‘HELL ON WHEELS’ Season 3 – Review
Cullen and Elam meet again
‘HELL ON WHEELS’ returns to AMC on Saturday night,
August 10th, with a two-hour, two episode opener, entitled BIG BAD
WOLF and EMINENT DOMAIN. It promises a
season three with even more of the adventure, conflict, depth of character, and
accurate sense of history, that the series’ legions of loyal camp-followers
have come to expect. It is, to put it
mildly, a powerful opening.
Durant connives
For anyone new to the series, it is the story of the
building of the Transcontinental Railroad just after the Civil War, much of it
seen from the point of view of Cullen Bohannon (Anson Mount) a trained engineer
and former Confederate Officer. His
original enlisting with the project was a subterfuge – his wife and child were
murdered by Union soldiers, and his work on the railroad provided both cover
and information to track the men down and exact revenge. But the building of the railroad has become
his salvation, a mission in a life which had lost its driving force with the
loss of his family. The title of the
series refers to the portable town – with offices, dormitories, saloons and
brothels – that travels alongside the ever-advancing track-layers; the town of
Hell On Wheels.
Cullen and book-keeper Sean
The curtain rises on Cullen awakening Rip Van
Winkle-like to find himself in the snow-bound, burnt-out ruins of Hell On
Wheels, which had moved with the construction of the railroad until, at the end
of season two, the understandably intransigent Indians had attacked, killing
all they could, and burning everything to the ground. Finding himself in the company of dead men and
live wolves, Cullen, in a sequence as audacious and self-confident as his
character, sets the story and the locomotive back on its tracks, and as he sets
out for the dueling railroads’ headquarters in New York City, en route we catch
up with the lives of other characters.
Cullen gives reporter Louise 'the Grand Tour' of Hell on Wheels
Elam Ferguson (Common) is a former slave turned
railroad security man, who shares an uneasy alliance with Cullen Bohannon. Elam and his woman, Eva (Robin McLeavy) are
anticipating the birth of their first child.
Railroad magnate Thomas ‘Doc’ Durant (Colm Meany) is, surprisingly,
where he belongs: behind bars – Durant, by the way, was a real man, and every
bit the snake he is portrayed as. Sean McGinnes
(Ben Esler), the young Irishman who had come to Hell on Wheels as a peep-show
operator and then pimp has graduated to be Hell on Wheel’s book-keeper. Ruth (Kasha Kropinski), the daughter of the
disgraced and dead minister is again preaching in his stead. Lily, who with her late husband had surveyed
much of the route for the railroad, and had become important in the lives of
Bohannon and Durant and so many others, was murdered by ‘The Swede’ last
season. Perhaps it is in her stead that
we now see a new young woman, Louise Ellison (Jennifer Ferrin), a reporter
covering the re-started construction of the railroad for Horace Greely’s New York Tribune.
Elam, Eva and baby
And as the story gets underway, she will have many
topics to write about, not all of them pretty, particularly the issue of
eminent domain, the government’s power to seize private property for the
‘greater good’, paying what is often ironically termed ‘fair market
value.’ In this case, the Union Pacific
Railroad has been granted the power to seize land for its right-of-way, and
Cullen, as the Railroad’s point man, must contend with the settlers whose
property it is. The result is a stunning
tragedy, the more so for its utter believability.
Ruth
Eva
While the show certainly does not seek to offend,
neither is it politically correct if that would badly serve the truth behind
the story. You will hear the ‘n-word’ in
circumstances where it would have been naturally used at the time. You’ll hear the prejudices that people held
against the Mormons and the Irish without sugar-coating. Much as I love TV Westerns, they have a weak
history when it comes to history – an attitude that any saddle will do, that
all cowboys were white and American-born, that all Indian tribes are
interchangeable, that any gun but an Uzi is acceptable, and no one ever needs
to re-load. Not on HELL ON WHEELS. Along with the layered and complex
story-telling, there is a clear determination among the dramatists and
directors to get it right, and they usually do.
The performances and characterizations continue to be solid. The tech credits are commendable. Happily, it’s been long enough since I’ve
read Stephen Ambrose’s book about the building of the Transcontinental
Railroad, NOTHING LIKE IT IN THE WORLD, that I don’t remember what,
historically, is coming next. I can’t wait
to find out – it looks like one Helluvah season on HELL ON WHEELS.
‘KNIGHT OF THE GUN’ IN THE CUTTING ROOM
Director John Graves Warner is still editing his new Western, KNIGHT OF THE GUN, but he’s already assembled a trailer. Check it out!
‘CENTENNIAL’ COMING TO HOME VIDEO IN OCTOBER
Universal will be releasing ‘CENTENNIAL’ in DVD and
BluRay editions this October. Based on
the historical fiction best-seller by James Michener, winner of the Pulitzer
Prize for Fiction and the Presidential Medal of Freedom, this 12 episode
mini-series has rarely been seen since its original 1978-1979 airing. Set in the fictional town of Centennial,
Colorado, it traces the story of generations of characters from the start of
the settlement in 1795 into the 20th century.
The six disk set will feature 26 hours of content
(not sure if that includes special features), and a cast that boasts Raymond
Burr, Richard Chamberlain, Robert Conrad, Barbara Carrera, Sally Kellerman, and
dozens of others, including Western favorites like Brian Keith, Dennis Weaver,
Donald Pleasance, Robert Vaughn, Anthony Zerbe, A Martinez, Michael Ansara, and
Pernell Roberts. I hope to have more
details soon.
RANDOLPH SCOTT IN ‘THE NEVADAN’ COMIC STRIP FINISHES
Late in
the spring I started running a panel-per-day of a comic-book version of THE
NEVADAN, a 1950 Columbia film starring Randolph Scott, Dorothy Malone and
Forrest Tucker. It was featured in 1950s
western movie magazine my daughter had given me. The response was enthusiastic, so in June I
ran the ‘story so far’ in the Round-up (if you missed that, go HERE ).
Having just finished running the conclusion on Facebook, I’m running the
final panels here. If I ever run into
any of these comic strip Westerns, I’ll share ‘em as well.
THE WRAP-UP
I'm posting this Round-up two days early, on Friday instead of Sunday, to give Rounders a chance to read my HELL ON WHEELS review before it airs on Saturday night -- don't miss it!
Okay, this one is early, so I'll apologize in advance that next week's Round-up will probably be a day or two late. Have a great week -- and let me know what you think of the HELL ON WHEELS season opener!
Happy trails,
Henry
All Original Contents Copyright August 2013 by Henry C. Parke - All Rights Reserved
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