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After the excitement of last week's episode, things slow down this week. To celebrate their milestone achievement, Doc decides to throw a big party. Lots of senators will be in town for the event, so he tells the hookers to make themselves presentable. Everyone's buzzing with excitement, except Cullen, of course, who doesn't trust things that are fun. When he finds out that the Swede is bringing Harper to town to testify against him, Cullen decides to stick around instead of hightailing it. It seems like he spends most of the time scowling into the darkness, sniffing out Harper. It's kind of not as exciting as it should be.
In other plots, the McGinnes brothers and other town merchants literally tar and feather the Swede, so fed up are they with his extorting ways. Eva is angry to learn that Elam's desire to have her all to himself doesn't mean he wants to marry her. At the party, she accepts an invitation to dance from (a very polite) Mr. Toole. Elam is instantly jealous, even though he has no claim on her. An emboldened Ruth asks Joseph to dance with her and it's pretty adorable and goes by much too quickly. The Reverend doesn't go to the party, because he's too busy trying to bury the various parts of the cavalryman he killed last week. He does find time, though, to advise Cullen to "choose hate" and depress him with a story about how useless God is.
In the end, Cullen finally catches up to Harper, who insists he wasn't involved in the death of Cullen's wife. He says he can prove it, but Cullen chokes the life out of him before he can get the words out. Afterwards, Cullen finds Harper's military discharge, showing he was out of the service before that fateful day in Meridian. Realizing he killed the wrong man, Cullen finally hauls ass out of town. A bounty of $250 is placed on his head and scene of Elam practicing with his new gun hints that he might be the one to go after Cullen. That's for season. In the meantime, stay tuned for the full recap.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Previously: Cullen Bohannon went after Sergeant Harper, whom he blamed for the death of his wife. Senator Crane tracked down Harper for the Swede, who's been obsessed with destroying Cullen from pretty much the get-go. In an effort to get Cullen out of town ASAP, Doc told him that Federal Marshals would soon be coming to town to arrest him for murdering quite a lot of people. The McGinnes brothers and most of the rest of Hell on Wheels were fed up with the Swede extorting money from their businesses. Doc hired Elam to do some work "off the books;" now equipped with money and a modicum of status, Elam told Eva that he wanted her to be his. Joseph Black Moon led Lieutenant Griggs and other cavalrymen on a hunt after his brother; much death ensued. When Joseph returned home, Ruth had some sweet kisses waiting for him. Lieutenant Griggs returned to town with the intent to kill Joseph, so the Reverend lopped off his head.
Currently: Instead of picking up right after the exciting events of the episode, let's chug way back to the beginning, shall we? Cullen rides home after the war, still wearing his gray soldier's coat. From a distance, he sees the smoking remains of the barn. He walks into his house and finds it in disarray. He calls for his wife, although for some artsy-fartsy reason they decided we don't need to actually hear the dialog in this scene so instead we just see him mouthing the words. Seems like he should look far more panicked or disturbed, because he just looks kind of... slightly worried. He straightens a crooked chair and walks through the rest of the house. Through the silence comes the faint creaking of a rope being stretched. He follows the sound to the front porch and finds his wife hanging by her neck. She is pale blue and long dead. Cullen frowns up at her, strangely unsurprised.
The thing we see is him holding her across his lap, lightly touching her hair. A moment after that, he's already dug the graves for her and his son and buried them both. He's even fashioned very tidy crosses to mark their resting places. He touches one of the crosses and scowls. He gets back on his horse and rides off to commit his first act of vengeance, even though he seemed only very slightly perturbed by the tragedy of his homecoming. It's wasn't necessary to have him break down wailing and crying and rending his garments, but the scene was missing... something. There needed to be a demarcation between the man he was then and the man we've seen over the season. Having him be just as stoic or emotionally shut down then as he is now robs the character of a sense of movement. It's like singing an entire song from beginning to end with the same emotional inflection. You need the rise and fall or it's all a monotone. Oh well. Cue the twangy twang of the opening credits.
