Hell on Wheels "Bear Man" Review: Talk About a Disappointing Return!
Hell on Wheels S04E06: "Bear Man"
So I just finished reading a pretty cool book called The Revenant, about a famous trapper named Hugh Glass who survived a grizzly attack, only to be left for dead by his companions. With a broken leg, exposed ribs, and various claw wounds, Glass traveled over 200 Missouri-ish miles in search of those who abandoned him. Same thing happened to me once, but instead of a bear it was just my boss at Best Buy, "Jean," and instead of being clawed nearly to death I was fired for stealing thumb drives. Regardless, that's what came to mind during "Bear Man," which finally brought back Elam (yay!) along with a whole possibles bag full of frustrating elements (like amnesia, boo!). Written by Max Hurwitz and directed by Clark Johnson, the episode featured some cool parts, sure, but as a whole it was a tad lopsided for my Hellish tastes.
I do wonder if this episode took some inspiration from the famous trapper's tale. Both men managed to kill a grizzly with a knife, both men were taken in and nursed to health by a local tribe, and both men had a single goal in mind to help drive their recovery. (In my case, I was inspired to slash my boss's tires in the parking lot of an Olive Garden, as I knew he enjoyed their endless soup, salad, and breadsticks every Wednesday night). All's fair in love and revenge!
Say, did you know a beaver pelt is called a "plew"? It is. As in, "Hey don't stab Jimmy Two Squaws to death, he still has many more plews to trap!" Yup, as is often the case with Bear-Attackitus, Elam "Marilyn Manson Eye" Ferguson went full-blown nuts on one of my favorite Hell on Wheels side characters (another one of my faves? The dude with the awesome mustache and coffee sock). While I'm not happy that Jimmy got gutted, I am in support of things like Elam having Eva visions, Elam believing he has "bear magic," and Elam gaining mad respect from the natives. These are the types of things that fit nicely within the Western genre while still testing the limits of its confines. Cool!
What I'm not in favor of, however, is Elam getting damn amnesia. What is this, an I Love Lucy episode? Like, forget that Elam's mysterious cliffhanger fate from last season went unanswered for five episodes. To me, that smacks of actor scheduling conflicts, but whatever. My main gripe is that the Elam who's returned is not the Elam we know and love. He's been robbed of his memory and now he's basically just a highly suggestible raging simpleton. Like Frankenstein's Monster if the Monster had said "wahman" a bunch. All grunty and mean and ruthless like my stepdad when he lost the chili cook-off. How are we supposed to care about someone who has zero of the traits that made him so great in the first place?
Aside from Elam's new personality, "Bear Man" focused kind of too much time on his recovery. I'm all about showing the audience how arduous it would be to heal from a grizzly attack, but after so much dazed sputtering and indecipherable Comanche, I got no way into the drama. The impact of his situation was clear to me early on, so my brain and heart were just all, "There he is, still recuperating on some furs, still getting nature-medicine put on his face—oh hey he got shaved, say is that pemmican..." I still can't decide what's more boring: watching paint dry or watching a man heal, you know?
Luckily that assault on the Army was pretty darn cool—and hey, Bendix is back, I'm sure he'll relay what he saw to Cullen. But for my money, the only interesting turn of "Bear Man" came about halfway through, with Charlotte Royce (we see you, Sara Canning from The Vampire Diaries). Her husband dead, she was taken captive as a prize and subjected to public abuse and humiliation, like receiving dead legs and flat tires and probably wet willies from the tribe bully. For a hot second, Elam thought she might've been Eva, but staring at her chin for a substantial amount of time proved that was not the case.
Just another ratty-haired white woman fallen prey to the perils of the frontier. Then the next thing you know, Elam believed in his bear magic enough to join a war party and commit even more murder (fine, but pick a direction, Elam!). It was only when Charlotte suggested her own value as a sellable item that he hatcheted a man to death and struck out on his own with three women in tow. Then Charlotte ran away, and Bear Killer tackled her and shouted, "Shut up! shut up!" in the second of his two emotions this episode ("confused monster rage"). Which brings us back to the over-arching problem with Elam's return. Hear me out, and then I'll stop shouting at you and go back to rifling through my neighbor's garbage.
Yes, there's no doubt in my mind that having a grizzly claw wedged into your skull and likely brain would make one behave erratically. Heck, I myself get terrible headaches and scream at the ice cream man whenever my fedora's on too tight. But watching a character behave so devoid of logic sort of takes away all the rules of his world. Anything can make him mad, anything can make him sad. So all his emotional reactions exist on the same level. There were a few glimmers of Elam getting his bearings on the world he once knew, but that development could've been way less gradual. Long story short, I'm happy the Bear Killer's back. Now I want Elam back.
What did you think of "Bear Man"? Where you satisfied with the nature of Elam's return?
