Hell on Wheels Season 2 *SPOILERS*

[sojourner]

I finally looked up Anson Mount on imdb. This is pretty much his breakout role. With a clean shave and haircut he looks about 20 years younger. You wouldn't recognize him on the street.

[Anwar]

He's come pretty far from being Brittany Spears' pretty boy in "Crossroads".

[auntiehill]

Well, it seems MRS. Durant is a better boss than her husband. Or, at least, a smarter one. But what will happen to Lily? They seem determined to get rid of her, for more reasons than one.

Trouble brews between the McGinness brothers. Mickey is turning into quite the useless drunk, while Sean pines for the wrong woman.

Speaking of the wrong woman, who will Eva end up with? Assuming she survives, that is?

And what exactly was Mr. Ferguson hired to do? Take over Bohannon's job? And will The Swede ever get what's coming to him?

With any luck, at least ONE of these plotlines will get resolved in next week's two-hour season finale.

[Anwar]

I missed a lot of the episode to watch the 2010 Upstairs, Downstairs series on PBS but caught some bit.

I'm surprised Durant was affected by Elam's spiel in his office. You'd think he'd just kill him as an insolent ex-slave, but he almost seemed to show respect to the guy.

[Mister Fandango]

Despite what some people may want everyone to believe, it's actually really difficult for people with modern sensibilities to think (and therefore write) like people did during those times. The genuine belief that people of a different race were little better than beasts of burden is nearly impossible to comprehend. Sure, you can find a lot of people who are still deeply racist, but by and large most people just can't wrap their head around that mindset. Not really.

Sure, calling someone a derogative term and getting faux angry about them drinking in the same tent as you is easy enough. But even the single most racist person in the show, within only a matter of months, has largely turned around. If that's proof that the writers don't truly understand how indoctrinated those beliefs were, I don't know what does.

And the fact that the majority of the audience has gone along with it, too, demonstrates it even more.

[137th Gebirg]

^^^ That's what I loved about Deadwood - it was unapologetic in its use of period colloquialisms and never strayed from beginning to end. Like it or not, it remained true to its source material. Fluffing up a show meant to be a similarly-formatted historical drama to appeal to modern sensibilities is a quick road to failure, IMHO.

[Anwar]

With Elam it's somewhat justified: He seems to be Bohannon's friend and it's widely known he works for Durant. Everyone fears Bohannon (and they know he's saved him at least once) and no one wants to anger Durant.

Both those things would be enough to protect Elam. But he's letting it get to his head and doesn't realize how nominal his power is.

HoW isn't about the founding of a true Frontier town like Deadwood was. It's not going to deal with all the social norms of the time like DW did nor does it try to.

That said, it is trying to portray the Wild West as a more Grey place than usually thought up (even the Indians aren't just rampaging Boogeymen).

[Derishton]

Shows about history are never accurate, nor can they be. Hell on Wheels has basically been an explicit fable about America's metling pot right from the start, so you'd expect the racist attitudes to change in front of us: that's what the show is trying to demonstrate, the old myth that opening the west - a shared task - helped to forge a single nation out of disparate racial parts. The story they're telling has no interest in a depiction of actual, unchangeable racist indoctrination: it's an allegory for two hundred years of changing attitudes compressed into a post-Civil War setting.

[Anwar]

Wow, they're going all out with this finale aren't they? Afraid of cancellation or something?

[auntiehill]

WOW. Well, we'll have a LOT of new cast members next season, won't we?

That was one brutal season finale, but I didn't expect some of the deaths. I sure didn't expect

Lily to die

but I was surprised that

Eva and Elam both survived

[Immolatus]

antichristhill wrote:

---

WOW. Well, we'll have a LOT of new cast members next season, won't we?

That was one brutal season finale, but I didn't expect some of the deaths. I sure didn't expect

Lily to die

but I was surprised that

Eva and Elam both survived

I was kinda shocked myself

[Base_Delta_Zero]

So, over the course of two seasons we watch Lily and Cullen get put through hell, and then, when they finally have 5 minutes of not wanting to kill themselves, we have the most asinine character in recent TV history strangle her because...what? It's edgy, dark and gritty?

I have no interest in this show anymore. They have no clue what they're doing, other than to make characters retarded in order to put their Gary Stu Herald of Chaos villain in a position to murder the heroine and make sure the hero stays dark and brooding.

YAWN.

Try watching Deadwood sometime, writers of Hell on Wheels, to see how to tell a dark, gritty period story with emotional impact without random stupidity and shock-killing main characters that manage to have a nice day for once after two seasons of oppressive, depressive abuse.

Killing off Mr. Toole was also lame. He's a decent minor character, so I guess just have him commit suicide, cause you didn't like that you'd written yourself into a corner with the interracial relationship sidestory? Yeah, you totally earned that. Wait no you didn't.

Shameful waste of a show's potential.

[sojourner]

Opinions, everybody's got'em.

[Immolatus]

Base_Delta_Zero wrote:

---

So, over the course of two seasons we watch Lily and Cullen get put through hell, and then, when they finally have 5 minutes of not wanting to kill themselves, we have the most asinine character in recent TV history strangle her because...what? It's edgy, dark and gritty?

I have no interest in this show anymore. They have no clue what they're doing, other than to make characters retarded in order to put their Gary Stu Herald of Chaos villain in a position to murder the heroine and make sure the hero stays dark and brooding.

YAWN.

Try watching Deadwood sometime, writers of Hell on Wheels, to see how to tell a dark, gritty period story with emotional impact without random stupidity and shock-killing main characters that manage to have a nice day for once after two seasons of oppressive, depressive abuse.

Killing off Mr. Toole was also lame. He's a decent minor character, so I guess just have him commit suicide, cause you didn't like that you'd written yourself into a corner with the interracial relationship sidestory? Yeah, you totally earned that. Wait no you didn't.

Shameful waste of a show's potential.

agreed.

[Anwar]

What, can't anyone take a "Bad Guy Wins" scenario anymore?