Hell on Wheels Season 5 Episode Guide:
5.01. "Chinatown" - Review!
5.02. "Mei Mei" - Review!
5.03. "White Justice" - Review!
5.04. "Struck" - Review!
5.05. "Elixir of Life" - Review!
5.06. "Hungry Ghosts" - Review!
5.07. "False Prophets" - Review!
5.08. "Two Soldiers" - Review!
5.09. "Return to the Garden" - (Airs June 18)
5.10. "61 Degrees" - (Airs June 25)
5.11. "Gambit" - (Airs July 2)
Hell on Wheels 5.08. "Two Soldiers"
Directed by Michael Nankin, Written by John Wirth & Tom Brady
And here we are for the final run of Hell on Wheels' last season. One of the biggest problems that I've had with AMC is the wait between seasons of series, to the point where I wasn't using episode guides the last time I wrote reviews for this show and have had to go back and find every episode individually to add the links. But anyway, here we are with Two Soldiers, which looked at the conflict and rivalry between Cullen and The Swede that has been around since pretty much day one and really everything came down to this payoff, with The Swede tracking Cullen's family determined to take them out for good.
We open with a flashback to 1863 where we focus on Thor Gundersen's character where he's captured following a Confederate raid on a Union camp and is taken to Andersonville Prison. The conditions of the prison and the lack of food mean that Thor's friend is forced to turn to cannibalism and starts eating him. This means that Thor has to drown his friend, showing how far The Swede was willing to go for survival. And we just learn how far he's willing to go to settle his score with Cullen, by taking out Naomi's family one by one, starting with Naomi's father and sister. However before he can take care of Naomi and baby William, Cullen is able to intervene and the two get into a brawl, with Cullen suffering a gunshot wound to the leg but is able to beat The Swede in the process, forcing him into a river where he could be drowned. Cullen finally has the upper hand on The Swede after all these years and could end him there. However he decides to take The Swede in for a proper trial rather than just an execution, something that Naomi sceptical about and wants to end him here. And indeed I'd probably have been just as annoyed as the characters would have been if The Swede had used this chance to escape, which is something that would have likely happened earlier in the show, but as we're entering the final season the show can afford to take out characters like The Swede.
And he does eventually end up meeting the Hangman's neck after a two-day ride to Fort Douglas, however not without incident as predicted. The Swede desperately tries to escape but shoots The Swede in the side, using his gun to draw soldiers from the Fort. This leads to a four day trial in which The Swede is found guilty of the deaths of Naomi's family and is therefore sentenced to hang by the neck until dead. He pleads for justice and forgiveness from Cullen, and is eventually hung as he watches.
I was half expecting Cullen to have a change of mind and intervene in regards to The Swede's fate but I'm glad that Hell on Wheels went through with it and it proved to be an effective, powerful end for the character. He's been a consistent thorn in Cullen's side for so many seasons now and has been almost as important to the show as Cullen has, so it was good to see that one of the most detestable antagonists on television gets a proper send-off. Christopher Heyerdahl really went some way to help making the character memorable, and it was great to see that the writers didn't delay the showdown between these two dragging it out further. A perfectly paced episode then, pushing aside characters like Durant and Mei in favour of the story of these two fantastic characters, two soldiers, who no longer have a war to fight for.
It was fascinating to see how The Swede reacted in his confined space which was easily the most vulnerable that he's been all series, and as a result provided for a fantastic look into the characters of both The Swede and Cullen, as Cullen made choices true to his character even though they could have cost him dear. It was a very effective way to return for the series' final stretch of episodes, and gave us an excellent send-off for The Swede.
We'll have to wait and see what is left of Cullen's journey in these final few episodes however, and there's still lots of material that we've got left to cover, starting with the next episode, which on Saturday at 9pm on AMC, and I'd love to hear what you thought of Two Soldiers in the comments section below.
Overall Episode Verdict: A
Positives:
+The death of the Swede.
+Character focus on Cullen and The Swede.