It's morning and Hell on Wheels is abuzz with activity. Most of the men are involved with the building and decoration of an open-air building. It's sort of like a giant gazebo, simply constructed, decorated with patriotic bunting. Doc gives a congratulatory speech to an as-yet unseen audience. "I have asked you here today to acknowledge the exceptional work you've done," he says. "We could not have come this far without you." It turns out he's standing in front of the brothel and his audience is comprised of the town's businesswomen. Some of them smirk at him. A few look utterly bored. A couple of the younger ones look genuinely flattered by his words. He goes on to tell them that the forty-mile celebration is that night and various senators and other dignitaries will be attending. "And," Doc says, "since we are in such short supply of ladies of repute, you will all be invited to the dance!" Some of the ladies ooh and ahh as if they haven't just been insulted. "But you will have to make yourselves presentable," he says, "and behave like the proper ladies I know you can pretend to be." He warns them against picking any pockets or they'll be punished. I would have declined the invite with a big "fuck you," but I can't even pretend to be a proper lady.
Cullen drops by the McGinnes brothers' tent. Mickey happily polishes his shoes while Sean sews a button on his jacket. They're getting ready for the big dance. Cullen asks them if they've been tailing the Swede like he told them. Sean says they have, but they haven't gotten anything on him. "He's a slippery bastard," Mickey says. Sean says they saw him riding out of town last night with two bottles of whiskey. "The Swede don't drink," Cullen says, his Spidey senses all a-tingle. As he heads back out of the tent, Sean calls after him, "Then I guess he's meeting someone who does!" Thanks for connecting those dots for us, Mr. McObvious.
The Swede has gone to the trading post near Council Bluffs, Iowa. The place is festooned with raccoon pelts. Dozens of them dangle from the ceiling. It's Ranger Rick's worst nightmare come to life. The Swede sits at a small table with Sergeant Harper. At least that's who I think it is. It's hard to tell without a crappy Photoshop blur over his face. Harper looks mighty nervous as the Swede pours him a shot of whiskey. "I wasn't there that night," he says. "Check the date on my discharge." He hands the paper over and says he was injured two weeks before Meridian. "How could you know what happened that night?" asks the Swede. "I stayed in touch with Johnson and the boys after the war," he says. "They told me all about it." The Swede thinks that's enough for Harper to testify as to Bohannon's motives when the marshals come. Harper's not so keen on that idea, since the man's already tried to kill him once. In his uniquely creepy way, the Swede explains that Bohannon will hunt him down regardless. "One day he just gonna show up on your doorstep and kill you dead." What makes the Swede extra scary isn't that he says scary things in a scary way, but that he says them so reasonably. Imagine if someone told you a horror story, and instead of indulging in melodramatics he just told it plain, maybe more like a children's story than anything. You'd realize this was a person who doesn't need to embellish because whatever he's telling you is bad enough without it. Harper drinks his whiskey and looks scared out of his wits, and rightly so.
Hell on Wheels. Ooh, they're bringing out the good booze! Gone is that "corn likker" from the boxing match. Instead, men haul around crates of Kentucky bourbon. When some of them try to sneak off with a few crates of their own, Cullen stops them. "That whiskey goes to the dance tent, not your tent." The men change course and Cullen watches for a few moments to make sure they keep on the right path. Lily shouts from somewhere nearby: "Damn it all!" Cullen finds her in her tent, still struggling with those floorboards. She sits on the floor (such as it is) with a hammer in one hand, clothes and face streaked with dirt. She was so marvelously pristine in the episode. Perhaps someone allowed her the use of their bathing facilities. And a dry cleaner. She gives a nail a few halfhearted taps. Cullen peeks through the tent flap at her. "Having trouble with your floorboards, ma'am?" he asks. "Well, you're very perceptive, aren't you?" she snarks. She sighs and admits she's not much of a carpenter. He steps on a loose board and agrees with her. He doffs his hat and gives the floor a pitying look. "Could you possibly help me?" Lily asks, all but batting her eyelashes at him. She adds: "That is, if you're not busy killing anyone." Her gives her a slight smirk that in the Cullen Bohannon repertoire of facial expressions counts as a beaming smile.
