It’s been a very long time since Westerns were the most popular Hollywood genre. Back in the 1950s and 60s, shows like Gunsmoke and Bonanza presented people with a sanitized version of life on the American frontier, and were popular enough to last for over 10 seasons each.
These days, Westerns are much fallen in esteem, although the ones that get made are often better than their predecessors. There’s one series in particularly that has been criminally overlooked: Hell on Wheels, which you can watch for free on The Roku Channel, a free streaming service that doesn’t even require you to make an account. You just search for what you want to see, click, and enjoy.
Hell on Wheels deserves a reappraisal
After all, the price is right at $0
Hell on Wheels is set in the 1860s, immediately after the end of the American Civil War. Cullen Bohannon (Anson Mount) is a former Confederate soldier on the hunt for the Union officers who killed his wife and son. His search takes him to a mobile encampment that follows the construction of the transcontinental railroad, which would eventually connect Council Bluffs, Iowa to the San Francisco Bay, providing a relatively safe way for people to travel through what was then treacherous territory.
That’s how the series starts, but like any show that lasts as long as Hell on Wheels does, it changes over the course of its run. Cullen’s revenge quest eventually dims, both because he hunts down most of the people responsible and because he finds new purpose in life. Slowly but surely, Cullom becomes fixated on building the railroad, and its completion becomes the thing everyone on the show is driving towards, giving it a clear north star.
Along the way, we meet a rich variety of supporting characters. There’s Thomas “Doc” Durant (Colm Meaney), a morally flexible businessman who hopes to make his fortune building the railroad. Lily Bell (Dominique McElligott) is a widow who helps map its course. Elam Ferguson (Common) is a recently freed slave who thinks his hard work entitles him to the same level of respect as any of his colleagues, regardless of race. Thor Gundersen, aka the Swede (Christopher Heyerdahl), is a Union veteran and Durant’s head of security, and ends up in an extended battle of wills with Collum that lasts nearly the whole length of the show.
Cullen Bohannon is our classic Western protagonist, a stoic stranger with a checkered past and a heroic streak who tends to end up alone in the world. He provides the show with a center to come back to, but the rest of the cast fill out the world of the series and make it feel alive.
Hell on Wheels is a sprawling historical drama
All aboard!
One of the best things about Hell on Wheels is how expansive it is. Modern western TV shows tend to last only a couple of seasons at most, or be limited series like the Netflix show American Primeval. That’s because Westerns are expensive to make, but despite Hell on Wheels never becoming as popular as other AMC shows like Breaking Bad or The Walking Dead, the network let Hell on Wheels spread itself over nearly 60 episodes across five seasons. Hell on Wheels is a proper epic that gets to explore a fascinating piece of American history in detail. It’s the kind of show you can get lost in.
Like the HBO classic Deadwood, Hell on Wheels is a revisionist Western that sees the frontier as more lawless and brutal than many of the classic Western movies from Hollywood’s golden age. That said, it aired on basic cable, so Hell on Wheels never gets quite as profane and violent as the HBO show. It arrives at a happy medium: there are enough shootouts and horse chases to get the blood pumping, but little so vile that you’ll be tempted to turn off the TV so you can recover. The sets and costumes are fantastic throughout, as is the musical score, which includes strategically deployed modern songs that serve to highlight the action.
The acting on Hell on Wheels is rock solid, with Anson Mount capably holding down the fort (Paramount would later hire him as the lead on Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the strength of his performance in Hell on Wheels was what tipped the scale). That said, special mention must be made of Christopher Heyerdahl’s performance as the Swede. Heyerdahl takes what could have been a predictable baddie role and turns him into a villain for the ages, whose bitter rivalry with Cullen Bohannon becomes almost mythic by the show’s end.
That’s enough praise. What’s wrong with Hell on Wheels?
What the hell (on wheels) is this?
Like the pirate drama Black Sails, Hell on Wheels mixes together fact and fiction. Some characters, like Thomas Durant, were real people, but that doesn’t mean Hell on Wheels gets perfect marks when it comes to historical accuracy. Although the show makes a point to include different points of view, it’s been called out for vilifying certain groups of people, with some taking issue with its portrayal of Mormon settlers. It’s also notable that Chinese workers, who were hugely important to the construction of the transcontinental railroad, are more or less a non-factor until late in the game, although the show does introduce several Chinese characters in the final season.
Overall, Hell on Wheels is a show that learned what it wanted to be as it went, and fans tend to agree that it got stronger as it went on. This show is a journey, and one that you can take whenever you want for no money down.
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Free streaming services are too good to be true
You can watch the first season of Hell on Wheels for free on Philo and Plex, but the whole thing is available to watch start to finish on The Roku Channel. Again, watching shows and movies on these kinds of streaming services is as simple as finding what you want and clicking. You’ll have to endure a few ads along the way, but it’s still a great deal, so good that it almost feels like getting away with something.
If Hell on Wheels had become more popular during its run, maybe AMC wouldn’t be willing to let the whole of it stream on The Roku Channel. As is, it’s a win for anybody looking for a great Western to binge.
Release Date
2012 – 2016-00-00
Anson Mount
Cullen Bohannan
Colm Meaney
Thomas ‘Doc’ Durant
Christopher Heyerdahl
The Swede
