Voting day dawns in Deadwood. Utter wakes Hearst to tell him a casket's arrived with his name on it - with a body inside. "Evidently not mine," Hearst retorts. But Utter continues to provoke him, telling him he doesn't like his tone, and next time he'd better change it. Hearst, amazed at Utter's gall, closes the door in his face.

In the empty theater, Langrishe reviews the state of tensions in the camp, and whether it should prevent their debut, as Claudia listens.

Adams comes upon Hawkeye, drunk in the thoroughfare, and demands to know where he's been. Hawkeye insists his men are camped outside of camp, so as not to tip off Hearst. Adams drags him off to clean up.

Alma explains to Sofia how they are being forced to sell, in order to stay in Deadwood. She leaves Sofia with Jane while Star and Bullock accompany her to Hearst's to oversee the sale of her claim. Bullock and Alma insist that the gold be delivered directly to the bank's safe and Hearst is put out by the juvenile precaution. When Hearst gets one last lascivious comment in to Alma, Bullock defends her honor: "Can't shut up. Every bully I ever met can't shut his f**king mouth," warns the Sheriff.

As Jane entertains Sofia, Joanie stops by to see if they need anything, and Jane pretends to Sofia she'd summoned Joanie with "secret thinking." Jane is unsettled when Joanie leaves, awkwardly.

Laid up with back pain, Hearst orders Farnum to deliver a note on his behalf to Swearengen. Farnum fears the note demands his death, but Al reveals that it insists on Trixie's. Al gives him a note to send back in response.

At the Number Ten Saloon, Nuttall praises Harry Manning's campaigning, while Rutherford plays checkers with comatose Steve. Nuttall unveils to an awestruck Manning the fire wagon he's received. When the General comes to fetch Steve to wheel him over to vote for Bullock, the General is disgusted with his state: "You don't want to look after him, just say so."

Joanie stops by the Bella Union to see Tolliver, an attempt to offer some sort of olive branch, but Cy rebuffs her.

Al drinks with Burns to tell him of his plan to save Trixie - that Jen, the whore Burns has a fondness for, must die in her place. "Hearst won't stand for an empty coffin. Likely he paid most attention to Trixie's tits and snatch, so Jen will adequately pass." Burns, distraught, asks to do it himself.

Fed up with being in hiding, Trixie dresses to go out, swearing she's not afraid to die. Star angers, trying to keep her there, and when she resists, he throws her out himself: "At least I can say I threw you out, if you'd rather die than live with me." But she knocks at the door, and falls into his arms, weeping.

Burns tries to murder Jen while Al waits outside the door. When Burns can't do it, he begs Al to handle it differently, but Al orders Dority to knock Burns out when he cools off, while Al goes to fetch another knife to do the deed himself.

Aunt Lou helps Richardson bathe and dress to go vote, urging him to vote for Bullock.

As the General and Rutherford line up to vote the Pinkertons try to pick a fight over the General getting to vote before a white man. Utter defends the General's right to hold his place in line, which Joanie observes.

At the Gem, Star arrives to talk to Al about Trixie's concern that he will kill another whore in her place and Al tells Star to tell her it's too late, he already has. He also orders him to fetch the Sheriff. Meanwhile, Adams tries to pave the way for Hawkeye to give Al an update on his men. But Wu arrives before Hawkeye can get very far and Al sends Adams to go to retrieve the men while he talks to Wu.

Joanie returns to her room to find Jane drunk, having been put out by Joanie's cool treatment earlier. Joanie tells Jane she saw Utter at the voting and wants to be that way to Jane—good in a tight place, even if they aren't getting along. Joanie tries to explain her feelings to Jane, and envelopes her in Wild Bill's bearskin robe that Utter gave her to give Jane.

Al talks to the box containing the dead Indian Chief's head, ranting about the bind he finds himself in. He calls to Jen to come to his room. He emerges and sends Dority to box her. Trixie arrives in time to see the body, insisting on putting Jen in her dress before Dority puts her in the pine box.

At the Bullock home, Utter and the Sheriff discuss the day's voting when Star barges in to retrieve the Sheriff.

Meanwhile, Langrishe stops in on Hearst, and under the guise of asking after his health, feels out his intentions over resolving tensions with Swearengen and Bullock. Hearst reveals he plans to leave as soon as he sees the election returns and the whore who shot him dead.

Back at the Gem, Merrick announces the election results from Sturgis—a landslide for Harry Manning. Bullock arrives in time to hear the news. "How do you think you might enjoy private life?" asks Swearengen.

Newman delivers a note from Hearst to Tolliver revealing his plan - for Cy to be his "f**king quartermaster." In frustration, Tolliver stabs Leon and he bleeds to death while the whore Janine tries to help him. Meanwhile, Cy watches the factions gather in the thoroughfare—Hawkeye's 18 men, Hearst's Pinkertons, and Wu's Chinamen.

Hearst strides into the Gem flanked by his pistoleros. He goes upstairs to inspect the corpse. Al accompanies him to the room while Bullock and Utter stand guard nervously outside, wondering whether the ruse will work. Revealing the dead whore, Al steps back, hand on his knife. Hearst checks her pulse, wipes his feet of her blood and leaves, satisfied.

In the thoroughfare, Hearst climbs aboard the coach to ride out of camp, as he tips his hat at Alma, returning in her wagon with Sofia from Ellsworth's grave. Bullock goes to him, "You're done tipping your f**king hat...Get out of this camp or I'll drag you out by the ear." Hearst orders his driver to drive on.

Still surveying the scene, Cy, tormented, points a gun towards Hearst, and then Janine, who placates him with her bare breasts.

Bullock confesses his feelings of impotence to Utter as he heads home. Poking his head out of the hole in the Grand Central, EB stands on the veranda in Hearst's absence.

Burns comes to Al, who is cleaning Jen's blood from the floor, to ask if she suffered. "I was gentle as I was able and that's the last we'll f**king speak of it, Johnny, " he says, muttering as Burns leaves. "Wants me to tell him something pretty."