They get to working together on the floor and it's pretty cute at first. When she starts to hammer in a nail crooked, he pulls it out and hammers it back in straight. Lily admires his handiwork. Then she makes the mistake of bringing up his life as a farmer. It starts out OK, but it doesn't last. "It's hard to imagine you in a domestic setting," she says. "I couldn't either," he admits. "I always had one eye on the door." Then, perhaps because single men aren't so antsy, Lily realizes that Cullen was married. He says he had a son, too. He keeps hammering as he talks. Focusing on the task makes it easier, maybe. He says that when the war came along, he jumped at the chance. "Now, I'd give anything to be home and just..." He trails off. "So you lost them both," Lily says. "Your wife and your son?" He doesn't answer, but looks up at her with startlingly intense gray-blue eyes. He should find reasons to take off his hat more often. He could drop an enemy at fifty paces with a clear shot of those eyes. "I'm so sorry," Lily says. "It's all right," he says. Then he kind of shakes his head and frowns like he's just remembered he's not supposed to be all open and vulnerable. You can kind of see him starting to clamp down on himself.
He tosses aside the hammer and tries to get out of there. Lily goes after him, reaches out to touch his arm. He grabs her wrist. It's one of those romance novel moments when the brooding hero is a little bit scary and maybe more physically imposing than he should be, but it sets the heroine's heart and other bits all aflutter. My, my, what big, rough hands you have, Mr. Bohannon. Instead of pulling away, Lily pushes closer to him and he lets her. She opens her hand over his heart. He bows his head toward her. She closes her eyes. "Whatever happened to your wife and son, please don't let it kill the man they loved." But by now, he's all shut down again and not making eye contact anymore. "Sorry, Mrs. Bell," he whispers. "It's too late for that." With that, he leaves her tent.
This scene, I think, came too early in the episode. They could have milked the tragedy of it -- of his denying himself any chance of being happy -- if we could have seen him being happy longer. Maybe let him go to the dance, have a great time, realize there's more to life than vengeance, then have him flee, Cinderella-like, before the stroke of midnight to return to his dreary existence.
Anyway, Doc happens by just in time to cross paths with Cullen as he's leaving Lily's tent. He's got a big, prettily wrapped box under one arm. "I thought you'd be well on your way by now," he says. "I decided to stay," Cullen says. "Is that wise?" Doc asks. "I ain't never been accused of being wise," Cullen says. Hee!
Doc brings the gift to Lily. It's a beautiful dress in shades of very pale sea green and aquamarine. He tells her he special-ordered it from New York. She's impressed with the dress, but says she can't accept. (Also, how creepy that he knew her measurements.) So he tells her it's not a gift. "Think of it as payment," he says. She tears her gaze away from the dress and gives him a wary look. "For what?" He tells her about the night's celebration and all the potential investors who are coming. Lily makes a better spokesperson for the railroad than he does. He's counting on the "Fair-haired Maiden of the West" to reel in those investors. She tells him she'll consider it -- on one condition. "I want to be a part of it," she says. "The building of this road. I want to see it through to the end." Doc can't help but be a little impressed with her initiative, although it seems like it would have been wise to spell out something more specific. Is she going to be a surveyor? A consultant? Window dressing for leering old men? Doc chuckles and accepts her terms. Hopefully, she gets something in writing.
Church. Luckily the town is full of godless heathens so the Reverend has the necessary privacy to cover up his murder of Lieutenant Griggs. Flies buzz around the two chunks of the Lieutenant, both now wrapped in cloth that does little in the way of disguise. It's clearly a human body that the Reverend has slung over his shoulder and the blood-soaked lump in his hand is equally incriminating. He sets the head aside and hoists the body into an open pine box. It lands with an ungraceful thud. "Sorry," the Reverend says, totally meaning it. Hee! It's not even the part of the body with ears! Also, it's dead. As he pulls a lid over the box, the Lieutenant's head rolls away like an errant cantaloupe. In a bit of a panic, the Reverend starts looking all over for it. It's a terrible thing to lose one's head, even if it's not yours. Maybe especially if it's not yours.
