Hell on Wheels

A Series that premiered on AMC on November 6, 2011.

Set in the 1860s at the beginning of Reconstruction, the series follows Cullen Bohannon, a former Confederate soldier, who is determined to exact revenge on the Union soldiers who murdered his wife. His quest for vengeance sends him westward to Nebraska's "Hell on Wheels," the lawless town that moves with the construction of the transcontinental railroad. However, things get complicated when a Cheyenne tribe attacks the construction of the railroad, determined to destroy the project because it is being built through their lands.

Tropes used in Hell on Wheels include:
  • Affably Evil: Durant, The Swede
  • The American Civil War just ended, and with the fighting over, the nation is turning to building the railroad.
  • Annoying Arrows: Averted. The arrows are shown to inflict painful wounds or are outright lethal like a real arrow would be.
  • Anti-Hero: Cullen Bohannon, Type IV
  • The Atoner: Joseph Blackmoon and Reverend Cole.
    • And now Toole is showing signs of this, thanks to his miraculous non-death from a gunshot at point-blank range
    • And Reverend Cole is backsliding after brutally beheading a union soldier.
  • Awesome McCoolname: Thor Gunderson, AKA "The Swede."
  • Audible Sharpness: Elam makes a point of using this with his knife in an attempt to intimidate Bohannon. It doesn't work.
  • Badass Damsel: Lily Bell stabs the man who killed her husband with his own arrow, treks however many miles alone and sews up her own wound before she gets rescued.
  • Badass Longcoat: A western staple, though only a few main characters wear them.
  • Badass Preacher: Reverend Cole is a retired one, and Elam may technically count as well.
  • Big Eater: There's rarely a scene featuring the Swede that he isn't munching on something.
  • Blood From the Mouth: "Revelations"
  • Breaking the Fourth Wall: The only way to explain Durant's monologue at the end of the first episode.
  • Camera Abuse: Cameras get splattered with water and dirt and more in the big fight in "Timshel".
  • Card-Carrying Villain

Durant: Is it a villain you want? I'll play the part.

