“Hell on Wheels from AMC”

Out With a Whimper, Not a Bang

I have been a devoted fan of this show since Day 1. It fit my criteria perfectly, it was historical, it was a western and it was about the railroad. I loved every quirky turn in this episodic show and followed the lives, loves and adventures of Cullen Bohannon, Eva, Elam, Lily, Naomi, Thomas Durant, Mickey, Ruth, Sean, Psalms, The Swede (who was really Norwegian) and the rest of the colorful cast through the vast plains as they built the railroad that spanned our great nation.

The beautiful Lily, who lost her husband, fought off the Indian who wounded her and eventually in love with the brooding Cullen as she pierced the carefully placed armor around his heart. I believe he actually loved her and could have made a life with her when the railroad was finished. Unfortunately, she died at the hands of The Swede.

Eva, the woman who no longer fit into white society after a life with the Native Americans. Secretly she longed for their simple life and their acceptance of her as she forged her path with the tribe. Forced to return to the society that shunned her because of her ‘marked up’ (tattooed) face and her dark past as a captive, no one accepted her in decent society. Eva earned a living with the only commodity she had in those rugged frontier days. She traded her body for the gold the men earned on the railroad and rose to the role of madam which neither fit her lonesome heart or made her happy. Her one chance of happiness and family had been wretched from her hands when she gave up her infant daughter. She watched her Irish born husband commit suicide and her one hope at happiness die of a fatal gunshot a short time later. She found life among white society harder for a lone woman and felt totally adrift in the tent city she called home.

There was Louise, the newspaper woman, forging a destiny out of nothing, sent out West to cover the building of the railroad. She became the storyteller of the nation’s greatest feat of healing a nation after the Civil War. As freedmen worked alongside the Irish and slave owners became a different master referred to as ‘walking bosses’ and the Chinese laborers and Mormons joined in the endeavor to make the dream of a railroad come true. Louise gave life to these people on the pages of her paper and told their stories for the rest of the a nation to read by their fireside as history was being made a half a continent away.

There was Durant the schemer and scoundrel, the man in charge of building the railroad west to meet up with the one coming from California. He made and lost fortunes as he built each mile of track.

And, then there was Cullen Bohannon, who never intentionally set out to build the railroad. A Confederate soldier, on the trail of his family’s killers which took him west to the railroad. He hunted down and killed each Yankee that took part in the demise of his wife and son. Eventually he fell into the work on the railroad simply because he needed money. With nothing else meaningful in his life, the completion of the railroad became his obsession. He loved, lost, gained enemies and lost them along the way. His tortured soul was often at odds with his southern honor and we saw the great struggles within his heart.

It was a marvelous road to travel with all these souls.

However, the final few shows should have been more polished, not so rushed and last night’s episode reminded me of the janitor sweeping up the last of the remnants on stage before the house lights go out.

There was no final gasp, there was no final good-bye. It just ended with no clear cut pronouncement that the railroad was finished, save the last golden spike was driven in. And, Cullen even missed that because he was waking from a drunken stupor and headed to the bar instead of the ceremony. I hated that they gave him that edge of an alcoholic. We had seen hints of it throughout the show. The bar room brawl that followed was a sad commentary on such a fine show and only emphasized the fact that many in the building of the railroad had no idea what they had accomplished.

The attempt to turn him into a Yankee soldier was ridiculous and totally out of context with the show and gave a feeling of choppiness to the hour long, disjointed ending.

The best scene to come out of the last show and one I really felt gave the over all feeling of the entire saga of all seasons was Eva riding her spirit horse off into the sunset to find her Mojave family. The one who she identified with the most and felt the most at home with. That was the end of show for me. It was very well done and gave hope to the fans that had faithfully followed this series. She seemed to be the only one with a purpose in mind.