Cullen stands outside the church, hat in hand, considering the cross over the door. He walks in just as the Reverend drops to his knees to retrieve the Lieutenant's head. "I don't mean to disturb your prayers, preacher," says Cullen. There should be a whole sitcom spin-off of this, man. The Reverend, with his back to Cullen, cradles the head to his chest. "How can I help you, son?" he asks. "I'm on a dark path, sir," comes the answer. He takes a seat on one of the pews. The path leads to more blood and hatred, he says. The Reverend hugs the severed head tight. "And then someone reached out to me," Cullen says, "and asked me to turn away from the darkness." When the Reverend doesn't say anything, Cullen reminds him he's been waiting for a chance to preach to him. The Reverend finally sets the head aside and gets up to face Cullen. He looks more than a wee bit crazy, with his white hair at odds with his head. He grins and it's pretty crazy, too. He says he doesn't doubt there's a God, but there's a Devil, too. He proceeds to tell a story where the Devil went all Boxing Helena on God and chopped off his limbs, gouged out his eyes and ripped out his tongue. Cullen gives him a doubtful look. The Reverend says that the Devil left God's ears. "So he could hear us down here, while we're wailin' and thrashin' and prayin' for his help." He lays his hand on Cullen's shoulder. "But brother, there ain't a damn thing God can do to help us." Cullen's look of doubt deepens into confusion. "What are you saying, preacher?" he asks. "Just... choose hate," says the Reverend. "It's so much easier!" Cullen can't get out of there fast enough.
Outside, the freedmen are hard at work unloading timbers for the railroad. Elam, dressed in a nice new suit and hat, walks over to Psalms. "I thought everyone was supposed to have the day off," he says. "Everybody but us," Psalms says. Elam offers to talk to Durant about it, but the conversation goes downhill pretty quickly. His offer to help is met with scorn. Someone somewhere always seems to feel that Elam is forgetting his place and this time it's his fellow freedmen. When Elam reminds Psalms that he's their boss, Psalms turns around and reminds him they need a leader, not a boss. That doesn't sit well with Elam, who tells Psalms he needs to start looking after himself. As Elam walks away, he sees the Swede riding into town with Harper, who's got on his Union jacket on. Elam knows trouble's brewing.
Cullen heads to the saloon for a drink. As soon as he sits down with his bottle of whiskey, Sean comes skipping in to gleefully tell him that they're working on plans for the Swede. "He just rode back in and he wasn't alone," Sean says in a hushed voice. "I didn't hear any names, but he had on a Union jacket with sergeant stripes." That's enough to make Cullen forget about drinking. He pushes away from the bar. Sean starts to say something about their past differences, but Cullen cuts him off by grabbing the front of his shirt and shoving him up against the bar. "You sure you saw sergeant's stripes?" he asks. "Yes!" Sean whimpers. "Where they at?" Cullen asks. They're on his jacket! Haven't you been listening? When Sean doesn't answer in under a nanosecond, Cullen grabs him by the throat. He must be in a chokin' mood. Finally, Sean manages to say that they're in the Swede's caboose and Cullen lets go. As Cullen storms out of the saloon, Sean calls after him. "Will this make us even for the fight?"
Cullen heads into his tent and starts cleaning his gun. Elam follows him inside. Cullen tells him that Federal Marshals are coming to arrest him and Elam quite sensibly wonders why Cullen hasn't run yet. Cullen says it's because Harper's in town, but we all know he decided to stick around long before the Sergeant showed up. "How do you know Harper's the man you're looking for?" Elam asks. "He has to be," Cullen insists. He doesn't say it, but he needs it to be Harper so this can all be over. Elam tries to talk some sense into him. Cullen snaps, "Why do you even care?" Because you're his friend, dummy, and quite possibly his best friend. Elam looks maybe a tiny bit hurt. "You told me something once," he says. "It was the only thing that ever set me free... Gotta let go of the past." It's sound advice, but Elam hasn't exactly taken it to heart himself. Stepping on your past on the way up to the future isn't the same thing as letting it go, Mr. "It's Nice to be the One Hurting Others for a Change." Cullen just stares at him without saying anything.
Doc stops by the Swede's caboose (hee! sorry!) and knocks on the door. Doc's all duded up in gorgeous cream-colored suit. The Swede opens the door just a hair and squeezes himself out so as to not let Doc get a glimpse inside. The Swede gives Doc a once-over and makes an appreciative noise. "You will be the king of the ball!" Doc scoffs. "Unfortunately with no queen at my side." Did anyone else kind of expect the Swede to drop everything and volunteer to go with him? Instead, he carefully steers Doc into talking a walk with him away from his caboose and the secret within. "Have you ever had your heart ripped out by a woman?" Doc asks. "I was married once, but she run off with a Gypsy," says the Swede. "My heart was not ripped out, but she did steal my cuckoo clock." Heh! Oh, Swede. Don't ever change, you naked-floor-cleaning weirdo. Doc looks at him like he's an alien and tries to find some common thread to follow. He compares Cullen to the Gypsy. Doc says he gave him a chance to run but he didn't take it. The Swede is confused as to why Doc would tell him to run. "Mr. Gunderson, I told him about the Federal Marshals. He knows you're up to something." The Swede makes a sound like the death moan of a moose and mutters something in Norwegian. It probably translates to something like, "I am so, so screwed."
