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Just as Doc and Lily return to town from their Chicago trip, their train derails and kills or injures just about everyone aboard. Doc and Lily are spared, but shaken. Just before the wreck, they saw several Cheyenne men waiting and watching in the distance, so they immediately surmise they are at fault. Indeed, even Joseph puts the blame on his brother, whose name isn't Terrible Tracker but Pawnee Killer. Doc wants Cullen to lead some cavalrymen and Joseph to find Pawnee Killer and the other renegades, but the Swede informs him that Cullen is a fugitive after rescuing Elam from a hanging. Doc is incensed – not at Cullen, but at the Swede for condoning the hanging. The freedmen work twice as hard for half the pay and Doc can't afford for them to leave now.
Cullen returns just then and whoops the Swede's ass but good. Off Cullen goes with Elam, Joseph and the cavalrymen. Cullen immediately clashes with a man who used to be a Union soldier and they nearly come to blows, but then they remember they have bigger problems. Like the fact that Pawnee Killer has stolen their horses and killed one of their men, and is just waiting to pick them off one by one.
Back in town, the sisters are doing it for themselves. After Reverend Cole begins to lose his faith and turn to drink, Ruth Cole stands up for herself and for her dead mother and doesn't flinch one bit when he nearly slaps her. Lily decides to strike out on her own rather than become Doc's "kept woman." She sets up a tent across from the brothel. It's muddy and depressing, but the locale affords her the opportunity to become friends with Eva, and it is pretty fantastic. Lily's independent resolve soon begins to falter, though, and it looks like she might be considering accepting Doc's offer. Somehow, it's more suspenseful than Cullen's impending showdown with Pawnee Killer. Stay tuned for the full recap.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Previously: Cullen Bohannon shot some of the former Union soldiers responsible for killing his wife and son. Elam got cozy with a tattooed prostitute named Eva, which didn't sit well with the white workmen in Hell on Wheels. Some of them tried to kill Elam, but Cullen rode in and save him from the noose. Reverend Cole's daughter Ruth came to town after her mother died. Cullen taught Elam how to use a gun, which he then used to kill Mr. Toole for trying to hang him. Doc Durant asked Lily to be his mistress.
Currently: Doc's train is heading west. As they chug along towards Hell on Wheels, Doc takes out some paper and a dip pen to compose a letter to his wife.
My Dearest Wife,
All is well. Heading back to Nebraska with five million dollars in my pocket. Picked up a pretty young blond lady to be my nookie on the side. On the down side, I'm making a mockery of our marriage. On the upside, at least you don't have to sleep with my fleshy, brandy-soaked self any longer.
Yours Truly...
Well, that's probably what he would have written, except in language befitting the era, but he gets no further than the salutation. He's distracted by Lily's presence. She stands at the window, looking all golden and beautiful in the sunlight, watching the scenery blur past. She sees four Cheyenne men on horseback, waiting not far from the tracks. She starts to say something to Doc, but the train suddenly lurches. The wheels screech. A glass rolls across Doc's desk. Drops of liquor spill across his interrupted missive, blurring the greeting to his wife. Symbolic! Or maybe not!
When the train comes to a stop, Doc and Lily step out to see what the holdup might be. On first viewing, I thought it was part of Doc's train that had crashed, but now I (and Doc and Lily) see that their own train had to brake in order to avoid a second, wrecked train ahead of them. Boxcars lie in splinters all over the tracks while the engine lies off to the side, still gasping out puffs of smoke. Many men are injured or dying. Lily shakes off her horror and goes to check on some of the wounded. Doc staggers around, taking in the sight of all the destruction, and hears something hissing. Steam builds up from the still-burning fire inside. What's left of the engine explodes, sending debris rocketing into the sky. Cue the opening credits.
