTREMELY poorly and never hit the buzzer once, it's just the Jeopardy round, so best to get this one out of the way. More importantly, "Recent Hitmakers" is actually a relative strength for me. I could've been lost on many music categories, but having this come up flipped a nightmare into a category where I may have had an edge over Jamie*. Plus, Big 12 Schools is a nice sports-adjacent category, and if there's gonna be offbeat stuff, sports is hardly a disaster for me. I'd do better with the Big Ten or the ACC, but these are all good things. Overall, a very lucky selection of material.

*It's impossible to "know" this, but I'm basing this on comments Jamie made in the green room earlier in the day and on how the category played out.

Punch and Counterpunch

Jamie found the Daily Double in the American history category right out of the gate, which wasn't too discouraging because a superchampion can absolutely bury you if they find one late in the round. At this point, my mindset was just to try to stay in the game, and a simple $1,000 head start for Jamie wouldn't be too demoralizing.

A patented Jamie Ding "knight move" clue selection then got us over to the bottom-row clue in the Hobbies & Pastimes category, which wound up being one of the most important clues of the whole game for me.

Ikebana. I knew this one, and was happy about that because historically on Jeopardy, it's played as a tough response. Looking back at the J-Archive, over half the time they've expected the contestants to pull ikebana, it's gone as a triple stumper. After all the discussion in the green room and at rehearsal about Jamie's mastery of the buzzer, my biggest fear was that even if I knew things, I wouldn't be able to get in. While Ken was reading this clue, I looked over at Jamie (note: not a good habit while playing Jeopardy!) and saw him confidently nodding along, so I operated under the assumption that he knew this one too. It was going to be a timing contest. I mashed the buzzer on Ken's last syllable.

The red lights on my podium went on. Almost confused as to how this was possible, I responded to Ken's prompt.

"What is ikebana?"

I was on the board with $1,000, and it felt better than it would have if Jamie hypothetically didn't know it. This told me it was possible to ring in ahead of him. And in my first opportunity to speak, I had answered a tough clue on Jeopardy. Finally, after all the turmoil and fear of the early parts of the day, I had convinced myself that I was here to play. 

Game on.

Thanks in large part to some clues in the aforementioned pop music category that went my way, I was able to amass $4,000 by the first break and had already let go of all worries about being embarrassed. I was trailing Jamie, but it was close. I knew that as long as I kept myself in the mix and those Double Jeopardy Daily Doubles were still in play, I'd have a shot.

What is Kansas.....State?

The bottom row clue in the Big 12 Schools category wound up being a wild one for me.

I recognized "Manhattan" as a city in Kansas and successfully buzzed in. The problem is, my brain got scrambled in the moment. If I had like fifteen seconds to collect myself and think, I would have remembered that the University of Kansas was in Lawrence. You don't have that kind of time under the lights, and I just sort of blurted out "What is Kansas?"

Ken paused for a bit upon hearing my response, which told me I had made a mistake. I had to pivot quickly to try to avoid losing $1,000 for my blunder and I added "State" right around the time Ken ruled against me. I didn't know at the time with 100% confidence that Kansas State was correct, but as there's no other school starting with "Kansas" in the Big 12, that was the only addendum I could possibly tack on that could turn my wrong response into a correct one. After Ken's ruling, my score dropped down and the clue mercifully timed out without either of my opponents grabbing the rebound.

Then, a very interesting process ensued. The producers stopped the game. 

They wanted to listen to a replay to see if I had gotten the word "State" out before Ken ruled against me. The contestants had to face away from the board, basically staring at a wall, to make sure that if a mistake was made with the game board during the review, it wouldn't spoil the match. I honestly had no concept of whether I was in ahead of Ken's ruling. It was super close. Fortunately, I got to hear an audio replay when we got back to the podiums and my "State" follow-up had pretty clearly just made it in. Ken ruled upon review that I had corrected myself in time. That $2,000 swing gave me enough juice to keep things close with Jamie as the Jeopardy round moved toward its conclusion.

The Double Jeopardy! Round

With the game this close, much hinged upon the Double Jeopardy categories...

...and again, this was a great draw for me. American Lit, Art for Art's Sake, and Teeny Tiny Countries are as mainstream Jeopardy as you can get. "I Have a Lot of Grey Friends" is a tailor-made themed potpourri category. We have the Word Origins nightmare (ugh, more vocab in round 2), and Celebrity Chefs isn't exactly a strength of mine, but overall, this is a pretty great draw. I caught another break.

The Cram Pays Off

The Double Jeopardy round opened with a couple triple-stumpers followed by Jamie pulling away a bit by getting a couple big-value clues. However, I was able to get myself back into it with a three-clue blitz.

In the weeks leading up to appearing on the show, I studied my entire existing deck of flash cards and added about 3,000 new ones by studying old games. To stay motivated, I told myself that all this work would be worth it if it meant I was able to buzz in just one more time than I would have otherwise. I didn't know how right I was.

Before getting the call to come on the show, I had never heard of "The Great Santini," nor its author, Pat Conroy. I had heard of another of his books, "The Prince of Tides," but I couldn't have told you anything about it. Not only was this my third consecutive correct response (ignoring a triple-stumper in the middle), it kept my control of the board, allowing me to investigate the $1,200 clue in the Teeny Tiny Countries category....

All-in

In an amazing stroke of luck, and at the perfect moment in the game, I ran into the first Daily Double of the round in a category I was comfortable with.

I've been asked about the decision to bet everything in this moment and the truth is, it was really no decision at all. There's several ways I can explain it.

1. In game theory, when you are the weaker player, you want to increase the variance to improve your chances of winning. 
2. I am playing against one of the best players of all time and have a rare opportunity to add five figures to my score without him being able to do anything about it.
3. I like the category, and was getting close to 80% of Daily Doubles correct over a decent sample near the end of my training, so it makes sense to maximize the value of a very fortunate situation.
4. The simplest -- and best -- explanation. An all-in bet is 100% the absolute last thing that Jamie Ding wanted to hear, and that is why you do it.

