Hell on Wheels casting

[Anwar]

Considering they actually brought that up and had someone say "If you lose you die, if you win you die!" thing it's probably just Rule of Drama.

I was surprised about the Irish Brothers though, wasn't expecting them to back-stab Bohanan like that. Well, the "smarter" brother did anyways.

Bohanan and Durant probably wouldn't let Elam get lynched anyways.

 

[Ryan]

Considering they actually brought that up and had someone say "If you lose you die, if you win you die!" thing it's probably just Rule of Drama.

Na, that stuff would have gotten you lynched in wide swaths of the 20th century let alone the 19th.

People freaked the hell out when Kirk kissed Uhura and that was a white man kissing a black woman in the 1960s. A black man visiting a white cathouse in the 1860s would have gone down several magnitude worse. Though Hell On Wheels seems to have some rule where if you mention doing something will absolutely get you lynched then you won't get lynched.

I wouldn't count on Durant to stop it as he's currently the man trying to instigate a war between the federal government and Cheyenne not to mention he wasn't even there anyway. Bohanan probably would have stopped them (he shows a rather absurd amount of deferment to Elam on all things) but he's too busy being passed out on the floor (the best line of the episode has to be one of the Irish brothers calling Bohanan a good friend... a good friend they left half-naked and severely beaten on the floor of a dirty tent ).

 

[sojourner]

The one irish brother with the bowler hat keeps making me flash back to Back to the Future 2 and M.J. Fox playing Sheamus McFly.

 

[auntiehill]

Well, hubby and I are watching this, and liking it more and more. Yes, the Elam character would have most likely been killed long before now, but for drama's sake, he's still around. That's fine by me, because I'd like to see more of him.

As I watching the fight scene, I thought, "You know, it's not very bright for the Irish brothers to bet on Bohanon. You'd get a much better payoff from Elam." Glad to see the writers thought that, too.

And, I'm assuming that the wife buried the maps in her husband's grave?

 

[Star Wolf]

Considering they actually brought that up and had someone say "If you lose you die, if you win you die!" thing it's probably just Rule of Drama.

Na, that stuff would have gotten you lynched in wide swaths of the 20th century let alone the 19th.

People freaked the hell out when Kirk kissed Uhura and that was a white man kissing a black woman in the 1960s. A black man visiting a white cathouse in the 1860s would have gone down several magnitude worse. Though Hell On Wheels seems to have some rule where if you mention doing something will absolutely get you lynched then you won't get lynched.

I wouldn't count on Durant to stop it as he's currently the man trying to instigate a war between the federal government and Cheyenne not to mention he wasn't even there anyway. Bohanan probably would have stopped them (he shows a rather absurd amount of deferment to Elam on all things) but he's too busy being passed out on the floor (the best line of the episode has to be one of the Irish brothers calling Bohanan a good friend... a good friend they left half-naked and severely beaten on the floor of a dirty tent ).

I have heard a radio interview with the author of A Renagade History of America, or somthing liked that. He thesis is that there was a lot more open race mixing in old America then is now taught and such lynchings came from a later era.

 

[Anwar]

Elam is supposed to be half-white himself, the result of a white man raping a black woman.

 

[Star Wolf]

Elam is supposed to be half-white himself, the result of a white man raping a black woman.

Was he? But what that author meant by openly, especially with prostitutes was that it wasn't rape, as is now used to explain the shades of Black Americans but actual relationships either professional or love based.

On the greater show it is a slow burn, like The Wire was being on AMC it has time. Will it be worth it like The Wire was to me or not like how The Killing dragged on remains to be seen.

 

[Anwar]

They said so in the last episode, one guy mentioning that Elam was "half-black, half-white" and telling him to picture Cullen as the white man who raped his mother.

Plus, his complexion is lighter than the other workers if you think about it.

 

[Ryan]

I have heard a radio interview with the author of A Renagade History of America, or somthing liked that. He thesis is that there was a lot more open race mixing in old America then is now taught and such lynchings came from a later era.

I'm not familiar with Russell's work but from what I understand that thesis refers to a period up to the late 17th century in America at which point you start seeing the first miscegenation laws getting put on the books. Not to mention in the five years following the Civil War there was something like 2000 lynchings (no one knows the numbers for sure).

