‘Hell on Wheels’ season 4 spoilers: Big news on Elam’s life-or-death crisis
After many months of speculation, we now have some sort of official answer to one of the most-debated questions pertaining to “Hell on Wheels“: Does Elam survive the brutal mauling from a bear?
For those of you who are savvy and/or know the common rules of TV, the answer to this should not surprise you too much. But rather than come on here and try to explain things ourselves, why not have the man responsible for running the show do it? Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, executive producer John Wirth had the following to say:
“He survives the bear attack, but I think you will be surprised to see the manner in which he survives … The circumstances of his survival are unique.”
The “common rule of TV” we are dealing with here is that if a character appears to be dead in the finale, but their body is not being carted away, more often than not they find a way to survive. What we are mostly excited about here as a viewer, and also for Common as an actor, is that there could still be consequences of the attack, and this will not be one of those cases where someone has a near-death experience, and then an episode or two down the line it is completely forgotten.
Wirth also explains in the interview a little about John Campbell (Jake Weber), one of the new characters for the season that should have a major stake in all that happens around the railroad:
“I came up with the idea that maybe somebody would come into Cheyenne to challenge Durant [Colm Meaney] for control of this world … The idea is, [Campbell] represents civilization. He comes from the East to a lawless place with law and order as his mandate. So much of the conflict this year grows out of that sort of knife-edge of civilization meeting frontier: You can imagine the east side of town is civilization, and on the west side of town is the frontier. If you leave town and you had east, you’re gonna get to Chicago or New York; if you leave town and head west, very quickly you’re in the middle of nowhere. What happens when civilization tries to impose itself on an uncivilized frontier?”
As someone who loves these sort of conflicts (and also just played “Red Dead Redemption,” which as a video game touches on these themes), we love the idea of having this sort of east-meets-west story fully explored. All we hope now is that the series can really marry some of this well with the story of Cullen, who for the time being seems very isolated from everyone else.
If you want more Bohannon news now, then click here to read more on the recasting of the Naomi character. Also, move your mouse over to this link for some further TV updates coming at you courtesy of our CarterMatt Newsletter.
Photo: AMC