Now, knowing the correct strategy is one thing and actually following through on it is another. That's the only reason that I just didn't blurt out the words "all-in" the second Ken asked for my wager. There was this "are you srsly going to do this right now" internal monologue that I was contending with, knowing that I could easily have bet smaller, kept myself in it the rest of the way, and lived to play another clue no matter what.

Fortunately, here was our clue.

There's a LOT to go on here. We've got Italian-sounding stuff. We've got the fact that it's landlocked. We know from the category that it's a tiny country. Honestly Vatican City seems at least a little plausible here except there aren't separate "towns" in Vatican City and Vatican City isn't named after a 4th century holy man. So there's really only one choice.

"What is...San Marino?"

I now have an absolutely huge lead.

The Wrong Choice

After the Daily Double, I cleared out the $1,600 clue in the "I Have a Lot of Grey Friends" category and was left with a choice to make as to where to go next. Observant viewers may have noticed my hesitation before selecting the bottom-row clue in the literature category. At that point, I figured there were two clues that were most likely to hold the game's final Daily Double: the one I picked, and the $2,000 clue in the Art category. I felt slightly more comfortable with Literature and went that way. The clue:

Uh oh.

I didn't have any idea here at all, so I was helpless as Jamie pounced on it. This was what I would call a hard-but-gettable clue, I just didn't know enough about Guys and Dolls to connect to Damon Runyon. He took control of the board and then pivoted to the bottom-row art clue that I almost selected, I could hear the Daily Double sound effect in my mind before it was actually revealed. 

I was pretty sure when Ken finished reading the clue that Jamie was going to get it. I needed a pretty weird and obscure question to appear, and this wasn't it. However, Jamie hesitated just enough to give me a sliver of hope. Was there going to be a miracle here? A miss would almost certainly get me to a lock-game win by the end of the round...

"Who is Chihuly?"

Dammit.

I put up a fight to close the gap the rest of the way, but Jamie answered the bell every time. Leighanna was a significant factor down the stretch, as she found her timing and pulled several clues that might have been able to help me catch up (though to be fair, they could have just gone to Jamie instead, too). In the end, I wound up trailing Jamie heading into final, but I was close enough to force him to get it right no matter what.

About that Final Jeopardy.....

If I were a rational person, I'd be nothing but proud of how I performed on the Alex Trebek stage, but I walked away still overly focused on how bad I screwed up Final Jeopardy. Those who know me already understand that's par for the course for the way I approach things.

The absolute most positive thing I can say about Final Jeopardy is that it was never going to matter whether I got the question right or wrong. This may not be immediately obvious to those who aren't religious fans of the show, but I was in what's called a "four-fifths" wagering scenario, meaning I was close enough to Jamie's score that I could bet in such a way that I could exceed his total if he made a defensive wager while still leaving myself with plenty of money if he made the cover bet (which he did) and missed. I also had enough cushion over third place to ensure I could lose my bet and still have more than double the third place score. Jamie needed to bet close to $25,000 to lock me out, which turned the game into a binary situation. If Jamie got the question right, he'd win no matter how I answered. If Jamie got the question wrong, I'd win no matter how I answered.

However, despite the apparent meaninglessness of me even writing anything down at all, I made three mistakes on Final Jeopardy.

Mistake 1) Getting the question wrong (obviously)

By this point in the game, my senses were overloaded and I was stunned into inaction. I took so long to lock in my wager that the coordinators almost concerningly asked me if I was still working on it. I had no idea they were waiting on me and thought that they took the same amount of time between Double Jeopardy and Final Jeopardy regardless. Those five or whatever minutes were a blur. The only real memory I have was Jimmy saying to either the staff or audience, "This is a big moment in Jamie's run" as a preface to some sort of instruction, but I honestly have no idea what he said next. I was practically dissociating from the moment.

I think that mind melt situation was a factor, but even disregarding that, I have two major problems with how I approach Final Jeopardy questions. The first is when I think I know the answer but talk myself out of it because I convince myself a minor detail in the question's wording does not fit my answer. The second is when I latch onto the wrong idea immediately and even though I know my answer isn't great, my brain struggles to reverse course. In this game, it was the first scenario.

Especially in the context of my tape day (which featured what I thought were three extremely hard Final Jeopardy questions out of five), this was a gettable final. When the clue was first revealed, I saw the words "safe and effective" and thanks to the COVID years, my brain immediately went to vaccines. No vaccine was more prevalent in the 1950s than the polio vaccine. Boom. Write that down. Done. Right?

Wrong.

The last portion of the clue hints at a "significant American death from 1945." So what does my boneheaded mind think of that?

"Well, Jonas Salk (inventor of the polio vaccine) didn't die in 1945."

I was so damn convinced that the hint to the person who died was the inventor of whatever we were talking about. I was so locked onto this that I never even considered FDR (I guess you could say my second Final Jeopardy problem started to creep in here as well). So I thought of another major advance in medicine, penicillin, which I knew was invented decades prior but possibly took awhile to be considered safe and effective. I didn't know where Alexander Fleming was from (Scotland!) or when he died (1955!), but I figured the fact that I knew Jonas Salk was still alive well past 1945 ruled out the polio vaccine.

I wrote my answer in a hurry near the end of time because it dawned on me about 20 seconds in that I had to stop debating and put down *something.* Since I thought of Fleming's antibiotic more recently in the Think! music and had a regrettable mindset of "oh well this doesn't matter anyway," I wound up choosing wrong.

I've played trivia long enough to understand that you can get the same question on different days in different mindsets and different physical states and wind up getting it right sometimes and wrong other times. I knew that my answer on Final didn't matter, and I think there's at least some chance that after the weeks of cramming, the emotional earlier parts of the game, and understanding I'd now reached a point where there was no longer anything I could do to improve my chances, my thinking and focus was impaired.

And that's the story of how penicillin (the Final Jeopardy! answer) was invented.

