 Tagline: Blood will be spilled. Lives will be lost. Men will be ruined. Hellbent on vengeance, former Confederate officer Cullen Bohannon (Anson Mount) travels west in search of the Union soldiers who murdered wife. His quest leads him to "Hell On Wheels," the dangerous, raucous town that follows the construction of the nation's first transcontinental railroad. Storyline: Cullen Bohannan, a former soldier and slaveholder, follows the track of a band of Union soldiers, the killers of his wife. This brings him to the middle of one of the biggest projects in US history, the building of the transcontinental railroad. After the war years in the 1860s, this undertaking connected the prospering east with the still wild west. Written by cc ardbeg 2.01 Viva La Mexico - Cullen Bohannon robs trains, one of which is guarded by Elam, with a group of ex-Confederate soldiers, while Lily Bell and Thomas Durant attempt to resume the Union Pacific Railroad's westward progress. 2.02DDurant, Nebraska - urant takes some men to a ransacked town of his namesake, where he learns the Sioux Nation has declared war on him. Cullen is freed from the Union Army prison by an unlikely ally. Lily promises Eva justice in the prostitute's murder, which Elam investigates. 2.03 Slaughterhouse - Bauer, the town butcher and friend of the deceased Schmidt, seeks to avenge his murder. His target: a bragging Mickey McGinnes and his brother. With no help from Elam, Lily admits her involvement with Schmidt's murder to Durant, who asks Cullen to control the angry mob. 2.04 Scabs - The Sioux torture a railroad worker, causing the crews to go on strike. Cullen telegraphs for replacement workers ("scabs"), forcing the crews to band together and save their jobs. Eva tells both Elam and Toole that she is pregnant with Elam's baby. 2.05 The Railroad Job - Cullen's former train-robbing gang sets their sights on Hell on Wheels and its safe. Elam struggles to maintain order and has to rely on Cullen's help, causing the town to shun him. The Swede continues to prepare Reverend Cole for his prophetic "war". 2.06 Purged Away With Blood - The Swede and Reverend Cole aid the Sioux in their war with the railroad — the Swede supplies their guns and Cole hijacks the train taking Durant, Eva, and Doc Whitehead to Chicago, intent on killing them all. 2.07 The White Spirit - The Swede returns to town to help Lily with the railroad's accounting ledgers, against Cullen's wishes. Mickey McGinnes and his brother Sean seek to expand their franchise. 2.08 The Lord's Day - Durant returns to town with his wife Hannah. Lily is concerned about her future with the railroad. The Swede sabotages a mechanical pulley used to build the bridge. 2.09 Blood Moon - An army officer interrogates Cullen about the apparent destruction of Hell on Wheels and an accounting ledger that was mailed. Hannah Durant suggests to Lily that she move to New York City and be a governess, while husband Thomas has allowed Elam to keep his house if he kills Lily. Ruth tells Mickey they cannot be together due to each one's religion. Toole finds Eva at Elam's place and kills himself in front of her, despite her informing him she had ended her relationship with Elam. 2.10 Blood Moon Rising - Elam decides not to kill Lily after she offers him a security chief position when she and Cullen take over the railroad after Durant's embezzlement is made known. Hannah tends to a badly burned Swede, who explains that the Sioux turned on him and they will attack the town the next day. Sean converts his religion and is baptized, only to be shunned by Ruth. The Sioux attack the town and an escaped Swede chokes Lily to death. Cullen takes her body to the church, then escorts the Swede to hang him from the bridge. Before Cullen can secure the rope, the Swede jumps to the river below. The army officer asks if Cullen will finish the railroad, to which Cullen does not respond. ------------------------------Reviewer's Note: Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman on August 20, 2013 -- Hell on Wheels has come under fire by some for supposedly being a Deadwood wannabe, and there are certainly at least a few passing similarities between the two series. Gritty post-Civil War setting? Check. A burgeoning town which seems at time like little more than an encampment? Check. A varied cast of characters that includes a motley crew of vagabonds, schemers, and even the occasional dreamer? Check. A morally questionable (and questioning) hero? Check. An imperious "overlord" attempting to move characters around his personal chessboard like so many pawns? Check and mate. But Hell on Wheels has seemed more and more intent on carving its own unique identity, something that comes into sharper focus in this second season. The series is still probably best in its small character moments than in its overriding story of the attempt to push westward to forge the Transcontinental Railroad. In fact, for a series supposedly focusing on trains, there's precious little time given to them, and instead the series shifts its attention to a number of side stories that are of course tangentially linked to the building effort since the characters have been brought together by that very situation. Hell on Wheels takes a couple of bold steps in its sophomore year, including starting the season out seemingly without a central role for the series' putative main character, grieving former Confederate soldier Cullen