‘Hell on Wheels’ season 4 finale spoilers: Can Durant change Cullen’s mind?

“Hell on Wheels” fans, it’s finally here: “Further West,” the big season 4 finale. It’s an hour stuffed with possibility, but also ambiguity at the same time.

What is interesting in particular about the last two finale episodes to us is how they have been crafted with so much precision to not just tie together the story this year, but also set things up for the next year. In season 3, the story ended with Cullen Bohannon becoming trapped in Fort Smith, and we got a good inkling as to where things were going to be beginning for him when the fourth season premiered.

This time around, we’re going to see Cullen venture back to the fort, but with a very different purpose: Willingly trying to get his family. Nobody is dragging him there or keeping him prisoner, at least for now.

In doing this, he is making great sacrifices, and that includes finally leaving the railroad behind. Durant pleads with him, in a new video posted by TVLine, to stay, arguing that Ruth died over an ideal, and this should not be the sort of catalyst that makes him change course from his entire life.

It wasn’t necessarily what Ruth did that seems to be causing Cullen to pause, at least from our vantage point; instead, it is more of what she said about the importance of family. He wants to be there for someone in his life now, and in all honesty, he does not have many other people left with Ruth and his best friend Elam Ferguson dead.

Check back later today, as we’re going to have some of our first speculation about the big season five finale.