Hell on Wheels Season 2

DVD Wholesale Quick Overview:

I saw it when it aired. When the dvd’s arrived I watched both seasons over again. Never a dull moment. The acting is great. Plenty of villains and horrible conditions to get the railroad built.
Anson Mount is Cullen Bohannan, a former confederate soldier from Mississippi, is the lead character on a mission to find the union soldiers that killed his family just before he returned. He’s killing them off, one by one, even one in a church confessional on the east coast. It leads him to where they are building the Union Pacific railroad in Iowa, making its way west mile by mile
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Colm Meaney as Durant got government money to build it and is cheating any way he can to line his pockets. Lily Bell’s surveyor husband was killed by indians and she has taken over his job. There are lots of workers; some are Irish immigrants that have a problem tolerating the freed slaves who have jobs also. Indians are always a threat along with the evil “Swede” (who is actually a Norwegian) hates Bohannon and always trying to take him down. A great mix of personalities and none of them with pure motives.
It is a tent city that the inhabitants can pick up and take when a lot of miles of track have been laid. These tents also make up businesses like saloons, whore houses, a cafe of sorts, a church, and even a butcher, etc. They filmed it even in bad weather in Canada so half the time it’s rainy and muddy. Women’s skirts drag in the mud. Couldn’t be more realistic.

– Jones

Well, for all you Deadwood fans out there, this is better by a long rifle shot. There was an odd attraction to that western, and the plot was always rather vacuous, but the dialogue writing was over the top. Hell on Wheels cover the full spectrum of over-the-top. I bought all the episodes for my Kindle, it was that good. Fargo and Walking Dead are the only others I garnered first. This updated and gritted up western is awesome. Acting is top notch to go with the twisting and turning plot line. Great bad guys chase the good guys and vice versa. Hell on Wheels actually gets better as the seasons progress. Westerns are maybe an acquired taste, and it does have some brutal violence at times. So, get over it, and watch it.

If you haven’t yet grabbed a Kindle, just do it, as Nike says. I have the 9 inch HDX with 18gb(get more GB’s) and videos on this unit blow away any other iPad-like device on the market. These videos like Hell on Wheels look ridiculously good on the 2500×1600(1920×1080 is your HDTV’s resolution) screen that is the industry leader for clarity. Even with my glasses on, I cannot see a pixel from 6 inches away. Try that with your device! Get Hell on Wheels for your Kindle and you will love it, and can also be played on your Playstation or computer too.

-Movieskinny

Well, it is official, Cullen is just a lucky ‘so and so’ and this episode bears witness. Loved this episode arc all though I had a few little prop/supporting script issues.

***SPOILERS***SPOILERS****

This episode is driven by The Swede character. The anger at his fall from grace and his resultant new position low in the town’s pecking order sticks in his craw…so he plots. His well placed words of venom sting others and the results are bloody.

Durant has “rescued” (made him an offer he couldn’t refuse) Cullen from the Army firing squad in the last episode and offered him a job with the railroad. Something tells me the terms of this employment contract will end up being changed as Cullen decides what will benefit him as time goes on.

Meanwhile, Lily is working for the railroad (read Durant) and also playing around in Durant’s bed, thus feels she has power to make things happen. When Durant finds out what “thing” she took upon herself to do (by convincing Elam to do her dirty work), all hell breaks lose. Lily learns that power and money can be destructive in many, many insidious ways…with Durant/Cullen having to clean-up the mess. ***Side note: what is with Lily’s crisp, clean hat and coat? Not even her sleeves have DUST or marks on them? Heck, I can’t wear a light color jacket like that for a week in a clean environment and not get some dirt on it.***

Well, Mickey and Sean McGuinness are now running protection for the whores since Penny was murdered. When the German railway foreman, Schmidt, is strung up with the ‘Woman Killer’ sign around his neck, everyone is left to wonder who murdered him as he was put there in secret. While using one of the women in the whorehouse, Mickey intimates to her that he was the man who brought Penny’s killer to justice. This statement comes back to haunt him when the Germans, the slaughterhouse butcher to be exact, decide to get retribution for their friend Schmidt, by killing Sean & Mickey.***Side Note: after his bed-sport with the whore Mickey exclaimed “I’m gobsmacked!”…REALLY? I don’t think that expression was around in the post Civil War era.

This episode has many small jewels of conversations, but I find myself riveted by the last 20 minutes, similar to watching a train wreck. The Germans had Mickey and Sean strung up in the slaughterhouse so Durant sends in Cullen and Elam to rescue them (there is only 6 or seven to their two – even odds). Durant then incarcerates the pummeled Sean and Mickey and holds them for Schmidt’s murder to appease the Germans. Meanwhile, Cullen is sent to “explain” (with a right upper cut) to the German butcher that he needs to leave town. The butcher says to Bohannan, “This is a free country, by God!” …Cullen replys, “yeah, that’s the funniest damn thing I ever heard”,…golden.
Needless to say the McGuinness brothers are let out of jail, things get nasty and lots of blood is spilled.

***Side note: in the beginning of this episode the butcher makes the statement that “…we must use all..” in referring to the butchering of the hog that is taking place in the scene. I grew up on a hog farm and I’m very familiar with the process. I was truly surprised that this German butcher did not catch the blood, but instead let it pour out onto the ground. Any of my German farmer relation who butchered always made blood sausage and my Irish relations made blood pudding. In fact, an old German saying in my family was ‘you used everything but the squeal’ when butchering a hog..guess Hollywood just wanted the dramatic effect of spilling blood.

-Wayfaring Stranger

DVD Wholesale Main Features:

Actors: Anson Mount, Common
Format: AC-3, Box set, Color, Dolby, NTSC, Widescreen
Language: English
Aspect Ratio: 1.77:1
Number of discs: 3
Studio: Entertainment One
DVD Release Date: July 16, 2013
Run Time: 430 minutes