Hell on Wheels 4.5: New Blood!

Hell on Wheels checked in with a great episode last night, mostly because it introduced one of the best new characters in the whole series, former Confederate brother-in-arms, Syd Snow.

Indeed, the opener, in which Snow barely escapes with his life from a hanging, could have come right out of a classic Clint Eastwood spaghetti Western, or at least a Robert Rodriguez movie.  Snow represents everything that Cullen was. We learn later that two two shot up and killed everyone on a Yankee medical train, including badly wounded soldiers and doctors.

But whereas Cullen has mostly put the past behind him, including the murder of his family - a soul-rending event that presumably Snow never went through - Snow is still very much living his wild and free Confederate days with abandon.   Not that Snow's shooting Yankees on sight any more, but he's ready to kill anyone who gets in his way.

Cullen likes Snow and his style and sense of humor, but not when Snow tells Cullen's wife about the Yankee train massacre, and even less when Snow may be on the verge of killing Cullen's wife, after Snow indeed sort of accidentally killed an innocent boy (Snow probably didn't know he was a boy) - a bystander to another great Western shoot-out - and then deliberately kills the store-owner who saw Snow kill the boy and calls him on it.   Cullen coming upon all of this as Snow has a gun pointed in Naomi's direction is the final straw.

Significantly, Naomi would have preferred Cullen kill Snow right there, rather than turn him over to the law, and this shows the crucial role Naomi plays now in Cullen's life and thus the series.   She wants that part of Cullen's life - the part that Snow epitomizes - not only locked up inside him, but gone, completely - blown clean out of his life.

It's great to see Hell on Wheels travel so deeply into its Western roots.   And along those lines, the episode had other memorable story lines, including Mickey satisfying killing one of the provisional Governor's goons, and Gregg Henry (The Killing!) putting in a fine performance as Brigham Young.

Hell on Wheels has fine head of steam now - and next week, Elam returns to the story.

See also Hell on Wheels 4.1-2: Rolling Again

And see also Hell on Wheels 3.1-2: Bohannan in Command ... Hell on Wheels 3.3: Talking and Walking ... Hell on Wheels 3.4: Extreme Lacrosse ... Hell on Wheels 3.5: The Glove ... Hell on Wheels 3.6: The Man in Charge ...Hell on Wheels 3.7: Water, Water ... Hell on Wheels 3.8: Canterbury Tales ...Hell on Wheels 3.9: Shoot-Out and Truths ... Hell on Wheels Season 3 finale: Train Calling in the Distance

And see also  Hell on Wheels: Blood, Sweat, and Tears on the Track, and the Telegraph ... Hell on Wheels 1.6: Horse vs. Rail ... Hell on Wheels 1.8: Multiple Tracks ... Hell on Wheels 1.9: Historical Inevitable and Unknown ... Hell on Wheels Season One Finale: Greek Tragedy, Western Style

 
deeper history

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The Killing Season 4: Masterpiece Finale

I just saw the final season of The Killing on Netflix - all six episodes of Season 4 - and it is a masterpiece.

Not because of the new murder story, which was excellent in its own right, with all kinds of brutal twists and turns.   With a much shorter arc than the earlier murders in this series, this one - about a family execution with only the son surviving - had to be tighter, and it was.

But the part of season 4 of The Killing which will make it, and the whole series, something which will be watched and remembered through the ages was the Linden and Holder story.  Part of that is the continuation of the Skinner story from Season 3.  But the even more important part is the toll that takes on Linden and Holder, and the aftermath.  Don't worry, I won't give anything specific away.  But if you'd rather not get any inkling that even a generality can give, don't read any further.

First and foremost, the ending was something I often want to see in a television series, but never do, because most television is afraid to deal with the realities of human nature, ugly, beautiful, destructive, redeeming, and all together. The final season shows Linden and Holder at their best and worst.  They support each other magnificently when one or the other is down, and they turn on each other like nearly rabid dogs when the going gets impossibly tough.   They're both deeply flawed but brilliant.   And the kicker is they're brilliant not only as detectives, but in their understanding of human relationships, often occluded but always on the verge of breaking through.

The last 10 minutes of the very last episode are like nothing I've ever seen on television - hell, that's true of the last 50 or more minutes, but the last ten are something else.  If you think you'll know how this is going to end, I promise that you don't, unless you have even more sensitivity than Linden and Holder in their best moments.

And, by the way, all six episodes are superbly acted. Joel Kinnaman is better than ever, and Mireille Enos is never anything short of fabulous (hey, she was even the best part of that big bad Schwarzenegger movie earlier this year).  Joan Allen puts in a strong performance, and Gregg Henry is excellent.  And there are nods to events from the first three seasons - just what you'd want in a final season - including a crucial appearance from Richmond.

But most of all, as I already said, it's just great and uniquely satisfying to finally see a finale to a television series that in its very last seconds its right where you always wanted it to be.

See also The Killing 3.1-2: Poe Poetic Po-po ... The Killing 3.3: Hitchcockian Scene and More ... The Killing 3.7: "Opiate of the Masses" ... Killing 3.8: The Kidnapping, and a Prediction ... The Killing 3.9: Suspect Elimination and Incompatible Components ... The Killing 3.10: Capital Punishment ... The Killing Season 3 Finale: We Need Another Season

See also The Killing Season Two Premiere ... The Killing 2.2: Holder ... The Killing 2.11: Circling Back ... The Killing Season 2 Finale

And see also The Killing on AMC and The Killing 1.3: Early Suspects ... The Killing 1.5: Memorable Moments ... The Killing 1.6: The Teacher ... The Killing 1.8: The Teacher, Again ...The Killing 1.9: The Teacher as Victim, Again ... The Killing 1.10: Running Out of Suspects ... The Killing 1.11: Rosie's Missing - from the Story ... The Killing 1.12: Is Orpheus the Killer? ... The Killing 1.13: Stretching Television

 
another kind of crime story

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