Mistake 2) The wager

Conventional wisdom suggests that if all that matters is winning the game, I needed to bet between $5,601 (covering the very unlikely scenario of Jamie making a safe bet equal to $1 less than the difference between our scores) and $17,199 (the maximum I could wager without risking falling below a double-up from Leighanna). Under that logic, my $10,000 wager was fine.

However, if we also consider that I want to maximize my earnings in the event of a win, I made an error in judgment. What I was thinking in the moment was, "I get more than half of Final Jeopardy questions right, so my expected value goes up if I bet more." That logic was horribly flawed. In order for the amount of money in front of me to matter, I have to win, and for me to win, Jamie has to get the question wrong. Because Jamie is such a strong player, it's significantly more likely for both of us to miss (due to a really hard final) than for him to miss and me to get it right (which would require a great player missing something I could get). 

This means that I will win this game more often while getting Final Jeopardy wrong than while getting it right. 

I should therefore be making the minimum rational wager. It was pretty much a foregone conclusion in my mind that Jamie would bet to cover in this situation, so it wouldn't have been too crazy to bet zero. It also would have been fine for me to wager $2,801 to cover Jamie betting zero. At maximum, it would have been OK for me to wager $5,601 as described above to cover Jamie's defensive bet. But betting $10,000 is way too much and a really negative expected value move.

Mistake 3) I didn't write a message to my kids

I told myself I'd write a little note to my children to give them a little extra excitement during Final Jeopardy when the show aired. However, because I took so long to deliberate on my response, I ran out of time and was unable to do this. Given that the first two things ultimately didn't matter for anything besides my own self-esteem, this is the mistake I regret the most.

****

At the end of the day, in order to beat Jamie, one of the five strongest players in the entire 42-season history of the show (and climbing), I was going to need a lot of luck, and the crazy thing is, I actually got it. I was randomly selected to be part of the fourth episode on my tape day, by which point I had calmed down a lot. I was shaking more in the green room during the first two games of the day than at any point during the one I actually played. I got generally favorable categories with a few deep cuts I knew that allowed me to solo buzz several times. I landed on a gettable Daily Double after having built up a five-digit score.

After that stroke of luck, there were a few different ways that I could have won this game, even if we assume I get Final Jeopardy wrong regardless of circumstance.

• The first would have been to select that art clue containing the game's final Daily Double rather than the fateful pivot to literature. I would have known it (it's been less than seven months since I was physically inside that Dale Chihuly museum), and I'd like to at least tell myself I would have had the fortitude to bet the $14,000-ish that would have helped me lock Jamie out before Final Jeopardy. 
• Second, that art Daily Double could have instead been an impossible land mine of a clue like a couple Daily Doubles before it on my tape day, which would have dropped Jamie down to zero and given me the lock. Even the greatest players still miss 15% or so of Daily Doubles. 
• Third, Final Jeopardy could have been extremely difficult like a few others during my tape day that Jamie missed (I missed them too; in fact I was 0-for-5 that day), which would have allowed me to win on his lockout wager. Even the greatest players still miss 25% or so of Final Jeopardy clues (possibly more).

That just goes to show how incredible Jamie Ding is at Jeopardy. I had so much break my way for me to put up the fight that I did, and I still wound up one significant stroke of luck away from getting the job done.

****

After the game, Ken asked me a couple questions about the all-in wager and the Daily Double question. I told him that I wanted to be able to look back and say that I took my shot. Once Ken wrapped up the postgame interviews, Jamie, ever the good sport, came over and gave me a big hug. I got a handshake and a "Good job" from Jimmy and headed back to the green room to get my things all packed up before joining my little cheering section in the crowd to watch the last game of the day.

I had been warning my wife for weeks about the intense depression that would set in if I went on Jeopardy and lost my first game. It's not that there's any shame in losing; anyone can lose at any time. It's just that I knew that ending years and years of preparation without Ken Jennings saying the words "Patrick Nolan, you are a Jeopardy champion!" would absolutely crush me, and I'm not wired to handle such a defeat in any way besides "poorly".

However, this loss was different. I can keep my head held high. I went toe-to-toe with one of the best players to ever play the game. I played basically as well as I would have if I were sitting at home on my couch, and that's about all I could ask for. I made two mistakes (the Baylor buzz, and obviously Final Jeopardy), but neither wound up mattering at all (but oh man, what if I answered that on Final from first place......I'd never live it down). I was one big break away from shocking the world. We gave 'em a thrill.

And, despite the loss, I did get to walk away with a Jeopardy! record, albeit a really weird one. I now hold the record for the highest 2nd-place score entering Final Jeopardy (just ahead of the mark set by the great Tom Devlin in his first win). Before me, everyone who had cleared $28,000 through the end of Double Jeopardy was in first place heading into Final. For at least a little while, I'll hold that extremely specific piece of history.

And of course, Jeopardy's introduction of the annual Second Chance Tournament means there's hope that my Jeopardy journey hasn't reached its conclusion. At the beginning of the next episode, Ken teased that I'd be back for it, and I feel like I've made a strong case. This story may yet have another chapter, and I can't wait to see how it all unfolds. Stay tuned all, and thanks for reading.

On Losing a Friend

They say that everyone in the world is unique. That's undoubtedly true, but some of us stray further from what our society would consider "normalcy" than others. Under that standard, my friend Max Chiswick was the most unique person I knew.

Max passed away in the middle of January and it shook my world. I was far from alone in that sentiment. Tributes to his life started popping up all over the internet, so much so that this one seems superfluous several weeks after his tragic death. Here are some eulogies, each of which are beautiful and come from someone I've never met (except one, briefly).

https://oldjewishmen.substack.com/p/bhif-old-jewish-men-loses-a-friend

https://collive.com/max-chiswick-39-obm/

https://www.thefp.com/p/my-friend-max-suzy-weiss

https://www.chabad.org/news/article_cdo/aid/6762632/jewish/Max-Chiswick-39-Adventurer-Innovator-and-Man-of-Faith.htm

https://blog.rossry.net/chisness/

https://andrew.gr/stories/chisness/

These stories, along with the beautiful eulogies at Max's funeral given by his parents, sister, and friend Mike Fishman, painted a wonderful picture of how remarkable Max's life truly was, both the parts I knew and the parts I didn't. He touched so many lives, which is a thing that's common to say about those who pass away, but for Max, touching lives and forging connections was something he seemed to have a passion for as much as any of his many, many individual goals, which is to say that he threw himself into it completely. No matter how many new connections he made -- and he made many, all over the world -- he never abandoned his old ones. He was always checking in and texting (particularly during the COVID pandemic, he would use the very odd but very Max monotone greeting of "are you fine"), and I'd rarely go a long stretch without hearing from him in some form, even if he was living in a different hemisphere.