He returns to his caboose and a very jumpy Harper, whom he urges to find a hiding place at once. Not that he wants to know the hiding place himself, mind you, because he doesn't want Cullen to be able to get it out of him. He shoos Harper away and reminds him to meet the train when it arrives. Harper skedaddles. A moment later, Cullen is at the Swede's door. He doesn't even try to hide the gun in his hand. "Where is he?" Instead of answering, the Swede tells Cullen about Loki, the god of chaos, causing trouble everywhere he goes. Cullen noses around behind every door and cupboard and comes up empty-handed. He aims his gun at the Swede's forehead. "You have three seconds to tell me where he is," he says. "I honestly do not know," the Swede says. "If I did, I would not tell you." Cullen cocks his gun, but the Swede remains unfazed because he thinks killing him wouldn't equate in Cullen's "moral mathematics." Sure enough, Cullen lowers his gun. He does give the Swede a pretty nasty look on his way out the door, though.
On the outskirts of town, construction has begun on permanent structures. With the railroad now a sure thing, the land makes for prime real estate. Eva watches as men set up the framework for a building and looks positively giddy at the sight of it. She's also got on a new dress, a pretty little thing in lavender and lace. Elam walks over and she gets an eyeful of him in his new suit. "Whooey, darlin', if you ain't slicker than a fine gentleman's snot rag!" That may well be the best compliment I've ever heard. They kiss and hug and he compliments her on her attire, as well, although he has no mucosal comparison to offer. It turns out Lily gave her the dress and I feel cheated we didn't get to see it. Eva tells Elam about the town that's going up. "I was thinking it might be nice to settle down," she says, beaming up at him. "What you mean?" he asks. You can almost hear the alarm bells going off in his head, but she's oblivious. "Well, we're getting hitched, so why not settle down like a proper man and wife and raise a family?" He gapes at her. Turns out when he talked about wanting her to be his, he wasn't talking about getting married. She goes from being so happy to so crushed, from smiling up at him to barely being able to look him in the eye. She's practically planned their whole future in her dreams and he doesn't even want to stick in some little railroad town. He assures her he wants her with him, but she doesn't want to be his private whore. She leaves him standing there to wonder how that conversation went to hell so fast.
It's bright daylight still and people start converging on the dance tent. Doc is talking up the railroad to a couple of gentlemen. "Imagine it! A journey that now takes six months will be cut to seven days. Seven days! Boggles the mind." It's easy enough now to think of a week-long transcontinental trip as ploddingly slow, but it must have seemed like magic when your only other options were to travel by wagon or sail all the way around South America. "You'll be able to spend Christmas in New York," he says. Lily appears at his side and finishes for him, "And New Year's in San Francisco." Doc introduces her with great pride to the others. She does her part by curtsying with flair.
Eva's off in one corner, frowning into her brandy glass, when Mr. Toole approaches her. He's gussied himself up as much as possible and carries his hat in his hands. His demeanor is that of a little boy at his first school dance. "You're not waiting for Mr. Ferguson?" he asks. "No, I'm not," she says. "Then, if I'm not oversteppin' me bounds, would ya do me the honor of dancin' with me?" Alas, she doesn't feel like dancing and tells him so. He looks crushed but politely backs away. He stands off to the side, looking pitiful and awkward. Eva can't help but feel sorry for the old sap, so she calls him back over for a dance and it just about makes his whole year.
