S01E03:
_There seems to be enough interest in discussing “Hell on Wheels” that I’m going to keep these posts going for now. “A New Birth of Freedom”
brings together Cullen and Lily, gives Elam more responsibility with
the cut crew, and lets Doc Durant give another speech that’s meant to be
terribly persuasive but really isn’t. Oh, and it gave us more Swede,
which is never a bad thing.
In the foreman’s tent, Cullen finds a photo of Johnson standing with eight other Union soldiers. Gazing at the image, Cullen recalls murdering three of the soldiers, including the one shot in church. An inscription identifies a fourth man as “Sgt. Harper.”
The next morning, Sean laments that business is falling off. Mickey dares Sean to talk with local prostitute Eva, a white woman reputedly sold as a girl to Indians and known as “the Savage One.” The tattoo on Eva’s chin startles Sean, who slips and falls in the mud as she curses him in Cheyenne.
Last week I praised the show, because despite its apparent shortcomings it still had a confident energy it ran with. The lack of character intrigue was replaced with compelling action that drove the show forward. Ironically, we learn more about the characters through their unspoken actions than the long blocks of dialogue we were treated too this week. This goes back to the point referring to the writing, with another example being when the character of Elam (Common) decides to go into the saloon/brothel. Immediate motivations for Elam’s struggle in this episode are established quite early in this episode. As a freed slave, he plans to make a point to the white men of the camp that he is their equal. Before he goes into the brothel he explains this for a second time in the episode. It is these wasted scenes that wear the show down.
In the foreman’s tent, Cullen finds a photo of Johnson standing with eight other Union soldiers. Gazing at the image, Cullen recalls murdering three of the soldiers, including the one shot in church. An inscription identifies a fourth man as “Sgt. Harper.”
The next morning, Sean laments that business is falling off. Mickey dares Sean to talk with local prostitute Eva, a white woman reputedly sold as a girl to Indians and known as “the Savage One.” The tattoo on Eva’s chin startles Sean, who slips and falls in the mud as she curses him in Cheyenne.
Last week I praised the show, because despite its apparent shortcomings it still had a confident energy it ran with. The lack of character intrigue was replaced with compelling action that drove the show forward. Ironically, we learn more about the characters through their unspoken actions than the long blocks of dialogue we were treated too this week. This goes back to the point referring to the writing, with another example being when the character of Elam (Common) decides to go into the saloon/brothel. Immediate motivations for Elam’s struggle in this episode are established quite early in this episode. As a freed slave, he plans to make a point to the white men of the camp that he is their equal. Before he goes into the brothel he explains this for a second time in the episode. It is these wasted scenes that wear the show down.
Immortal Mathematics
Watch Hell on Wheels – Immortal Mathematics Online S01E02
Christopher Heyerdahl makes his first appearance as the Swede in Hell on Wheels 1×02, “Immoral Mathematics,” which airs tonight at 10 pm on AMC. He’s been getting great reviews for the show (see here), so see the episode if you get a chance. Here is another one, from The Boston Globe: Indeed, once a character known as the Swede (Christopher Heyerdahl) shows up in episode 2, with his silent-picture expressiveness and the kind of threatening presence usually found in Coen Brothers movies, I was fully invested in the show and looking forward to seeing the rest of the 10-episode season. The Swede is just the kind of twisted psycho creep you want to watch closely, the showiest bad guy in the “Hell on Wheels’’ stampede of antiheroes led by financier, swindler, and railroad builder Thomas Durant (Colm Meaney). Set in the 1860s at the beginning of reconstruction, the series follows Cullen Bohannon, a former Confederate soldier, who is determined to exact revenge on the Union soldiers who murdered his wife.
His quest for vengeanace sends him westward to Nebraska’s “Hell on Wheels,” the lawless towns that move with the construction of the transcontinental railroad. However, things get complicated when a Cheyenne tribe attacks the construction of the railroad, determined to destroy the project because it is being built through their lands.
We’ve got two versions of Hell on Wheels here: there’s the version that’s interesting and cool and the version that wants to be cool and isn’t. “Immoral Mathematics” is caught in between.
_
Christopher Heyerdahl makes his first appearance as the Swede in Hell on Wheels 1×02, “Immoral Mathematics,” which airs tonight at 10 pm on AMC. He’s been getting great reviews for the show (see here), so see the episode if you get a chance. Here is another one, from The Boston Globe: Indeed, once a character known as the Swede (Christopher Heyerdahl) shows up in episode 2, with his silent-picture expressiveness and the kind of threatening presence usually found in Coen Brothers movies, I was fully invested in the show and looking forward to seeing the rest of the 10-episode season. The Swede is just the kind of twisted psycho creep you want to watch closely, the showiest bad guy in the “Hell on Wheels’’ stampede of antiheroes led by financier, swindler, and railroad builder Thomas Durant (Colm Meaney). Set in the 1860s at the beginning of reconstruction, the series follows Cullen Bohannon, a former Confederate soldier, who is determined to exact revenge on the Union soldiers who murdered his wife.
His quest for vengeanace sends him westward to Nebraska’s “Hell on Wheels,” the lawless towns that move with the construction of the transcontinental railroad. However, things get complicated when a Cheyenne tribe attacks the construction of the railroad, determined to destroy the project because it is being built through their lands.
We’ve got two versions of Hell on Wheels here: there’s the version that’s interesting and cool and the version that wants to be cool and isn’t. “Immoral Mathematics” is caught in between.
_