By Jonathan Klotz
| Published
Before AMC went all-in on The Walking Dead franchise, and after the launch of Breaking Bad, the network experimented with a series of high-brow dramas, from the spy thriller Rubicon to the experimental The Killing. Awkwardly wedged between both eras of the network was a historical drama that explored the American West just after the end of the Civil War: Hell on Wheels. Starring Star Trek: Strange New World’s Anson Mount as Colonel Cullen Bohannon, a Confederate Officer turned railroad foreman, the series was a very different take on the settlement of the West and remains a hidden gem to this day.
How The West Was Settled
Hell on Wheels may focus on the struggles Cullen faces in his new life on the rails, but it also includes a rotating cast of characters that, in Season 1, are prominently European immigrants, but by Season 5, are replaced by Chinese characters, reflecting the historical changing dynamics of the American West. Anson Mount does a fantastic job as the, not quite a hero, but nearly as bad a man as those he encounters as the railway expands towards the Rockies, while fellow Star Trek alum Colm Meany, O’Brien from The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine, gets to be the villain, Thomas “Doc” Durant, who will cut corners, kill rivals, and destroy anyone that gets in the way of his investment.
Acting as Durant’s right hand and a fan-favorite character is “The Swede,” played by Sanctuary’s Christopher Heyerdahl, the man who is really a Norwegian named Thor Gunderson, is in conflict with Cullen from the very beginning. Intending to kill Cullen for the murder of the original railroad foreman, The Swede winds up having to work with Durant’s new foreman, but during the entire run of Hell on Wheels, he remains a constant threat. Though more people saw his turn in Supernatural as Alastair, The Swede is Heyerdahl’s best role to date.
Anson Mount’s Star-Making Performance
Overshadowed by the villains, Anson Mount does a fantastic job in Hell on Wheels, turning in what could also be considered his best acting performance. Cullen bounces around the frontier, first as the foreman to an all-black crew and eventually, doing battle with Durant for control of the railroad in the later seasons. As the steely center of every season, Mount’s job is to keep the stories grounded in reality, and amazingly, he pulls it off, even as Brigham Young and the Mormons get involved, the story never veers off into the realm of the totally unbelievable.
Hell on Wheels was a hit for AMC, but it never quite broke into the mainstream when, really, it should have made Anson Mount and Christopher Heyerdahl into stars. But the best of all, especially today, is that the series tells a complete story and was able to end on its own terms after five seasons and 57 episodes by tying the epic tale of the Transcontinental Railroad together with a satisfying conclusion. There’s a good chance you missed watching the show while it aired on AMC from 2011 to 2016, but just like Cullen Bohannon, you now have a second chance.
Hell on Wheels is streaming for free on Amazon Freevee.
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