I'm using this space to remember my personal friendship with Max and the many ways he has influenced -- and continues to influence -- my life.

I met Max sophomore year of high school. He had joined the math team that year and sat in the desk behind me at lunch while we worked through problems. It didn't take long in our discussions to realize how many mutuals we had -- friends for him, acquaintances for me, primarily from playing league sports. Max had a wealth of information about everyone, owing to his never-ending curiosity about people and things. There was no subculture in our extremely large high school that was off-limits to him, because virtually everyone is welcoming to someone who takes a genuine interest in their life.

Speaking as someone who might have taken second place, Max was easily the strangest person I came across during school. He ate so many carrots that his skin took on an orange hue. He had an odd manner of speaking, including inflection, diction, and syntax, that became weirdly addictive to those in the know. By the end of high school, entire groups of friends had adopted Max' lexicon, to the absolute bewilderment of others who didn't know him. He hated gum chewing and pencil tips; just having the latter face-up on your desk was enough for Max to squint and put his hand up to block his view of the offending object. When Facebook became a thing, Max was among the first people I knew to create a profile (Max was very good at the internet). It was supposed to be a place to put the best parts of yourself on display, which is why it was stood out that Max put in his bio "I eat very few foods and they're almost always very plain."

Of course, people made comments, and if Max were more like me, it probably would have bothered him. But Max was unflappable. Every one of his idiosyncrasies was a feature, not a bug. He had some sort of force field around him that made him immune to the judgement of others. What was more important for me is that Max himself wasn't judgmental of people for their bits of weirdness, which I had in spades. I was drawn to him because I was never worried about being myself around him. It helped my confidence that this person who was well-liked and entrenched in many different circles felt like I was worth his time. 

Max had a website (chisness.com, now in its umpteenth iteration) where he wrote about his life. He was an avid photographer and documented his experiences long before Facebook photos were a thing. I always felt somewhat honored when he included a photo or description of something we did together on his website. This is a very high-school sentence, but he typically did this with people much cooler than me, so it was fun to be included. Max also sold chisness.com merchandise online, which is something most high schoolers wouldn't have had the motivation to figure out how to do. One girl from school even purchased a chisness.com thong.

Junior year, Max started qualifying to go to math team meets with regularity, and his presence transformed those trips from something I wasn't very keen on to enjoyable experiences. We'd sit together on the bus playing Pai Gow Poker for dollars and would strike up card games with the other team members at the hotel or at down times during the day. Max was famously always ready with a deck of cards wherever he went, and just setting these games up made for positive interactions that empowered me with a sense of social normalcy. I'd be remiss not to mention that Max took 6th place in the state individual written competition at the University of Illinois our senior year, which, after not qualifying to represent our school all that frequently as a sophomore, was a huge testament to his drive to become good at things.

Speaking of becoming good at things, Max was uncommonly motivated to master anything he'd set his mind to. Early in his life, that was often video games. He became the most elite Mario Kart 64 player you'll ever meet as a kid, and later in life made a nice score betting against someone for $1,000 per race. Nintendo 64 gave way to Counter-Strike as a high schooler. Max would most often show up at school with tired eyes, having played the game until midnight and started on his homework shortly after.

While being elite at video games (especially back then) wasn't particularly useful, Max soon channeled his game-mastering energy into something with much more value -- poker. Max and I both loved poker, but we generally played in different circles. Max's games were of much higher stakes, and I was fascinated by high schoolers betting so much money. As a junior, I thought my world was ending if I lost 20 bucks. As soon as Max turned 18, he started playing online and was already quite good at it. I didn't have the aptitude for it that he did, but he often let me split tournaments with him and I learned a great deal from watching alongside him.

I became obsessed with poker and began playing more seriously online as I moved into college. Max was a constant mentor as I got better and started making some money from the game, which I really needed to pay for school. During college, Max would eventually help to teach me how to play in cash games, and we'd spend many nights on breaks from school just having a poker grind session in his basement. The culmination of my poker "career" was playing in the World Series of Poker Main Event in 2008, to-date one of the coolest and most fun things I've ever done, even if I didn't make it to the money. It doesn't happen without Max.

I eventually stopped playing poker when I needed to focus on my actual job, but Max kept right on going, opting to play professionally. He did very well and amassed a small fortune. The story of his bet of playing 3 million poker hands in a year, during which he set the world record for most poker hands played in a month, is fascinating and worth visiting. It speaks to his determination...and also one of his noted lesser-good qualities, procrastination, but ultimately it's a story of him pulling off something in December 2009 that almost no one else would have a chance at doing.

Max's poker success allowed him to live an unconventional lifestyle, detailed much better than I could ever do by the people who knew him on his travels, linked above. This person who rarely left the basement in high school and college underwent a total transformation that would smack as surprising to anyone who met him as an adult. Not known as an athlete early in life, he would get on the CrossFit train and become "built like a Marine" as described in the Old Jewish Men blog eulogy. He became a world traveler, increasingly spending his time in parts of Asia and Africa ("the African continent", as he called it), even biking the length of the latter from Egypt to South Africa. Arguably the most sheltered person I've known became the one with the most world experience. And yet, he was always popping back into town, ready and eager to meet up with his old friends. He was always messaging, always present, everywhere and nowhere all at once.