After we return to the show, enough time has passed for the Swede to have made his way to the wreckage. "We're gonna make them Injuns pay for derailin' this train," he says, clambering over a chunk of train. "I want you to get back to Hell on Wheels," Doc says, "and rouse those useless, drunken cavalrymen." The Swede is happy to do just that, until Doc calls him back: "Oh, and get Bohannon! I want him to go with them." You'd think someone would have telegraphed a message to Doc at some point about what's been going on, but apparently not. When the Swede tells Doc that Cullen is a fugitive, it's news to Doc. So the Swede explains about what went on a couple of episodes ago, with a bunch of guys trying to hang Elam and Cullen killing one of them during the rescue. Doc is still baffled, so the Swede says Elam was caught with a white woman. "You mean one of the whores?" Doc asks. "You were going to hang a Negro for screwing a whore?" He's more baffled than ever. The whole time the Swede was recapping the situation, it was clear that this was the first time he'd said any of these things aloud. Only then did he realize it was one of those things that sounded better in his head. "It seemed appropriate at the time," he says weakly. Doc lowers his voice to scold his bookkeeper about the economics of the matter. "Those freed slaves work twice as hard for half the pay," he says. He's worried that they'll leave now, but the Swede assures him that only the one has left, along with Bohannon. He makes things worse by telling Doc he sent a posse after Bohannon. Bohannon, Doc says, is the man he wants hunting down the savages.
Speak of the devil! Cullen and Elam ride onto the scene just then, even though it doesn't entirely make sense for them to do so. As far as Cullen knows, Doc condones hanging black men for bedding white women. In which case, bringing Elam back to town would be the worst thing for either of them. But perhaps he has some sixth sense about these things, or maybe he read ahead in the script. He dismounts his horse and strides over to the Swede with clear purpose. The Swede immediately reaches for his trusty gun, Beauty. He's not quite fast enough, though, and Cullen already has a bead on him. The Swede sets Beauty aside and raises his arms in submission. "I am unarmed! I beg for your mercy!" Cullen walks right up to the Swede, aims his gun not a foot from his forehead. Then, instead of shooting him, Cullen flips the gun in the air, catches it by the barrel and whacks the Swede across the face with the handle. Fantastic. The Swede drops to the ground like 200 pounds of potatoes.
Cullen holsters his gun and grabs a rein off a nearby post. He then proceeds to give the Swede a shockingly vigorous whipping. The Swede cowers and cries out and every lash cuts through his shirt and into his skin. Cullen doesn't let up until he hears Lily call out to him. "What on earth are you doing?" she asks, clearly disgusted. He stands there for a minute without answering. Then Doc walks over and asks, "Are you quite finished?" Cullen whips the Swede again, so apparently not. "Mr. Bohannon, that's enough," Doc says. "I need to see you back in Hell on Wheels right away."
The church stands in for both a hospital and a morgue. Helpful prostitutes clean injured men's wounds and give their hands comforting pats. Sadly, in happier times, most of these men would not return the respect these ladies show them now. Ruth and Joseph walk in looking dismayed by the sight of all the suffering. Ruth reaches down to lift up a blanket covering one of the dead men, but Joseph stops her with a hand on her arm. "It's the engineer, he's badly burned," he says. Ruth removes Joseph's hand from her person and proceeds to lift the blanket. The engineer's face looks like cooked meat. Ruth gasps and flings herself into Joseph's arms. "What kind of monster would do this?" she sobs against his shoulder. He holds her by the waist and she touches her forehead to his chest. They breathe together and stay close for perhaps longer than they mean to. They see the Reverend standing at the entrance and quickly part. Luckily for them, the Reverend's attention falls on the scene of carnage rather than on the budding romance between his children.
"All is lost," the Reverend says. Joseph moves to comfort him, but the Reverend jerks back. "I was a fool to believe that love could prevail over hate." Joseph and Ruth ask him to pray with them, to have faith. But the Reverend is already well on his way to losing more than his religion. He grins like a madman and advances on his daughter. "God has abandoned this terrible place," he says. He presses his fingers into the engineer's burned face then touches Ruth's cheek, painting her with thick, brownish blood. "Blood is God here, just as it was in Kansas," he says, "and Babylon in the old book, as it always was and always will be." To her credit, Ruth doesn't scream or vomit. Joseph begs him to stop, but the Reverend is too far gone. He holds Joseph's face in his hands, also painting his cheek, and apologizes for failing him. He says soldiers will be sent to kill Joseph's people. The Reverend raises his arms heavenward and calls out to Jesus in a voice that shakes with delirious laughter. Then his eyes go blank and he falls back into Joseph's arms. Joseph and Ruth call to him, but he doesn't answer.
