A few weeks ago, I struggled to write a review of the first episode of AMC’s new western Hell on Wheels, so I scrapped it altogether. My sister, however, suggested I write about how the show is told from the point of view of the white colonizers, and how the black and Native American characters are just stereotypes. She takes a lot of anti-oppression courses at York University, so this is how she analyzes almost everything now (I’m so proud!). I was hesitant to really go there. I try to follow Roger Ebert’s rule about criticizing what the art is about, not what it isn’t. That being said, I couldn’t shake my sister’s criticism, and that’s all I could think about as I sat down to watch episodes two and three. #inception
But she makes a point. Hell on Wheels’ hero and villain are, for lack of a better word, white colonizers. It’s 1865, the war is over, Lincoln is dead, and Cullen Bohannen (Anson Mount) is a former Confederate soldier looking for revenge on the Union soldiers that murdered his wife. He heads down to the Union Pacific Railroad's westward construction of the first transcontinental railroad. The camp is populated with gruff and destitute men - ex-slaves, Irish immigrants, ex-soldiers, and prostitutes. They all work for the malevolent Thomas Durant (Colm Meaney). Bohannen’s motive for being there is simple: to murder the men responsible for killing his wife. He’s already killed one, in a church confessional of all places, and his trail leads him to another assailant, the foreman of Durant’s railroad and a former Union soldier. He confesses to knowing of another man in the camp responsible for killing Bohannen’s wife, but his throat is slit by Elam (Common), an ex-slave avenging the death of his friend, before he can spill his guts (metaphorically speaking).
Hell on Wheels has a broad cast of characters including two Irish entertainers, the Reverend Cole (Tom Noonan) and his Native American convert Joseph Black Moon (Eddie Spears), a widow (Dominique McElligott), and a Norwegian enforcer known as “the Swede.”
From the first episode, the show looks like it’s setting us up for an eventual showdown between Bohannen and Durant. It’s pretty well summed up in Durant’s closing monologue at the end of the pilot, one he delivers to no one in particular, save maybe the audience: “Is it a villain you want? I'll play the part. After all, what is a drama without a villain?” Well, so much for subtlety. Ah, but all he’s doing is reminding us that history is written in blood, and great achievements, like the building of a transcontinental railroad say, will be built by men of greed, and something about lions and zebras. Bohannen, our hero, certainly fits the bill, seeking vengeance for his dead wife, rescuing the poor widow from a pack of the Swede’s men, and basically playing by his own rules. It’s inevitable his interests and Durant’s will clash at some point down the road.
So what’s surprising about Hell on Wheels? Very little, and I guess that’s why I couldn’t stop thinking of my sister’s take on the show. I wouldn’t be opposed to yet another western from the white man’s point of view (although god knows how many of those we need). Deadwood was one of the finest shows ever made, and that had fewer blacks and Native Americans on it than Hell on Wheels. But its characters felt like fully fleshed out human beings rather than convenient plot elements.
And it’s hard not to pick out the “noble savage” stereotype in both Elam and Joseph Black Moon. We’re only three episodes in, but already we’ve seen Elam risk his life more than once to help a former slave owner and confederate soldier (all this despite being very vocal about his ill feelings towards slavery and the white man). Joseph is particularly noble, chastising his Cheyenne brothers for their massacre of a white expeditionary group, presumably the same whites that are working for Durant, who plans on colonizing their land.
I’m being a bit overzealous is my criticism. I have no idea what these guys will end up doing over the course of the first season. Series need time to develop, some more than others (Walking Dead, ahem!). And I probably wouldn’t be harping on the representation of blacks and Native Americans as much if the white characters were a little bit more interesting. Anson Mount acts like a broke-ass Josh Broland, but his swagger ain’t right. At times he can be a convincing as a badass, like how he aims his pistol, and other times it feels like he’s faking it, like when he reacts to Elam’s murdering the foreman. His voice breaks, and that gritty voice he’s been using the last 40 minutes turns into a pathetic yelp.
I’m still giving Hell on Wheels a chance, partly because the setting itself has potential. Sometimes all it takes is subplot or supporting character to get invested in a series, and I’m holding out hope for the Reverend and Joseph Black Moon. Durant’s speech at the end of episode three holding up Black Moon as the “model Indian” was cringe-worthy, but it pushed all the right buttons and I’m curious to see how his character develops. And if anything, watching it with my sister will at least spark the odd debate over the show’s racialism (or racism?), which might prove more interesting than the series itself.