 

[Ryan]

I really hope Durrant is working some angle here because he's looking quite absurd right now. That big soliloquy on being the villain of the piece and here we are with Durrant practically begging on hands and knees for the senator from the great state of Illinois not to expose his insider trading? Not exactly robber baron type stuff.

The Union Pacific also really needs to consider getting a new lead engineer because the one they have forgot to bury the railroad ties and decided to build the line through a creek bed.

 

[sojourner]

Yeah, I'm not sure how the trains are going to make that tight turn either.

 

[Derishton]

some British observers actually thought a Confederate victory would ultimately speed up the abandonment of slavery

Faster than the North winning the war?

Yes, because Britain remained neutral despite having fought for years to end the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. It comes down to cotton, which the British needed to keep their textiles industry alive; they felt they had a natural kind of clout with the South which they didn't have with the industrial North, whose democratic leanings bothered them anyways. Many British thought slavery was going to go away because Britain held the balance of financial power in any relationship with the Confederacy, and because they thought slavery was an aberration in the otherwise honourable South - it would go away when the South realized its error, and it would do that if it were free to make its own decision.

 

[sojourner]

This show is still keeping me hooked. Though I am unable to think of any particular moments of the show that stands out. It just stays very consistent in it's level of story telling.

 

[Roger Wilco]

I was only watching the last episode with one eye (figuratively), so maybe I missed something - what exactly was Bohannon's motivation for saving Elam by both risking his life and burning any remaining bridges he had to the railroad camp?

 

[Star Wolf]

I was only watching the last episode with one eye (figuratively), so maybe I missed something - what exactly was Bohannon's motivation for saving Elam by both risking his life and burning any remaining bridges he had to the railroad camp?

Why? He is the hero/antihero protaganist of course. And its hard to kill people if he is tied down to a road crew

 

[Roger Wilco]

Yeah, but I mean storywise, in-character, why did he do it? Just because the tattooed prostitute asked nicely? The story has made it pretty clear that he's still a racist and considering how quick he is on the trigger and that he had to murder someone to free Elam, it could hardly have been his humanitarianism either, could it? I really didn't understand that part.

 

[Anwar]

He's only on the Railroad to kill that last guy who murdered his wife, nothing else. Plus, he's developed this strange love/hate thing with Elam and those Irish guys have been showing themselves to be loose cannons for quite some time.

The Swede himself knew this, that's why he sent those guys after them. He figured Bohannon would just kill them all and save everyone any future trouble they'd cause.

 

[Santeria]

Yeah, but I mean storywise, in-character, why did he do it? Just because the tattooed prostitute asked nicely? The story has made it pretty clear that he's still a racist and considering how quick he is on the trigger and that he had to murder someone to free Elam, it could hardly have been his humanitarianism either, could it? I really didn't understand that part.

It really is because he's pretty much the hero of the story. The man with a heart of gold. Elam saved his life early on in the story (even if it ruined the intel he was after), and he's been earning his respect ever since. As opposed to the Irish douchebag who's done nothing but earn his ire.

The prostitute simply sparked his inner conscience into action. Elam's a good and honorable man in his eyes and he doesn't deserve to be treated the way he's being treated. And very likely in Bohanan's eyes, he still owed him for the aforementioned life saving. The fact that he knows the memory of his wife wouldn't approve if he let Elam be killed is simply icing on the cake.

 

[gh4chiefs]

I also think we're seeing a man struggling with his past and struggling to evolve as a person. As he was telling the story about the slave lady who was trying to save his child from the fire, he said something to the effect "God has a funny way of teaching us lessons." So I think he has this inner conflict of his decades old racist life coming into conflict with the things his wife was trying to tell him about the evils of slavery and the "lesson God was teaching him." He's not there yet, maybe never will get there, but he's clearly questioning some of his previous held racial beliefs.

 

[Ryan]

some British observers actually thought a Confederate victory would ultimately speed up the abandonment of slavery

Faster than the North winning the war?

Yes

Oh, lordy.

The Constitution of the Confederate States of America literally made it illegal for any Confederate state to abolish slavery:

No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed.

But even if we ignore that we have the Emancipation Proclamation de facto ending slavery in 1863 and the 13th Amendment officially abolishing it in 1865. There's no way in hell the British could have accomplished it that fast, especially after the huge price the Confederacy just paid to preserve the institution.

About the best you could hope for is the Brazil model where the British were able to get slavery fully abolished in Brazil in the late 19th century after three decades of intensive pressure.