Later, Doc has called Cullen, Joseph and a cavalryman named Griggs into his train car and laid out his plans. Cullen doesn't like the sound of them. "I didn't sign on to be no Indian fighter," he says. Doc reminds him that he was spared from being hanged so he could help build the railroad. Cullen had likened it to fighting a war. "This is the war," Doc says. Griggs scoffs at the idea of taking a "Johnny Reb" along to the fight. When he refuses to have anything to do with Cullen, Doc waves some vague threat at him about getting him into trouble with General Dodge, who happens to be a good friend of Doc's. Griggs caves, but doesn't understand why Joseph is coming, too. Doc explains that Joseph will lead them to his father's people. He'll negotiate for the handover of the renegades that derailed the train -- for a guarantee. "No harm comes to the women and children," Joseph says. The cavalryman takes offense. "What kind of soldier do you think I am?" he asks. "I don't know, that's why I want your guarantee," Joseph says. Everyone's all tense for a while and then they finally agree on the terms without having to resort to a pissing match. After Griggs and Joseph leave, Doc tells Cullen he doesn't trust "hothead Griggs" not to start a war with the Cheyenne. He doesn't quite spell it out, but it seems like he wouldn't mind of Cullen just happened to "accidentally" drop Griggs at some point.
Outside, the men are already hard at work repairing the damaged tracks. Cullen catches up to Lily. "What are you doing back here?" he asks. "Lovely to see you, too," she says. He accuses her of "taking up" with Doc. She bristles at the very notion. Instead of telling Cullen it's none of his damned business, she says, "I am not a kept woman, if that's what you're implying." Her case isn't helped much when Doc all but barks at her to join him for lunch. Cullen makes a rude comment about her "trading in her satin sheets" to come back to town. "Has anyone ever told you what an insufferable ass you are?" she asks. He gives her a long, tired look and answers, "Yeah." Heh. Seriously, though, she should slap him like she slapped Robert's sister.
, he catches up with Elam outside the brothel. Since they're friends now, they joke about how Elam's risking his life by going back there. The difference is that Elam's got a gun this time and can defend himself. Cullen asks him to ride with him to go after the Cheyenne. Elam points out that the Yankee cavalryman would likely kill Cullen along with the Indians. Cullen says that's why he wants Elam with him. "I trust you," he says. Elam is kind of tickled by this and agrees to go. "I need to visit in here first," he says, walking up to the brothel doors. "Don't stay too long just to impress me," Cullen says. Elam smiles like he's going to laugh and he suddenly looks twenty years younger.
Elam makes his way to Eva's crib and tells her current customer to scram. Thankfully, the man is still in his long johns. She glares at him. "Don't you come in here running off my business." "Woman, I am your business," he says. Instead of falling all to pieces, she demands he pay her fee upfront. He's a little taken aback by that since he usually pays her after, so she explains she expects him to get killed before they finish. Elam brags about killing Toole and about how he's about to go kill some Injuns, too. He shows her the gun holstered at his hip. This all just pisses her off even more and she tells him to get out of her crib. The truth of it is she doesn't want to fall for him when he seems determined to get himself killed. Except the way she says it is that she doesn't want "dead man's trade," and she says it in this tough-girl way that leaves Elam utterly confused. "I thought you'd be happy to see me," he says. "I am happy to see you, idiot," she says. "Now give me that damn dollar."