That last bit was particularly true during the COVID pandemic, as my personal interactions with Max once again increased in frequency. He was a frequent participant in the "Quarantine Poker Tour," the online poker league I created when the world shut down. Eventually, Max decided to live in the Central African Republic during COVID, which was an obstacle to playing, but he'd still hop on Zoom calls on his phone from some settlement in the middle of the desert, just to check in on everyone.

Max visited me a few times during the pandemic years to face off with me in a new passion of his -- tennis. I'm not much of a tennis player, but I was in great physical condition circa late-2020, which was enough to be dangerous. The first time he visited, he eked out a win. Much like the other things he poured himself into, however, Max was dedicated to getting really good at it. The second time he visited, he beat me more convincingly, but still commented that games with me were fun and competitive. The third time, he absolutely blew me off the court. I think the games stopped because I was no longer a match for him.

My more recent addiction has been playing competitive trivia, and while that's never been something Max wanted to get into seriously, he and I played plenty of matches online on PAR Trivia and like anything else, was very curious about how the trivia world worked. He began watching Jeopardy! frequently (this became a tradition for he and his mom when he visited home) and we'd often talk about contestants and results. 

While it wasn't a major passion project for Max, his natural inquisitiveness and ability to forge connections led to a significant development for me. He learned that he had another friend, Greg Shahade, who was similarly grinding trivia and getting pretty obsessed with it. Most people would have reacted to that knowledge along the lines of, "Oh cool, I have another friend who does this too." Max took it a step further and put us on a text chain so we could talk to each other about it. Simply because Max had no reservations or social inhibitions about putting complete strangers in touch, Greg has become something of a trivia mentor for me, sort of like Max was for poker.

***

Max had a great fondness for specialty objects and works of art that aligned with his interests, often things that involved carrots, chicken, tennis, or his favorite TV show, The Wire (note: it's also mine, yet another gift that Max gave to me). He would often have to go to great effort to acquire these things, whether that meant meeting up with some stranger from eBay that lived nowhere near home, significant logistical difficulties, or even bringing things in from overseas. The latter led to one of my favorite conversations I had with him from recent years, which epitomized much about his personality.

His determination to "get it to a 10" was as on-brand as it comes.

***

Max passed away in Israel in January from an acute case of malaria, which he contracted while traveling in Senegal. His funeral took place shortly after our 20-year high school reunion, which was fitting in that attending felt like a high school reunion in of itself. Names and faces were gathered together, many of whom hadn't seen each other in person for 15 years or more. It was a testament to how people from all sorts of different cliques felt connected enough to Max to this day to participate in celebrating his life. Our particular group of friends was sporting ties that were dotted with carrots in honor of Max' favorite food, thanks to coordination from my friend Jake. The room was very crowded, and yet one got the sense that the gathering was just a mere subset of Max's circle, and that many more would have loved to be there had they not lived thousands of miles away.

Max left behind many brilliant ongoing projects ranging from as complex as building a poker AI to as simple-but-relatable as documenting the frustrating inability of hotels to make quality eggs. He led the most interesting life of anyone I know; explaining Max to a couple friends once resulted in them believing he was made-up, which resulted in an instant FaceTime connection to prove his existence and confirm the stories.

In the days following his death, a flood of memories took over my mind, ranging from the extremely mundane ("I enjoyed meeting your father yesterday, it was a very warm greeting.") to the time his eccentric mannerisms helped get me in trouble in math class. My wisdom teeth had been taken out and I was taking vicodin for the pain, which put me in a very loopy mood. I was sitting next to Max, who would not stop saying strange things under his breath and making odd sounds to make me laugh. I was completely unable to control myself, he knew it, and he encouraged all of it. My even-tempered teacher, Mr. Bettina, snapped at me for the disruption in a way I never knew he could. I had no real way to explain myself. Sorry sir, I physically can't stop laughing during your directional derivatives lecture? Thanks a lot, Max.

I found myself listening to podcasts and videos of Max, several of which were sent along by friends. It was comforting to still be able to hear him speak to keep his mannerisms and sayings in my memory. The words "event" and "stone" will remind me of Max whenever I hear them, but one of Max' more recent catchphrases is one I hope sticks with me the longest. In recent years, he had taken to saying "not a problem" in response to virtually any inconvenience, and I'm making it a goal to have that echo in my mind when I face difficulty.

That's just one of many lessons that I can take with me from Max' life, as I paraphrase a bit from a very well-written card by my friend Joe. Max's endless curiosity and inquisitiveness are traits that I need to gravitate towards. I want to forge connections with strangers the way that he could and break down the walls that keep us socially distant. I don't see myself having quite the transformation of basement-dweller to world-traveler as Max did, but I do need to improve at pushing myself outside of my comfort zone the way Max was able to. And I need to be better about approaching life with the confidence to be who I am, and knowing that's enough, regardless of how the world may view it. An intricate picture of a carrot drawn by my friend Zack (a bottomless source of creativity) now hangs next to my desk as a reminder to carry these lessons with me throughout my day.

I had some reservations about publishing this. After all, I wasn't Max's closest friend. I never lived with him or traveled with him. Mine is just one story of the many, many friends he made whose lives were better for knowing him. In the end, I followed through because self-consciousness doesn't seem like much of a good reason not to do something you want to do. A remarkable friend's life taught me that.

BoJack Horseman Season Six (Part One)

When it was announced that Season Six of BoJack Horseman would be its last, I was somewhat sad. At the same time, though, it felt like the series was heading toward the point where there needed to be some form of resolution, lest the cycle of its titular character taking one step forward and two steps back every season begin to feel tiresome. Each year, BoJack's struggles and self-defeating tendencies changed in scope and intent enough to keep the show feeling fresh, but it's not a formula that could continue forever.

And so, Season Six finally presents us with a version of BoJack that we've never seen before -- a good one. There's been bits and pieces of modest improvement in his character over the course of the show, but each time, these triumphs have proven to be fleeting, and it's only a matter of time before he self-destructs again.

