Hell on Wheels (Season 3)
Third season wrapped up tonight. Feels like I'm the only one still watching. Didn't even know there was a third season until a few weeks before it started.
Tonight was a weird finale for a weird kind of season. The final moments of the second season were fantastic as Cullen is made head of the railroad (although the death of Lily Bell really pissed me off). It felt like a natural progression for Cullen. Much of season three dealt with this, but it was always an uphill battle. It felt like we never saw much actual building of the Union Pacific. Definitely less than last season. Right from the season premiere, Cullen is presumed dead due to the winter, so he and Elam have to go to New York and convince the board of directors to reinstate him.
Much of the season was like this. Assumptions are made and set ups felt a bit contrived. The town was basically destroyed by the Indian attack last season, so why are a few guys living in the ruins during the winter? Seemingly months later? Or how the cholera outbreak just happens between episodes. No build up or anything. So many of the episodes felt like standalones. And some of the plot turns felt like the network trying to adhere to his concept of watching characters in these programs make incredibly bad decisions. And yet a number of the plot turns, especially in the finale, felt like they came out of nowhere and were melodramatic and shocking for the sake of themselves. The return of the Swede was also head-scratching and really did not intercept the main storyline until the finale.
Anson Mount does do a pretty good job as Cullen this season. The best episode this year was "One Less Mule," which brought the original plot back front and center. It was a nice resolution to that story, which was a major reason I tuned in to begin with. Yet even in the pilot, they establish that most of his revenge plot was finished. The "competency hearing" held by the investors recapped the show so far and led to the best revelation of the show: to be a railroad man is to be a killer. And that's shown at the end of that episode when a drunk Cullen confronts the brother of one of the people he's killed. A haunting scene.. and brutal.
I have absolutely no idea how the ratings have been for this show. That it even had a season 3 was kind of a surprise. It makes me wonder if it'll continue. If not, tonight's finale was a pretty awful way to end it. So if they're going with a cliffhanger style finale with everyone in a bad spot, here's hoping they have a chance to resolve it.
