Hell on Wheels "Elam Ferguson" Review: Gutted

Hell on Wheels S04E07: "Elam Ferguson"

For as much of a problem as I had with Elam's return last week, I'm willing to forgive most of my gripes after the solid, emotional "Elam Ferguson." As those of us who've attended open-casket funerals are aware, the experience yields a strange feeling of wanting to say one last goodbye and also realizing that the figure piled horizontal is not the person you want to say goodbye to, or even a person at all. Not to sound crass, but they're just leftovers. When Eva stated, "He ain't in that box," it was as if to say that who we are is the sum of our relationships or associations or living connections. Elam died the moment he became Bear Killer. Written by Mark Richards and Thomas Brady and directed by Rod Lurie, "Elam Ferguson" offered not one but three heartfelt sucker punches, as well as some good ol' fashioned Hell-scapades, giving Mr. Ferguson the quality sendoff he deserved.

"The world's catching up to us in the form of the United States government," Bohannon said to Durant at the outset, while maneuvering to lead the Union Pacific out of Cheyenne. Once the vengeance-obsessed gunslinger, Bohannon barely had time to negotiate a higher spot on the rails, what with the demands of family, friendship, and basic moral justice bearing down on him. The centerpiece of the episode found Bohannon—no longer the stoic individual we knew in Season 1—participating in a microcosm of society manifest as a standoff: If the marshals were to let the increasingly violent Elam continue with his faux-slave auction, the women would suffer untold abuse. However, Bohannon, Eva, and Psalms knew Elam wasn't in his right mind, and therefore shouldn't have been subjected to such harsh ultimatums. Kind of like when mentally disabled people get the chair. It was a set-up as suspenseful as it was heartbreaking.

I mean, if you didn't feel sick to your stomach when the townsfolk turned out to jeer at the confused Ferguson, or when he dismissed Eva, then surely your tear ducts started humming as soon as Elam became friendly with Psalms. It was such a turn from the ruthless, fearsome owner of "bear magic" we'd seen up to that point. Not only did he appear to be more "Elam," he was a naive Elam from younger days. From his slave days where he wasn't allowed to go in the house. I guess the reason this part hit hardest for me (well, hardest until Bohannon's climax), was the glimpse of hope that this friendly Elam offered. For a second, everything seemed like it might be okay. A false hope. The opposite of the phrase "darkest before dawn" (dawnest before dark?).


Elsewhere in the episode there was relief from the tragedy of Elam—Bohannon teamed up with Maggie to get a device to dig up and around the mountain, Naomi hassled Cullen about his dedication to family, and Campbell distanced himself from Heckard's beating of Durant two episodes ago. In response, Durant gave Heckard the business end of a femur (?). Was that what that was? In any case, Durant got to make some broken-head pie while expressing both sides of his character: the violent part and the conniving part. At first it looked like he was going to come clean with Mrs. Delaney (Gia Crovatin; Full Circle) but then it was some drawn-out story about how Thomas indirectly drove her father to take his own life. I'm not so invested in whether or not Durant gets caught for the murder of the Senator from last season, but it's certainly a fair thread to explore.

After talking a big game to Durant about how wrong it is to murder ("Don't quench"), back in town Bohannon had no choice but to pull the trigger on the knife-wielding Elam. That's kind of what you do when someone—friend or foe—tries to scratch out your medulla oblongata. Isn't that just life in a nutshell? We try to get along with one another, try not to step on each other's toes, but when it came right down to choosing who gets a future, Bohannon had to choose himself, his wife, his baby. You could tell it wasn't an easy call. He tried everything he could. He smiled, he told old tales. No such luck. Elam was a dead man once those lady-slaves were freed. Was it more honorable for a friend to pull the trigger than the government? I think so, yeah. Is it going to hurt any less for this reason? Hell no.

Wow, though, that bawling at the end—that supremely gutted me. Anson Mount is an actor's actor and Bohannon had earned a good long graveside cry. No doubt Eva's words were echoing in his head as he buried his friend. "He went looking for you." Time and time again, Bohannon's positioned the completion of the railroad as some sort of life's duty—an explanation for all the tragedy that surrounds it. In his mind, completing the nation's lifeline will justify, maybe, just a little bit, everything that's gone to shit around it.

"He went looking for you." True, but then again would he have run off if Eva never gave away his baby? We saw Elam's visions, his rants about "why she leave me?"; had Eva kept their baby, he'd have his own home to protect, his own reason for avoiding sacrifice. Or maybe it was just Elam's stop on the great railroad of life.


What did you think of "Elam Ferguson"? Did you find it a fitting sendoff for the character?