Back in the investors' corner, Lily has all the men in her thrall. She talks about once feeling like the land might be spoiled by the railroad. Doc gives her a hilarious look where his mouth is still smiling but his eyes are full of panic. She goes on: "But after seeing all these people, working so hard to build this road, after understanding the sheer audacity of this American endeavor... Well, I see now there truly is greatness in it." She lays it on so thick it's surprising she doesn't need a trowel. Doc breathes a sigh of relief and raises his glass. "To Lily Bell, the fair-haired maiden of the West!" Lily smiles, quite pleased with herself, but keeps glancing over at the door, hoping to clap eyes on her favorite sullen hunk of a man.
He's currently prowling around the camp. He carries his gun out in the open, which at first I thought was either kind of dumb or very brazen. But he doesn't seem like he expects to see the morning, so what does he care if he incriminates himself? The few workers haven't gone to the party get out of his way when they see him coming. He casts his scowl all around town but can find no trace of Harper.
The Swede seems to be looking for him, too. As he lumbers through town, he starts to realize that people are following him. Mickey comes up on one side of him and Sean on the other. A man on horseback closes in behind him. "What is this?" he asks. "It's about a payment," Sean says. The man on horseback takes out a rope and lassos the Swede. "Get your bloody rope off me!" As soon as he's trussed up tight, a dozen or so men come out of the shadows towards him. They hold him fast. "We're here to collect a debt, Mr. Swede," Sean says. "You be careful, Irish boy, what you choose to do now," the Swede says. Mickey whacks him in the Swedish meatballs a few times with a piece of wood. He roars like an animal. The men tear his shirt off. Someone throws a bucket of hot tar on him, another a bucket of chicken feathers.
Meanwhile, Cullen is still on the hunt. The sun has just started to set and storm clouds are rolling in. In the soundtrack, an electric guitar lets out a distracting wail. Cullen poses against the clouds and the waning light, looking scary and kind of gorgeous. His gaze is so intense that the show has to cut to commercials for a bit.
When we rejoin the show, it's night and the Swede has somehow gotten free of his bonds. He darts through town, tarred and feathered and bloody as the men chase after him. Cullen sees this and looks amused for the briefest of moments.
Back at the dance, Ruth approaches Joseph, who's hanging around the edge of the dance floor looking shy and out of place. "Would you like to dance, sir?" she asks. He smiles and bows his head. "I'm sure some of these other fellows are much better dancers than me," he says. Ruth steps closer to him, fingers his lapel. "But I don't want these other fellows," she says. Joseph looks like he's going to burst with happiness as he grins at her from under the fringe of his hair. They waltz out onto the dance floor, laughing and beaming and just about lighting up the whole damned place. So freaking adorable. Perhaps somewhat unlikely, an Indian dancing publicly with a white woman like that, but adorable nonetheless.
By now, night has fallen and Cullen is still skulking around in search of the elusive Harper. He picks up a lantern and peers into a few tents. Does he think he'll just miraculously recognize Harper from that ridiculous photograph? He could be any of these men or none of them.
At the dance, Doc pours Elam a drink. Elam is the only freedman who's been allowed to attend, by the way. It won't sit well with Psalms and the others. Doc tries to talk business with him, but Elam sees Eva dancing with Toole and excuses himself. He stomps across the room and grabs Toole by the front of his jacket. "What the hell you doing with my woman?" Eva pulls Elam off Toole and drags him away.
Cullen: Skulk, skulk, skulk. Frown. Skulk. Glare.
Eva has pulled Elam over to the edge of the dance floor. "I ain't your woman," she says. "You made that pretty clear!" Elam: "I ain't made nothing clear. You still mine." Goodness, what lady could resist such romance? Eva chafes at the idea of being anyone's property. She tells him she's staying behind when the town is built and so is Mr. Toole. Elam's like, "You and him?!" Eva says, "There's no 'me and him.' We're just two people who don't want to be vagabonds no more." Toole watches from across the room, looking hopeful and scared at the same time. "I love you, Elam," Eva says. "But I'm tired of being a tramp." Eva goes back to Toole and resumes their dance. Elam doesn't like it, but he backs off.
Cullen's still skulking around in the darkness. I got up to do my laundry, came back some time later and he was still in mid-skulk. Firecrackers go off nearby. Cullen turns in their direction, gun at the ready. Suddenly, Harper runs out from behind a tent and tries to make a break for it while Cullen is distracted. The fool still has on his Union jacket with the sergeant's stripes. It's 1865, so it's been a few years since On the Origin of Species was published. Perhaps Harper is gunning to be the first recipient of the Darwin Awards. Cullen chases after him.