Joseph looks grim as he saddles up his horse in preparation for his new mission. He's traded his stuffy suit for fringed buckskin. Ruth finds him (because she's totally been looking for him after that clinch in the church) and approaches him without saying anything. "How's your father?" he asks. "He's very weak," Ruth says. He seemed sort of dead earlier, so "very weak" seems like a big improvement. Ruth is disturbed to learn that Joseph is helping the soldiers find his brother. "He has to be stopped before he starts a war," Joseph says. He's all fired up and angry and it leaves Ruth a bit unsure. "Be careful, Joseph," she tells him. He stops packing long enough to give her a charming smile. He gives her his hat for safekeeping and she watches wordlessly as he climbs atop his horse and rides away. Some Spanish-flavored guitar music starts to play and while it's quite pretty, it's also over-the-top enough to be damned near comical. It's this close to being a sequel to The Three Amigos. Aw, dammit! That should have been the recap title. Anyway, Griggs looks up from his preparations as Cullen and Elam join Joseph. They ride be a gently flapping American flag. Griggs snorts towards his fellow calvarymen. "Would you look at that? An Injun, a nigger and a greyback. We got ourselves a rainbow, boys!" Eventually, they all ride out of town together.
Doc walks into Lily's bedroom without knocking. He's surprised to see her packing. He thinks (or hopes) at first that she's been spooked by the latest violence, but she's actually just moving out. She plans to take her and Robert's old tent and set it up somewhere in town. While she's at it, she should slap Doc for walking in without knocking. There are a lot of people I could stand to see Lily slap. Doc protests that it's too dangerous for her to live out there. "I won't have it!" he tells her. "That's not your decision to make," she says. She stuffs her green velvet dress into a bag. It will make a fine pair of curtains for her tent. "I thought it was significant that you chose to come back here with me," Doc pouts, "but I see I was mistaken." Lily says she came back to help him finish building the railroad, although how she plans to do that is a mystery. His pride wounded, Doc mopes about taking Lily in and helping her as she grieved over Robert, as if she owes him for that. He accuses her of playing him like a fiddle. While she did play up to him early on, it was to feel him out regarding those survey maps. She's been upfront with him ever since she gave him the maps. But he's hurt and embarrassed and lashing out at her now. He doesn't even allow her to borrow Henri to help her carry her things.
Meanwhile, the Mild Bunch has made it to the river when Griggs dismounts and scopes out their surroundings with some binoculars. Griggs asks Joseph about his father's camp. There are fifty or sixty people, Joseph tells him, and most of them are women and children. The braves are out hunting. "What about Pawnee Killer?" Griggs asks. "My father will know where he is," Joseph says. So now Joseph's brother has an official name. When I saw the name on character lists, I thought it was a Pawnee who was a killer. Elam pulls Joseph aside. "You think that was smart, telling him there's only women and children?" he asks. "Lieutenant Griggs gave me his guarantee," says sweet, naïve Joseph.
As Griggs heads back to his horse, Cullen notices the Confederate saber Griggs has hanging from his belt. Griggs calls it one of the "spoils of victory," and they argue about over Antietam/Sharpsburg to show us how different things looked to people on opposite sides of the war. Maybe men convince themselves that indecisive battles are really victories because to do otherwise is too depressing.
Back in town, Lily trudges through the mud to a spot across the way from the brothel. Some men set up her tent and then one of them approaches her for payment. "That'll be six bits," he says. She reacts as if he's speaking a foreign language, so he clarifies: "Seventy-five cents... unless you got something else in mind." He gives her a lecherous look. Lily pales. Eva comes to her rescue, telling the man, "You can put it on my account." Lily promises to pay Eva back. She goes digging through her bags in search of coins, but Eva tells her not to worry about it for now. She suggests Lily gets someone to lay some floorboards for her, lest she come down with trench foot. Lily says she knows all about trench foot. "I spent a year in the wilderness," Lily says with a note of pride. Eva gives her a look up and down. "I reckon you're a good sight tougher than you look, ain't you, Mrs. Bell?" Lily asks her to call her by her first name. And thus a friendship is born. It'll be like The Odd Couple, only with more hookers. And trench foot.