This time around, it doesn't feel like the rug is going to be ripped out from under us. BoJack spends much of the season in rehab and seems committed to avoiding drugs and alcohol. The last episode he's a part of involves him breaking away from his house (a site of no shortage of awful memories from the past) and going around to make amends to the various members of the main cast. He has a good discussion with Todd, and later gets a woman to sign up for his asexual dating app ("All About That Ace"). He gives Princess Carolyn a nudge in the right direction, and indirectly convinces her to re-hire Judah to help give her more time with her baby, Ruthie. BoJack and Mr. Peanutbutter finally sort of get their "crossover episode" on the set of their shows at the Smithsonian. Finally, he visits Diane and gives her the inspiration she needs to begin treating her depression with medication, followed by performing the kind gesture of cleaning her house.

BoJack Horseman has saved the most crushing moments for its seasons' penultimate episodes, so it was interesting that they flipped the script by using this one to give happy and hopeful endings to each member of the main cast. Of course, the finale was still to come, and it was one of the most brilliant episodes that BoJack Horseman has ever done. None of the five main cast members appear in the finale. Instead, it's an episode that checks in on several minor characters whose lives BoJack has significantly affected. This could fail on a lot of shows, but Hollyhock, Kelsey Jannings, and to a lesser extent, Gina Cozador, have been so well-developed that they're more than able to carry a full episode by themselves (I love it whenever the show brings Kelsey back).

The conclusion of the finale, however, invites trouble ahead. Hollyhock's at a party and meets a guy named Peter, whom (::pats self on the back::) I immediately recognized as Penny's friend "Pete Repeat" from the series' best episode, "Escape from L.A."  The show cuts to the credits just as Peter is about to reveal to Hollyhock what BoJack did with Penny all those years ago, which would have major ripple effects. Couple that development with an investigator getting closer to the truth about Sarah Lynn's death, and BoJack's two greatest crimes are about to re-surface at a time when he's reached the peak of his progress. That's a lot of ammo for the back half of the season.

Per usual, the least effective episode of the season was the 'political issue' episode, a consistent pattern that held true each of the last three seasons (Season Two's "Hank After Dark", by contrast, was fantastic). I feel like I say this every season, but while the show has valid points to make, it doesn't deliver them in a unique way. Their attack on capitalism in "Feel-Good Episode" lacked the usual BoJack Horseman creative touch (except for their ability to portray a white whale as an actual white whale, named Jeremiah Whitewhale). Also less effective was Mr. Peanutbutter's running storyline in which he had to deal with Pickles learning the truth of his affair with Diane. I've found it much harder to care about that relationship than the others on the show.

On the other side of the coin, Todd and Diane received excellent season-long arcs, and we finally got some backstory on Todd's family that we've been lacking to this point. I thought the relationship between Guy and Diane was a good direction for the series to take, and the friendship between Todd and Princess Carolyn continued to pay dividends. Princess Carolyn's journey as a new parent was also an interesting one, and while I can say from experience that being a new parent is challenging, I've never had to deal with my baby being an actual porcupine with quills that can puncture my skin.

BoJack Horseman continues to succeed as one of television's greatest shows, and it's set up for a fantastic conclusion. January 31 can't get here fast enough. CAN'T. WAIT.

Episode Grades

1. "A Horse Walks into a Rehab": A-
2. "The New Client": A-
3. "Feel-Good Story": B
4. "Surprise": B
5. "A Little Uneven, Is All": B+
6. "The Kidney Stays in the Picture": A-
7. "The Face of Depression": A
8. "A Quick One, While He's Away": A

Half-Season Grade: A

The Mike Cameron / Paul Konerko Debate

First off, this site is typically reserved for my non-baseball writing. However, I'd rather keep this one off of Sox Machine.

Earlier this week I made a tweet that caused a bit of a ruckus. The gist of the tweet was that although things turned out OK for the White Sox when Paul Konerko was traded for Mike Cameron, the Reds got the better end of the deal. The tweet was poorly worded, which led to the ensuing stir.

After some discussion, I wish I could have changed how I framed my point. Here are my core beliefs about that trade:

1. The Cincinnati Reds acquired the better asset (5 years of Cameron vs. 7 years of Konerko), and the better player, and it's not particularly close.
2. (Somewhat amending the language in the tweet) The White Sox benefited more from the trade than the Cincinnati Reds. 

Let's start with assertion #1, because this was unexpectedly the controversial part. I understand that there are people out there that don't like WAR as a stat. Some such folks go about this dislike in the correct way, essentially ignoring WAR and continuing to enjoy baseball without needing or wanting to view it through a sabermetric lens. Then there are others who will yell into the ether when WAR spits out a number that paints a player they like in a less favorable light. That's when we hear that WAR is "biased" or "stupid" or "unfair" or "isn't everything".

The reason WAR is useful is that it tries to level the playing field across players who field different positions and have different skill sets. Specific to this discussion, it was pointed out to me (many, many times) that Paul Konerko is a better hitter than Mike Cameron. In the years of control that exchanged hands in the deal (and for their careers as a whole), that's certainly correct. Konerko averaged close to 30 homers per season, while Cameron was closer to 20. If we look at OPS+:

Konerko, 1999-2005: 118

Cameron, 1999-2003: 110

So yes, Konerko was certainly a better hitter than Mike Cameron, both over the course of their careers and specific to the years that were traded in the deal. It is notable, however, that they aren't light-years apart in this regard (unless you look at career counting stats, which favor Konerko's longer and healthier career).

So why does the ledger tilt in favor of Cameron? There's three principal ways: baserunning, defense, and defensive position.

Baserunning is obvious. Konerko was one of the worst runners in the game over the course of his career. He was bad at taking the extra base, and was consistently a GIDP candidate. Cameron was a good runner who stole bases with efficiency and frequency. In 2002 and 2003, Cameron had more than a 1.0-win edge on Konerko -- just from running.

With regards to defense, any Sox fans can recount how great Konerko was at picking throws out of the dirt. He was damn good at it. There's no question about it. He didn't have good range, but he was responsible for saving some throwing errors from his teammates. Overall, I'd say in his younger days, Konerko was probably decent-to-good at first base. Cameron, however, was one of the best defensive center fielders of his generation. It's easy for a White Sox fan to appreciate Aaron Rowand's incredible defense (he was Cameron-like in 2004 and 2005) in center and consider it very valuable. The same argument benefits Cameron's case here.