He follows Harper onto the platform just as the train is rolling into town. Harper jumps across the tracks in front of the train. Cullen hops onto the train and follows alongside, jumping off when he's just about caught up with Harper. On landing, he loses hold of his gun and scrabbles around for it on his hands and knees. Instead of taking this time to make his escape, Harper sticks around to pull a gun on Cullen. "We don't have to do this," Harper says. "I wasn't there, Mr. Bohannon!" Well, he's polite, at least. Cullen gets up and stealthily pulls a knife from his jacket. "You're a liar. Johnson said the sergeant strangled my wife. I saw the picture -- you was the platoon sergeant." It was either him or a cumulus cloud. Harper insists he wasn't the sergeant then, but Cullen's not hearing him. "You raped and murdered my wife." Harper says he can prove he wasn't there. "You have to be him," Cullen says. He throws his knife. It misses Harper but distracts him enough that Cullen is able to jump him and knock the gun out of his hand.
Harper runs for it and Cullen chases after him. This is all intercut with scenes of the dance. By now the train has stopped and Cullen wrestles Harper to the tracks. For some reason, nobody is getting off the train or coming out to meet it, so the two men have all the privacy they need. Cullen chokes the life out of Harper within inches of the train's cow catcher. You can hear things snapping in Harper's neck. Cullen doesn't look angry. He doesn't even look to be there, really. It's one thing to shoot a man at a distance, but it must be something else entirely to kill him with your bare hands and feel his pulse fade under your fingers. Harper struggles and gasps for breath for a disturbingly long time. Towards the end of it, Cullen has let his head come to rest on his victim's chest. It almost looks affectionate except, you know, for the killing. When Harper finally gives up the ghost, Cullen rolls off of him and sees the bit of paper in Harper's hand. It's Harper's discharge from the army. Cullen reads over it with growing horror and realizes he's killed the wrong man. He turns tear-filled eyes heavenward and sees only the glaring light of the train.
At the dance, Doc and Lily are still waltzing the night away. The music is suitably sad and full of longing. Cullen stands outside the tent, watching. Lily sees him for a moment and then he's gone. She looks frightened, as if sensing something is amiss.
Elam catches up to Cullen near the tracks. He says the marshals are nearby. "Did you kill him?" he asks. "Yeah, but it wasn't him," Cullen says. "I killed the wrong man." He can barely look Elam in the eye. "What you gonna do now?" Elam asks. Cullen walks past him without answering.
Morning dawns on montage set to a cover of Woody Guthrie's "This Train is Bound for Glory." Marshals find Harper's body on the tracks. The Swede, blistered and beaten, stumbles toward a tree. A piece of paper is pined to it. It's a poster offering a $250 bounty for Cullen Bohannon. The Swede starts weeping, and they don't seem like especially happy tears, either. Cullen rides across the plains in slow motion, his long hair and his horse's mane flying in photogenic unison. Elam takes in some target practice, shooting at a tin pan nailed to a tree. He's gotten to be a pretty good shot. In town, men bring heaps of trash to a blazing fire. Cullen's belongings and Daniel Johnson's photographs go up in flames. The last shot is of Cullen riding slowly towards the screen and then into blackness.
Well, here we are at the finale of the first season about the building of the transcontinental railroad. How appropriate, then, that the course of the season echoed the progress of that endeavor, taking off in fits and starts, frequently coming to a grinding halt, finally picking up steam. Alas, as with the Union Pacific's early days, the problems with this season did not come to an end simply because of a few triumphs here and there. The finale squandered some of the momentum of the episode and maybe didn't capitalize on interactions between its main characters as much as it could have. At least it leaves off with some interesting questions, like: Will the Reverend find his mind again? Will Elam be the one to hunt down Cullen? How will Cullen be integrated back into Hell on Wheels? Surely he's out of a job, and the only reason he lived as long as he did was because Doc wanted him alive. That's no longer the case. Will Lily somehow persuade Doc to allow Cullen back? What will it cost her? There's still a lot of road to build before they get to the Pacific.
Tippi Blevins took the train to Alcatraz. Email her at b_tippi@yahoo.com, or find her on Twitter.