The Rainbow Riders set up camp for the day. With entertainment options few and far between, Cullen decides to poke the anthill a little. "Tell us about your 'glorious victory' at Sharpsburg, Lieutenant," he says. Griggs glares at him and says nothing. "Antietam it is, then," Cullen says. Griggs regales them with the story about how he and his fellow soldiers came over Burnside's Bridge. "You shoulda seen those greybacks run!" Griggs laughs. Cullen says he was on the other side of that bridge. "You wanna know why we retreated? We was out of ammunition from killing Yankees." Elam looks at Cullen like he's waiting for shit to start going down. But Cullen's not done yet. He admits there were brave men on the Union side. "They kept charging and we kept shooting." Griggs, who started out with his side of the story all smiles, now looks like he's going to throw up or throw a punch or both. "That must have been when you come across," Cullen says. "When all the killing was done." Griggs says it doesn't matter how many Yankees Cullen killed, because the North still won. Cullen decides to take back the saber, but Elam gets between the men before they can come to blows.
The morning, the camp is awakened by the distant screams of one of their own. Guns out, they go looking for the missing fellow and find him strung up in a tree. His throat has been slashed, his eyes gouged out. As the survivors head back to camp, they find their horses have been taken in their absence. They should have asked Lily for pointers on how to avoid the Cheyenne. "Your father's pretty damn clever, I'll give him that much," Griggs says to Joseph. "My father had nothing to do with this; it was my brother." Griggs suddenly doesn't trust Joseph anymore. Cullen points out they have bigger problems right now. He sensibly suggests they head back to Hell on Wheels, but Griggs is all het up to go after Pawnee Killer. Cullen is more than happy to let Griggs and his handful of cavalrymen continue on without him, but Joseph tells him they'll be easier targets if they split up. Cullen pulls Elam aside and tells him they might end up fighting Griggs instead of the Cheyenne.
Back at the church, the Reverend is having a staring contest with a bottle of booze. The bottle's still full, so he must be winning so far. Ruth comes in and offers him some soup. He ignores her. She sees the bottle in front of him and realizes what's going on. "Mother always said this was your one true love." She tells him she remembers how things were before he left. She remembers the screaming and the bruises on her mother's face. "After you left, she was afraid you'd come back," she says, "but never stopped praying you would." Up till now, Ruth has been sad, but sympathetic. When her father doesn't respond, she gets angry. She sloshes some whiskey into a glass and shoves it towards him. He raises his hand as if to slap her, but stops just short. She stares up at him, unflinching and defiant. "I am not my mother," she says with quiet fierceness. "I'm not afraid of you." The Reverend visibly withers under her glare. She stomps away and he dissolves into tears. The Reverend is not a young man to begin with and he suddenly looks about a hundred years older.
The unraveled cavalry continue on with their foolhardy quest. The scenery sure is beautiful, though. Lots of trees, wispy grasses, a quiet little stream. Cullen notices that things look mighty familiar. "What the hell are you up to, son?" he asks Joseph. Joseph and his unfortunate hair play dumb. "This is just a different bend in the same river," Cullen says. He accuses Joseph of buying time for his people. Joseph still intends to go after his brother, but he wanted to make sure the rest of his family was safe. The sound of war cries reach them from across the river. Two of the cavalrymen shoot blindly towards the opposite bank. "You're just wasting ammunition," Cullen tells them. More cries. Cullen turns to Joseph. "Why ain't they attacking us?" "Sooner or later, they will," Joseph says. Everybody looks wary.
Hell on Wheels. Lily and Eva head over to the mess tent for some lunch. Eva, carrying an old enamelware bowl, is practically hopping with excitement. "This is my favorite day," she says, "except for Monday, when I give my patootie a rest." When it's her turn in the line, Eva holds her bowl out to the cook. "Don't be shy, Deuce," she says. He slops over a big ladle of some kind of... slop. Lily holds out a dainty porcelain cup for her own share. The cook leers at her and says, "The ladies call me Deuce 'cause I got two of 'em." Two... penises? Does he have to pay double at the whore house? Lily takes her demitasse of slop as far away from Deuce and his extra willy as she can.
