Hell on Wheels
Okay, this may ruffle some feathers, but I really look at Hell on Wheels as “Red Dead Redemption: The TV Show,” and though that blows some minds when I say it, the few people who have played the game and watch the show tend to find it to be a spot-on assessment. Hell on Wheels is one of those shows you watch, and it is so grimy and weathered and hazy, that you start to feel like YOU smell when you are watching it.
Wait, I am getting ahead of myself here.
Hell on Wheels is an AMC show that started in 2011 about one man, former soldier and slave owner (so his hands are CLEARLY not clean), who is following the man who killed his wife, looking for revenge, and ends up being in the middle of the construction of the Transcontinental railroads. What we see is him adjusting to his new life, while still keeping aware of his old one, and encountering a whole slew of new souls, just as lost as him, all looking for their own forms of redemption.
Plus, rapper Common plays a slave who kicks much ass and is like “f*ck this slave shit” and that is kind of cool, and very much Common. But overall, just an engrossing, messed-up tale about the insane manner in which America was built, and the dark cast of characters who helped build it.
Speaking of a dark cast of characters…..