‘Hell on Wheels’ season 5, episode 6 preview: Cullen, Mei struggle with grief

When you look at the character of Mei on “Hell on Wheels,” it is pretty clear that this is a woman who has already suffered extensively. Not only is she stuck in the taxing, at-times terrible railroad culture of the Central Pacific, but she has spent the majority of the time there pretending to be a boy.

The tragedy boiled over last week following the death of Tao, one of the few good people really left in her life other than Cullen Bohannon. Even he is still somewhat a stranger in this strange land to her, given that he cannot speak the language or fully understand the traditions. Yet, it is pretty clear in the sneak peek below for Saturday’s episode that he is all that she has in this world. She blames Chang for Tao’s death, which is probably fair given that what we’ve seen from this man is that he desires power above all else. In having the man responsible for helping to ease tensions between the Chinese and the white men in Truckee killed, he can escalate the feud until he gets what he wants.

Ultimately, this episode could be very emotional for both Cullen and Mei as they both work to ensure that this man has a proper goodbye; unfortunately, tragedy is something Cullen knows very well. Just look back at the early years of the show, or even just this past season with what happened to Ruth and Elam.

This is the penultimate episode of season 5A … just in case you needed another reason to be sad as we wrap this sneak-peek article up.