She follows Eva over to a table and sits down, looking about as out of place as, well, a proper society lady in a tent full of prostitutes and dirty drunks. Eva hunkers down over her bowl, eating with relish. She gives Lily a warm, open smile. She's really very beautiful, even with her greasy hair and grimy smudges on chest and shoulders. Lily stares at her with a sort of mild horror tinged with pity. Eva assumes it's because of her tattoos and tells Lily the story of her capture by the Yavapai. They killed her mother and father, then raped and killed her sister. Eva pauses just long enough if she can have Lily's untouched food before going on with the story. She had "the pox" at the time, so they didn't touch her, and sold her off to the Mojave instead. "They was a cakewalk compared to what the Yavapai would have been," she says. This whole time, she's been shoveling away at her food, telling her tale of horror in such a practical, unsentimental way. "I have these terrible nightmares about the Indian I killed," Lily says. "It's 'cause his spirit's wandering," Eva says. "It's reaching out to you." Lily shudders and says he clutches at her ankles. Eva tells her not to let him get her. "He's trying to drag you onto the path to the dead world," she says. "When a woman kills a brave, it invites big magic." She's utterly serious, and so is Lily, who looks around as if waiting to see the specter of Death himself. Best lunch date ever.
Doc goes to the Swede's car and is surprised to find the man crawling around on the floor over a budding conspiracy theorist's quantity of newspaper clippings. Doc had come to say he wants to get back to work, providing the Indians don't attack overnight, but the Swede's crazy kind of gets in the way. "Bohannon is a killer," the Swede says. "I can prove it." He starts sorting through his papers. He starts to lay out his theory about how Cullen killed Johnson and a man in Washington, and so on. Doc ignores him and tells him he wants sentries watching over the cut, but the Swede is on a roll. "He's not done killing! He's looking for others among us," the Swede says. Doc is fed up. "Listen to me! Half the men out there are killers. Half of them are accomplices! They are all afraid of Bohannon." It's like someone knocked all the air out of the Swede. He looks utterly deflated and lost. All his meticulous work, all his mystery-solving and trading secrets with Senator Crane... all of it, for nothing. Doc tells him to burn everything and get back to work. "It's a long way through Indian territory back to Sweden," Doc says. With one final look of disdain, Doc leaves. The Swede shuffles over to the nearest chair. "I am from Norway," he says quietly. "I am Norwegian."
As a hard, gray rain begins to fall, Lily sets about the task of laying the floorboards in her tent. She's somehow acquired the wood, but not the carpenter nor even a pair of gloves to ease her work. With bare hands, she struggles with each plank, eyes brimming with tears and nose red from sniffling. A splinter pricks her finger and she cries out. She sits back, looking around at the dark, sodden desolation of her new existence. For probably the first time in her life, she is alone. Doc walks up to her tent, but stops short of making his presence known. He takes Robert's watch out of his coat pocket, looks at the picture of Lily inside the case. He thinks for a long time. Finally, he calls out to Lily. She looks tempted to answer, but says nothing. Doc hangs the watch on the outside of the tent flap and moves on. That'll make a nice trinket for someone to steal about two seconds from now.
Come the morning, all the remaining members of the Crapple Dumpling Gang have somehow made it through the night. They make their way to the Cheyenne camp, but find it abandoned. The tepee poles stand without their coverings and the fire pits smoke without flame. "They're gone," Lieutenant Obvious says. To Joseph, he says, "You son of a bitch. You knew this was gonna happen. You planned this with your brother, didn't you?" Joseph glares, but before he says anything, a young Cheyenne boy walks out of the trees and towards the camp. He's ten or maybe twelve. Griggs scoffs and shoots him where he stands. Cullen and friends turn their own weapons on Griggs, but it's an arrow that gets to the lieutenant first. He falls over. Suddenly, they're surrounded by dozens of braves, some on horseback, others running towards them with shields and axes raised. Joseph readies his bow. Cullen takes aim and shoots at someone, although we'll have to wait till week to find out if he got his target.
If we can learn anything from this episode, let it be this: If you take care of your patootie, your patootie will take care of you.