Bohannon (Anson Mount). Some may feel the opening two episodes of the season are therefore a bit of a cheat, since in tried and true television fashion, everything is more or less returned to its previous status after a few detours, but on another level, this perhaps questionable gambit at least allows the series to start to delve more thoroughly into some of the other extremely colorful characters that make up the large and at times ungainly cast. The first season of Hell on Wheels ended on a rather unsettling note, as Cullen's long quest for vengeance played out like a wild west version of Sawyer's similar arc on Lost: The Complete Collection. The unstated question became: what will Cullen do next? That question is answered rather quickly in the first episode of the second season, and if that answer is a bit unlikely or contrived, it at least sets up a couple of really interesting new dynamics, including the one between Cullen and Elam (Common). In fact much of this second season is built around shifting power structures with a number of formerly relatively powerless characters starting to feel their oats, while at least one major powerhouse is brought to his or her knees. The contrivance that keeps Cullen away from Hell on Wheels is rather quickly and conveniently solved, though the reason Cullen has been away sets up a series of new conflicts, kind of half-grudgingly with Elam but more seriously with the rank and file building the railroad. The show seems to want to posit Cullen almost as a Christ figure in some of the early episodes, showing a despised, wounded hero, but Cullen's background and morally ambiguous nature makes that comparison dangerous, if not downright wrongheaded. Hell on Wheels still tends to toe the line a bit too carefully in trying to keep Cullen from being too objectionable, but I would argue that the series finds some of its most visceral moments when the character is completely out of control. Colm Meaney has a field day in this season as his impresario Durant has one of the more important storylines in the latter half of the season. Meaney's Durant can be rather unexpectedly gentle with Lily (Dominique McElligott), who is now both under his employ and romantically involved with him, but then the next moment he can erupt into drunken violence against Cullen. It's a really fascinatingly shaded performance and one of the best reasons to keep watching this season. Another standout is Robin McLeavy as Eva, the erstwhile "working girl" whose romance with Elam would seem to have been halted by her marriage of convenience. Emphasis on seem to have been halted. And in two scene stealing roles are Christopher Heyerdahl as The Swede (despite the character being Norwegian), who has been demoted to being a mortician of sorts, and especially Tom Noonan as Reverend Cole, whose battle with the demon drink isn't going very well. The series continues to be extremely well written, though the writing tends to work best in microcosm, when characters are interacting with each other, often in rather florid and poetic dialogue, than in macrocosmic character developments or big plot machinations. Part of this may simply be due to the fact that the series has so many characters that crafting a through line that includes all of them can be difficult if not impossible. But for those who dismissed Hell on Wheels as a second rate Deadwood, this second season provides some ample proof that there's a rather distinctive point of view here. A little more focus and perhaps "mini-arcs" featuring one or two characters at a time might help the overall shape of the series, but this series continues to offer some unusual and unusually compelling characters in a dramatic setting. I actually was rather easily caught up in Cullen's story in the first season of Hell on Wheels, though I completely understood those who thought the series was a B-grade Deadwood. My hunch is even some of the naysayers will be pleasantly surprised with some of the twists and turns this second season takes. The series still tends to work best in its intimate moments rather than its larger plot arcs, but I was continually impressed with the intelligence of the writing throughout this season. The show continues to be one of the most handsomely mounted series on television right now, and this Blu-ray offers those visuals with a high degree of excellence. The conceit that starts off the second season is fairly useless, but that's more than offset by a number of startling developments for a number of both featured and supporting characters. Highly recommended. Cast Notes: Anson Mount (Cullen Bohannan [20 episodes, 2011-2012]), Colm Meaney (Thomas 'Doc' Durant [20 episodes, 2011-2012]), Common (Elam Ferguson [20 episodes, 2011-2012]), Dominique McElligott (Lily Bell [20 episodes, 2011-2012]), Eddie Spears (Joseph Black Moon [20 episodes, 2011-2012]), Ben Esler (Sean McGinnes [20 episodes, 2011-2012]), Phil Burke (Mickey McGinnes [20 episodes, 2011-2012]), Christopher Heyerdahl (The Swede [19 episodes, 2011-2012]), Robin McLeavy (Eva [18 episodes, 2011-2012]), Tom Noonan (Reverend Cole [17 episodes, 2011-2012]), Duncan Ollerenshaw (Mr. Toole [16 episodes, 2011-2012]), Dohn Norwood (Psalms [14 episodes, 2011-2012]), Kasha Kropinski (Ruth [13 episodes, 2011-2012]). IMDb Rating (06/14/13): 8.2/10 from 15,300 users IMDb Rating (03/30/13): 9.0/10 from 185,395 users
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