  • Christianity Is Catholic: Averted. Reverend Cole is an Evangelical Protestant. Toole is definitely Catholic, however
  • Chekhov's Skill: Cole mentions how he killed slave owners with a sword when he was a Jayhawker. When Sgt. Griggs tells him that he's going to kill Joseph, he gets to put those skills to the test
  • Cool Guns: The Griswold and The Swede's Beauty.
  • Cool Hat: Bohannon wears one of these.
  • Confessional: In the opening scene, a Union soldier enters a confessional to speak with a priest. It turns out to be Cullen, who's come to kill him.
  • Corrupt Corporate Executive: Thomas "Doc" Durant, who owns the company that finances the railroad as well as the railroad company itself (so he's essentially paying himself to build the Union Pacific using government subsidies), and who fires one of his surveyors because the guy dares to suggest building the railroad straight (as opposed to curvy, which would make the railroad artificially longer and therefore mean that he gets paid more to build it). He also bribes/blackmails a senator only a little way into the pilot.
  • Corrupt Hick: The Swede, despite being a northerner and an Immigrant, fits this trope to a T. When he's not out being the Hanging Judge, he's shaking down businesses and bribing officials to look the other way while he robs his employer.
  • Corrupt Politician: Senator Crane, whom Durant intimidates during his Establishing Character Moment and who later gets revenge by threatening to reveal Durant's double-dealing to the authorities.
  • Dark and Troubled Past: EVERYONE has one.
    • Cullen's wife and son were murdered by Union soldiers.
    • Elam was a slave and is half-white.
    • Something bad happened to the McGinnes brothers in Boston.
    • Eva was kidnapped and enslaved by a native tribe, who tattooed her lip to show that she was their property.
    • The Swede is a survivor of Andersonville (a Confederate concentration camp for Union POWs)
    • Judging from his dialogue with the Cheyenne warriors, Joseph Black Moon used to be a quite ferocious warrior.
    • Reverend Cole was a Jayhawker (an anti-slavery terrorist in Kansas) who murdered several slave owners.
    • Durant (unlike the historical Durant) grew up in Hell's Kitchen in abject poverty.
  • Despair Event Horizon: Durant undergoes one of these when he thinks he's going to lose the contract for the railroad and be exposed for the Corrupt Corporate Executive he is. Lily snaps him out of it with a Get a Hold of Yourself, Man! speech.
    • Reverend Cole slowly but surely drifts over the line until he finally snaps after killing Sgt. Griggs, telling Bohannon that the Devil has rendered God powerless, and that he should just choose the dark path he's on, as "it's easier."
  • The Determinator: Lily Bell, who manages to kill a Cheyenne warrior, escape through enemy territory avoiding trackers, and sew up her wound all on her own.
  • Determined Widow: Lily Bell again. She is the perfect embodiment of this trope.
  • Did Not Do the Research: Durant tells Lily that he grew up in abject poverty on the streets of Hells Kitchen. The real Durant came from an upper middle class background and graduated summa cum laude from medical school.
  • The Dragon: The Swede to Durant.
  • Establishing Character Moment: The first episode is pretty chock-full of these for introducing all of the characters, many of them in their very first scene.
  • Mr. Fanservice: Bohannon is a direct embodiment of "tall, dark, and mysterious".
  • Every Scar Has a Story: Eva has tattoos on her face under her lip. "Eveyone stares, but no one ever asks." They're her worth to the tribe she was traded to: a horse and three blankets
  • Face Framed in Shadow: During the conversation between Bohannon and Durant at the end of "Timshel"
  • Faith Heel Turn: Reverend Cole gives a pretty epic Rage Against the Heavens to Cullen after murdering a Union soldier who came after Joseph Black Moon in cold blood. It's pretty clear that by this point his personal deomons have caught up with him.
  • Fake Nationality: "The Swede" is actually Norwegian. Not only that, Christopher Heyerdahl, the actor that portrays him, is Canadian.
    • Irish actor Colm Meaney playing New Yorker Doc Durant
  • Fire-Forged Friends: Cullen and Elam seem headed towards this after Cullen saves Elam from a lynch mob and later, pursued by said mob, they fight and kill them all.
  • Freudian Excuse: Toole and his Irish followers are racist assholes to prove that they're not bottom of the barrel any more
  • Get a Hold of Yourself, Man!: Lily delivers a verbal version of this to Durant when he's moping over possibly losing his contract to build the railroad and being exposed for being a Corrupt Corporate Executive, telling him "Is this Thomas Durant I see before me, or a blubbering schoolboy?"
  • God Is Dead: or has had his arms and legs cut off and his eyes gouged out by the Devil, according to Reverend Cole.
  • Good Shepherd: Reverend Cole. Until he crosses the Despair Event Horizon, at least
  • Grey and Gray Morality: Cullen is our protagonist, but no one is really much more heroic or villainous than anyone else. The "whitest" characters are probably Reverend Cole, his daughter, and Joseph, two of the three of which are The Atoner for past misdeeds.
    • ...And we can probably cross Reverend Cole of the list, given his treatment of Rose, his abandonment of his wife and daughter in the first place, his beheading a soldier in cold blood, and the epic Rage Against the Heavens he gave to Cullen.
  • Heel Faith Turn: Toole in "Timshel". After being shot in the face, he claims an angel came down and flicked the bullet from his wound. He's noticeably less of an asshole after this.
  • Historical Domain Character: Thomas Durant.
