With few exceptions, AMC has become notable for churning out some really fantastic television. Mad Men is recognized yearly by the Emmys as the best drama on television, while Breaking Bad is about as critically acclaimed as a show can be. Even the much less serious horror outing The Walking Dead is considered one of the best shows on cable (and it’s certainly the highest rated). So when going into Hell on Wheels, AMC’s newest series which premiered Sunday night, there are really two questions to ask. Firstly, how good is the show? And secondly, how does the series stack up amongst its fellow AMC shows?
Not counting FX’s Justified, which is set in modern Kentucky, Hell on Wheels is the only western series on television right now. The show is a bleak, gritty look at the building of the Transcontinental Railroad following the close of the Civil War in 1865. The main character is Cullen Bohannen, a former Confederate soldier seeking revenge for the death of his wife. He begins working on the railroad as the overseer for a group of freedmen including Elam Ferguson (Common), who initially resents Bohannen after learning that he once owned slaves.
As with any television show centered around revenge, Hell on Wheels has possibly set itself up with a major handicap. It can’t drag out Cullen’s path of revenge for too long without audiences growing listless, but it can’t exactly answer it quickly, either, because then what becomes of the show? For that reason, I can’t imagine that Hell on Wheels will be terribly long-lived, though I enjoyed the episode quite a lot.
The most memorable moment of the episode was probably the opening scene, which saw our protagonist committing a murder in a church confessional. The scene was the best of the episode, especially with the continual references to the crucifix watching down over both the murderer and his victim. Seeing the crucifix led the victim into the church where he met his death, while Bohannen seemed to acknowledge the cross on his way out. Is Jesus helping him on his righteous mission? It was a nice little subtext that I was happy they threw in.
While it’ll take a few more episodes for me to determine whether or not to add Hell on Wheels to my queue of shows to watch weekly, I was certainly pleased with the pilot episode. Sure, there was a little bit of heavy-handedness with Colm Meaney’s monologue at the end, and quite a few of the characters introduced in the series seemed a little too peripheral. But Hell on Wheels is another unique entry into AMC’s canon, featuring a solid cast and the potential for some really great storylines. I’m onboard for now. B
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