Finally, defensive position is another one. I hear frequently that "WAR puts 1B at an unfair disadvantage". Whether the quantity of the defensive adjustment is fair is up for debate, but it's certainly fair and correct to penalize someone for playing an easier defensive position than someone else when we're comparing the two players. It'd be easier to find a replacement first baseman that can hit than a replacement center fielder.

For these reasons, WAR prefers Cameron to Konerko by a healthy margin, despite Konerko's advantages as a hitter.

Now, let's turn to the second part of the discussion. It's rare that a team makes out better in a trade when acquiring the inferior asset. Here is what was specifically dealt between the White Sox and Reds:

Player A is obviously Konerko and Player B is obviously Cameron, but let's take the names and context out for a second. In a vacuum, it is a really, really, really bad idea to trade Player B for Player A. That's the sort of trade that could significantly contribute to a general manager getting fired.

So how can a team make out better when getting Player A in that exchange? The specific scenario requires Year 1 - Year 5 to essentially be nothing of consequence, and then you need to have big success in either Year 6 or Year 7 (beyond the control horizon of Player B). That's exactly what happened here. The Sox stagnated (aside from a brief playoff appearance in Year 2, against Cameron's Mariners, no less!). Then, after Cameron would have already hit free agency. Konerko helped the team win a World Series in Year 7.

Notice how much coincidence went into this. The Sox didn't deal Cameron (a long-term asset) for Konerko (another long-term asset) in 1998 with eyes on competing specifically in 2004 and 2005. It just so happened that their annual strategy of assembling a roster just good enough to be interesting hit the variance lottery in 2005. The stars aligned, and a great team emerged where most didn't expect it. In addition to Konerko coincidentally having easily his best season in 2005, the Sox surrounded him with many pitchers who had career years, forming the best pitching staff in baseball. Their mid-tier free agents paid off as well to form an offense with just enough power to carry that team to a title.

The 2005 White Sox could have fallen apart for many reasons outside of Paul Konerko's control. Maybe their starting pitching struggles in the ALCS, leading to a series loss. Maybe they don't catch lightning in a bottle on several relief pitchers with otherwise unremarkable careers that made for one of the deadliest bullpens we've seen. The team could have easily not won the World Series in 2005, and Paul Konerko may have gone down as a respectable player in the team's history rather than a White Sox legend.

Of course, that's all revisionist and hypothetical. The Sox won it all with Konerko. He's rightfully celebrated for his prominent role in the greatest team we've ever had the pleasure of watching. For that reason, we don't regret the trade that brought him here for a second. In the case of Konerko vs. Cameron, "WAR doesn't tell the whole story" is actually a true statement. It does tell us -- rather definitively -- which asset was more valuable (in a vacuum) and which player was better. But it doesn't tell us which team benefited the most from that trade. The team that benefited the most, thanks to a wonderful combination of coincidence, luck, and baseball magic, was undoubtedly the White Sox.

Billions (Season Three, Incomplete, Dropped)

This is more or less a housekeeping post. I dropped Billions for good. This might have been foreseeable in that it's taken me about two years to get through half of Season Three. There wasn't a particular moment that did it for me (though I've heard from others that the direction the plot's taking is disappointing).

Billions had an okay-ish first season and a slightly improved second, but there's no point in continuing on anymore. Most of the characters on this show are completely not interesting (Oliver Dake is the biggest crime here, that guy might be one of the worst-written characters I've ever seen for someone who serves as substantial a plot role as he does in Seasons Two and Three, very reminiscent of Raymond Tusk from House of Cards), and almost all of them are horrible people. Every episode is basically a contest to see which character can screw over another character the hardest (often in confusing and difficult-to-follow ways), which is problematic when it's hard to really care who wins.

On top of all that, there's plenty of investment and legal lingo included that's deliberately written to be confusing to the common viewer, because Billions needs to create the impression that all of these characters have practically superhuman ability in their respective fields, and what better way to do that than to make it appear that all of them understand something that you don't?

Billions had some strong moments and some legitimately exciting plot threads to this point in the series, but by the middle of Season Three, it started to feel like the financial/legal equivalent of House of Cards (for those who don't know my views on that show: that's an insult). The important lesson to learn from these two shows is that "sick" plot twists don't give a series a long shelf life. If you're going to put a (mostly) humorless drama out there, you'd better get yourself some compelling characters, because otherwise, even great actors like Paul Giamatti and Damian Lewis won't be able to save it.

Season Three Grade, Don't Give a Damn That I Didn't Finish It: C-

The Big Bang Theory (Season 12 & Full Series)

First of all, there's inevitably going to be spoilers in this space, but this isn't the type of show where that matters much.

The Big Bang Theory wrapped up its twelfth and final season in May of this year, and it occupied plenty of space on our DVR as a "show of last resort" that my wife and I would watch when pretty much all else failed. While not necessarily "bad", the show generally didn't have much to offer these last four seasons and we were more or less just riding it out until the end.

The major plot of Season 12 involved Sheldon and Amy gunning for a Nobel Prize for their work on "super asymmetry", and navigating the politics involved in trying to attain the award, not to mention trying to fend off a couple frauds (played by Sean Astin and Kal Penn) that kept trying to take credit for their work. They eventually win the award, with Sheldon's portion of the acceptance speech consisting of a big "thank you" for the friends that supported him all of these years, rather than the extremely long list of arrogant "I-told-you-so's" that he had planned to fling at his doubters. 

That was among the more satisfying of endings for the show's character arcs. Penny winds up pregnant and in the finale seems completely content with this, despite it not seeming like something that she fully wanted earlier in the season. It's not implausible, but that happy ending doesn't feel fully earned, as the show didn't exactly explore her feelings on the subject aside from a scene nine episodes earlier in which it's revealed that she's conflicted about her prior convictions of not wanting any children.