  • Hooker with a Heart of Gold: Eva is looking to fulfill this trope
  • I Don't Like the Sound of That Place: The eponymous town.
  • Injun Country
  • Inspector Javert: The Swede to Cullen. Subverted in that the Swede lacks a Javert's usual innate integrity.
  • It Seemed Like a Good Idea At the Time: The Swede's response when Durant questions his attempt to hang Elam.
  • Jerkass: Johnson, the Copperhhead (i.e. Southern-sympathizing Northerner) foreman who helped in the rape and murder of Bohannon's wife, who is casually racist and accidentally kills a black railroad worker, then claims it was a result of the guy disobeying orders. He gets his throat slit by Elam before the episode is over.
    • Also the Irish railworker who seems to have made it his mission to taunt Elam over how, as a black man, none of the white prostitutes will sleep with him, and continually denigrates Bohannon behind his back and to his face. Probably no coincidence his name is Toole...
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Cullen Bohannon comes off like this on occasion
  • Large Ham: Colm Meaney is having way too much fun as Durant. For instance, the pilot ends with him giving a lengthy, operatic Hannibal Lecture to no one.
  • Lean and Mean: The Swede. Notable in that he went into Andersonville as a 200-some-odd pound man, and came out thin as a rake. His Badass Longcoat accentuates this.
  • Never Suicide: Bohannon's wife, as we learn in the pilot.
  • Noodle Incident: Whatever happened in Boston to the McGinnes brothers, though it's early in the series yet.
  • Not Quite Dead: Toole, shot in the face in "Revelations", turns up alive in "Timshel".
  • Obfuscating Stupidity: "Revelations" opens with a flashback of a young Elam stumbling over a pro-slavery passage of the Bible, reading to entertain his master and some of his master's friends. One of the friends remarks upon the danger of teaching a slave to read, mentioning that Nat Turner was taught how to read. Elam's master says there's nothing to worry about, as Elam doesn't understand what he's reading. Cut to the barn, where the slaves are huddled around Elam as he reads clearly from an anti-slavery passage of the bible...
  • Odd Friendship: Bohannon (a former slaveholding ex-Confederate) and Elam (an ex-slave Scary Black Man who refuses to be treated badly) seem to be developing one.
  • Only Known by Their Nickname: The Swede actually mentions his name, but everyone just calls him The Swede or Mr. Swede—even though he is actually Norwegian.
  • Oireland: the McGinnes brothers make a hefty sideline with a magic lantern show of images of Ireland for the Irish workers on the railroad.
  • Rags to Riches: Durant's backstory.
  • Ragtag Band of Misfits: The inhabitants include our ex-Confederate protagonist, several ex-Union soldiers (including a very tall and thin Swedish Norwegian lawman), a crew of Irishmen, a crew of freed slaves, an ex-Jayhawker revivalist preacher, a Cheyenne who has converted to Christianity, a white woman raised by natives working as a whore, a female English surveyor, a Yankee Corrupt Corporate Executive, and his French-speaking black manservant.
  • Railroad Baron: Durant. He even Lampshades this in his speech near the end of the pilot.
  • Refuge in Audacity: Bohannon is being hunted by the Swede for the murder of Johnson, actually killed by Elam. So what does he do? He goes to Durant and tells him he needs Bohannon as foreman in order to build the railroad. Durant even lampshades it, asking Bohannon how he puts his pants on "over those big balls of yours." And it works!
  • Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Bohannon's purpose for going west.
  • The Rule of First Adopters: When the Mcginnes brothers go back into business, guess what they start showing with their magic lantern?
  • Scary Black Man: Elam Ferguson.
  • Shame If Something Happened: An Establishing Character Moment for The Swede.
  • Shell-Shocked Veteran: Cullen says The Swede has "The Soldier's Heart," the period term for PTSD. Given what The Swede endured in Andersonville, this doesn't seem far off the mark.
  • The Sheriff: The Swede, of the Corrupt Hick variety. He only uses his authority to lean on the local businesses or to step in when the Important People get wronged. Otherwise, he lets the town rot. Also something of a Hanging Judge, as he has the power to order executions.
  • Slashed Throat
  • Smug Snake: Toole, who unlike more villainous characters such as The Swede and Durant has basically no redeeming qualities, not even intelligence.
    • Though he's noticeably less smug when he becomes The Atoner after surviving being shot in the face.
  • Thousand-Yard Stare: The Swede has a pretty epic one.
  • Title Drop: By Durant, toward the end of the premier episode. There's also a visual one earlier with the shanty town's sign.
  • Torches and Pitchforks: The Swede finds himself on the receiving end of this after pushing the townsfolk too far.
  • Translation Convention: Probably safe to assume that the Cheyenne weren't conversing in English with each other in 1865.
  • The Western: In spades.
  • Where Da White Women At?: Explored. For striking up a relationship with Eva, a white prostitute, Elam is nearly hanged in the highly racist 1860s.
    • Only to then be unrealistically okay with everyone at camp once Toole and the Irish mooks are dealt with and Elam returns to camp. In following episodes, she is seen exiting Elam's tent, being grabbed and yelled at by Elam in public, and not one white person bats an eye. Toole even apologizes for his racist behavior when he returns alive. Very unrealistic, indeed.
  • Wretched Hive: The eponymous "Hell on Wheels" camp. It's a 19th century railroad camp, what do you want, Boardwalk?
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