Hell on Wheels: The Complete Third Season

The title of AMC's brooding Western refers to a nomadic, multi-ethnic itinerant boomtown of immigrants, fortune-seekers, freed slaves, and renegades laying the Union Pacific railway line to the Rockies shortly after the Civil War. The show's hero, Cullen Bohannon (Anson Mount), a Confederate veteran who seems to be the only person capable of inspiring the restive population of Hell on Wheels, here wrests the job of chief engineer away from his onetime employer, Thomas “Doc” Durant (Colm Meaney), a colorfully crooked businessman from the East. While placing the tracks down and facing hostile Indians, a cholera epidemic, and homicidal Mormons, the two men fight for personal control of the project. In Cullen's case, the motivation for his actions stems in part from his relentless desire for revenge against the Union—specifically, he's hoping to find the soldiers from Sherman's army who killed his wife; but in this season he's also interested in taking the high ground and making the community something better than what the scheming Durant envisions. While not quite as powerful as the preceding run, and suffering from more than a few anachronisms (a lipstick-lesbian reporter from New York snooping around, for one), this set nevertheless continues the series' hallmarks of compelling characters and shocking twists. Compiling all 10 episodes from the 2013 third season, extras include behind-the-scenes featurettes. Recommended. (C. Cassady)