The English
Written by Hugo Blick
Directed by Hugo Blick
Starring
Emily Blunt
Chaske Spencer
Rafe Spall
Toby Jones
Tom Hughes
Stephen Rea
Nicholas Aaron
Valerie Pachner
Ciarán Hinds
Malcolm Storry
Steve Wall
Nichola McAuliffe
Tonantzin Carmelo
Kimberly Norris Guerrero
Edward Crook
Sule Rimi
Cristian Solimeno
Music by Federico Jusid
Country of origin United Kingdom, United States
Production
Executive producers Greg Brenman, Hugo Blick, Emily Blunt, Mona Qureshi
Producer Colin Wratten
Production companies Amazon Studios, Drama Republic, Eight Rook Productions, All3Media
Despite the title, this series is an American western. Oh, parts of the show are in England in the late Victorian era, but mostly it’s in the prairies. The bison have all been massacred, and the genocide of the native population pretty much a fait accompli. Scattered massacres are still going on, the best known of which are Bear River, Sand Creek, and Wounded Knee. The Chalk River massacre shown in the series is a fictional event, but there are hundreds of real-event correlates.
Cornelia (Emily Blunt) has traveled to Colorado, seeking revenge against the man she believes murdered her son. She arrives at a remote hostelry run by a character named Watts (Hinds). Out front, a man in a US Calvary uniform is hanging by his wrists, awaiting a slow death in the hot sun. The man is Eli Whipp (Chaske Spencer), a recently retired army scout who is on his way to Nebraska for a promised 160 acres of land. Now that he’s retired, though, in the eyes of the whites he’s “just another injun” and is being tortured to death for sport. Appalled, Cordelia buys his release, but Watts is unhappy about her and moves to enslave her for use as a sex toy. Whipp, all too familiar with Watts’ character, sneaks back in an effort to rescue Cornelia who he is quite sure will need rescuing.
There are disparate story lines, including the aforementioned Chalk River massacre, and the secrets of the fledgling town of Huxon, and the full stories of the events driving both Cordelia and Eli, stories that are gracefully interwoven and told with excellent pacing and superb storytelling.
The result is a western that ranks up there with “Godless” and “The Unforgiven.” It’s a post modern western, the type that would have John Wayne pushing back his ten-gallon hat with the barrel of his six shooter and declaring, “What the Sam Hill?” In other words, an honest western, brilliantly told with great acting and wonderful settings. I’m sure it will add to the general moral panic of the far right, who still think it’s bad to teach history because we might, er, learn something from it.
Now on Amazon Prime and BBC2.