Hell on Wheels Episode 105: Bread and Circuses

Aaaaaaaaand Hell on Wheels is back in my good graces with an excellent episode. While there were some flaws, it was overall an hour of fine and thoughtful entertainment.

The boxing match between our protagonists, Elam Ferguson (Common) and Cullen Bohannon (Anson Mount), was race relations in microcosm. All of the betting and enthusiasm was based entirely on underestimating Elam, who was a nameless former slave to almost every white who laid a bet. While a couple of episodes ago it was “Elam” versus “Mr. Ferguson,” only Bohannon called him by any name this week. He was “the darky,” the “Negro adversary,” the “buck;” primarily a former slave even to his friends who said, at first, “do it for us.”

See, before the fight has even begun, I knew that Bohannon drinks and smokes, while Elam works in the cut all day and, ironically because of race, doesn’t have access to drinking in the saloon. There is no way that Bohannon has comparable stamina based simply on the amount of exercise each man gets. So, my first reaction was, ‘this is stupid,’ but I really have to learn to give this show the benefit of the doubt, because Bohannon saw it too–he underestimated Elam, and thought he would win, yet he plainly saw that his opponent was not fighting back.

A few episodes ago, I really thought that these two men were going to be friends, and it took until tonight to realize that will never happen. The friendship would have been much more of a TV trope, while this adversarial relationship is fascinating and a little scary.

The use of the hand held camera was wonderful, and gave immediacy to the fight. I’m old-fashioned about cameras and feel they usually should not wobble around, but this was done right.

It’s funny how the fight was ended in a way that allowed the audience to retain their sense of their own hero. If your hero is Elam Ferguson, well, he won. If your hero is Bohannon, well, he was defeated by pepper in the eyes, so his defeat isn’t so ignoble. It’s a cute writer’s trick, not one I’m complaining about, but one I certainly noticed.

I liked Lily and Durant this time. Last week, their cat-and-mouse game seemed to exist for the sake of cat-and-mouse. It lacked verbal deftness so I just wanted them to cut to the chase. This week, I see more of their agendas, and the interplay was more entertaining. It’s pretty clear that Lily wants her husband’s money not for its own sake, but because she wants the ability to stay in the West and away from her family, and she needs financial independence for that. I wonder what Hell on Wheels will be like with a second major financial player.

When reviews of Hell on Wheels–often negative–began appearing, there were complaints about Bohannon and Lily rushing into a romance. (Keep in mind that press kits contained the first five episodes.) But so far, we’ve seen none of that, and it feels to me like reviewers jumped to conclusions. It certainly might happen, but as with the friendship between Elam and Bohannon, we might be surprised.

I don’t think “Bread and Circuses” as a motif was entirely successful. I understand the idea of giving people a spectacle, and being made a spectacle of, but it didn’t go anywhere for me. On the other hand, I loved Bohannon punching the rooster as he lay on the ground. Yep, he was in a cockfight and he knew it.

So, Mickey is the innocent brother, and Sean the hustler. We already knew that. I thought Mickey looking around going “Sean? Sean? Where’d he go?” was on the heavy-handed side and “established” characteristics already well-defined. We should learn more about those guys instead of just playing those notes. But I’m okay with the brothers getting a big payday, because their struggles with money and the Swede were going to get old.

The preacher is a shitty father and the daughter may become interesting. Okay. The preacher needed more depth and Hell on Wheels needed more women who aren’t whores.

The one undeniably awkward bit was the Sun Dance and the vision of the train. Those Indians had already seen trains and the vision made them seem too “primitive.” It was Noble Savage Cliché, although the ritual was portrayed with accuracy.