In my life, “there’s an acute sense of time’s passage,” David Milch once remarked. “Things are important. You don’t want to be inconsequential in your perspective on things. I feel that with an increasing acuteness — that everything counts.” Milch, who was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2015, is the creator and writer of “Deadwood,” which after 10 long years has finally been brought to a glorious conclusion on HBO with “Deadwood: The Movie.” Time, how it changes life and how it reminds us of what is eternal, is its story.

In the title sequence of the original show, which aired from 2004 to 2006, a wild horse gallops at full speed through scenes of miners, drunks, gamblers, and wagons moving westward. Amid the grit and grime, images of life, hope, and despair, the horse races along before coming to a stop in the center of town. This horse is the spirit of Deadwood and of the American frontier. A spirit of rugged, untamed individualism.