There isn't much in the way of resolution for the rest of the characters (except Stuart, who moves in with his new girlfriend, Denise). The series more or less just ends for Howard and Bernadette, whereas Raj breaks it off with Anu thanks to some last-minute heroics from Howard. He doesn't get much in the way of a resolution, aside from sitting next to Sarah Michelle Gellar at the Nobel Prize Ceremony. I'm disappointed that the show never really figured out what to do with Raj.

Season 12 had its moments, and the finale definitely had its high points, but The Big Bang Theory had already milked every last bit of intrigue out of these characters, so there wasn't much left to do besides sit back and enjoy the occasional witty one-liner. There's only so many times Chuck Lorre and company can expect a Sheldon "I-can't-care-about-other-people-no-wait-nevermind-yes-i-can" storyline to really resonate. Heck, even the finale was just another episode in that mold (though admittedly a stronger-than-usual one). The best that The Big Bang Theory ever had to offer was left behind almost a half-decade ago. We knew that going in, so how disappointing could this really be?

Season Grade: C+

***

The Big Bang Theory got off to a very rough start as a series, with a first season that created characters that were socially inept and hoped that its audience would get a kick out of laughing at nerds. The tone of the series measurably changed in its second season, as the viewing experience felt a lot more like hanging out with quirky people rather than poking fun at them. As the series progressed, the "nerds" began to feel more like people with dignity.

That didn't mean that all of the characters ultimately wound up compelling. Bernadette, Raj, and Leonard weren't drawn as well as the rest of the main cast, and that was a consistent black mark on the series. However, Sheldon, Penny, Amy, and Howard had lives that were fun to follow, and each evolved a great deal over the twelve seasons of the series. In particular, Jim Parsons has been showered with awards for his work as Sheldon Cooper, and he deserves every bit of it. The quality of The Big Bang Theory ebbed and flowed throughout its run, but Sheldon is one of the greatest sitcom characters ever, and this show may have not even been renewed for a second season if he didn't quickly become a breakout star in its first.

Throughout much of The Big Bang Theory's run, it has been one of the most popular scripted shows on television, and that owes just as much to its aim for broad appeal (at the expense of more complex story arcs and continuity concerns) as it does the fact that plenty of its episodes are pretty funny. There's a fair amount of basic, predictable jokes, and those that cite this as a criticism of the series are certainly not wrong. 

However, there's also a lot of good humor and heartfelt stuff mixed in, and that's missed by most who have a cursory understanding of the show. The Big Bang Theory's ubiquitousness is the main reason it's become the butt of jokes (similar to Nickelback, a band with obvious shortcomings that no one would care to joke about if it also didn't have enough appeal to have a massive following). As a result, it's the most underrated overrated show on TV. Anyone who lists The Big Bang Theory as one of their five favorite TV programs likely doesn't watch enough shows with depth or ambition. Likewise, anyone who turns up their nose and sneers at it without at least giving it a reasonable chance is missing out on the endearing charm that kept millions of people tuning in each week. 

Series Grade: B-

Deadwood (Full Series & Film)

I actually watched the first season of Deadwood several years ago, but for some reason stalled after watching the first episode of Season Two. However, with the movie coming out this year, I got re-motivated to finish off the series, and it was quite the worthwhile journey.

"Deadwood" is a town in South Dakota, and the series is set in the 1870s, prior to the territory gaining statehood. A large contingent of the characters on the show were actually real-life figures, including well-known ones like Wild Bill Hickok, "Calamity" Jane Cannary, and Wyatt Earp. Through three seasons, David Milch shows the growth of Deadwood from its infant stages to a vibrant community with inhabitants intricately tied to each other's interest and well-being.

In 1876, the righteous, hot-tempered marshal Seth Bullock (Timothy Olyphant) leaves his post in Montana to open a hardware store in Deadwood with his friend Sol Star (John Hawkes). He soon becomes entangled with Al Swearengen (Ian McShane), the proprietor of The Gem, which doubles as a bar and brothel. Though initially presented as a somewhat dangerous antagonist, Swearengen eventually becomes the series' most important character and a sort of anti-hero.

Part of what makes Swearengen endearing is that many of the other figures that either live in the camp or filter through it are downright despicable, from Cy Tolliver (the late Powers Boothe), the owner of the rival Bella Union, to perverse geologist Francis Wolcott (Garret Dillahunt), to the gold-obsessed businessman George Hearst (Gerald McRaney). Swearengen and his seedy crew seem to have just a shred more humanity in them than those they clash with, and it's enough to get you to root for them in the town's frequent conflicts (even sometimes, when the lawful Bullock is on the other side).

That's largely a testament to McShane's performance as the charismatic Swearengen, who is just a Tony Soprano away from being in the conversation for the best television character ever created. McShane steals every scene that he's a part of, and his one-liners and monologues range from powerful to hilarious. I can't say enough about the combination of the perfect voice, spot-on delivery, and superb writing that went into Al Swearengen, and it says quite a bit that I prefer him to every one of the rich characters on The Wire.

The main knock on Deadwood is its third season, as it was cancelled too soon and left many threads lingering, which made the de facto series finale something of an anticlimax. There's a plot line in Season Three involving a theater group that moves into Deadwood that proves to be thoroughly inconsequential, which is a shame considering how much screen time it received. I imagine that their presence was all a setup for the never-produced Season Four, but as it stands, the arc (if you can even call it that) was worthless; I checked out during many of those scenes and was no worse for the wear.

With such critical acclaim surrounding the series and a general understanding that the show never got the ending it deserved, HBO released Deadwood: The Movie on May 31, 2019. It was set ten years after the events of Season Three, and it was a little sad to watch just how much older all of the actors had become. In some ways, the film's conclusion felt just as disappointing as that of the full series, though that owes in part to the need to maintain historical accuracy in some respects. However, it did succeed in showing that the rough, often uncivilized mining camp had developed into a prospering, much more respectable town. As Deadwood (similar to The Wire) utilizes a large ensemble cast and aims for the town itself to be the "star" of the show, that's probably the most important ending of all.

Series Grade: A-

Film Grade: B