History Channel's Hatfields & McCoys

[DACrowe]

So the miniseries wrapped up tonight. Did anybody watch?

Now, I have no idea how historically accurate it is, but I thought it was quite good. The first hour of Part 1 (each part's two hours) was a bit slow in how it set everything up. But it did a good job of making me understand and empathize with these characters on both sides and get beyond the initial notion that they're all a bunch of crazy hillbillies fighting over a pig. While many of them still weren't very bright and were crazy (Jonesy Hatfield and Nancy McCoy in the movie were the biggest fools one could imagine), it made you understand the very different worldviews of Devil Hatfield and Randall McCoy.

The show's greatest strength was actually shifting who I detested more. In the show's story, the biggest prick is clearly Jim Vance who really instigates the whole thing by murdering Randall's brother for simply fighting for the Union and throws gasoline on the fire throughout the series. Randall also letting Cline whisper in ear like a spider also brought about a series of terrible decisions. Still, I could empathize with why McCoy would hate the Hatfields at the outset, begin to see how McCoy has taken it too far and needs to bury the hatchet, be angered at the death of Devil Anse's brother and the stupidity of the McCoys for disowning their daughter when allowing the marriage could have tied together the families.

Still, by the end of the movie I sympathized with the McCoys more. Probably because they at least to try to do things semi-legally and lost everything while the Hatfields continued to be relatively well off. That and despite the Hatfields whining, they decimated almost all the sons of the McCoy family and even shot an unarmed little girl. But after six hours of recrimination, you're as tired of this pointless bloodbath as the characters.

My only complaint is the last 10 minutes where they try to wrap everything up with a series of awkward scenes was...well awkward.

Pretty solid mini-series. Certainly the best thing Kevin Reynolds has done in a long time.

 

[C. Lee]

It was a good mini series, the type of thing the big 3 networks used to do, but now rely upon unscripted reality shows.

It may be about "hillbillies" in West Virginia and Kentucky....but it played like an old fashioned western. I'm from Kentucky....have heard about about the feud all my life. Last time I read up on it was back in 1975 when Jack Palance made a movie about it. As far as I can remember, the series was fairly accurate (liberties are always taken) and tried to tell as much of the story as they could. In reality, the heads of both families had a lot more kids than was shown (I think one actually had 16 kids, but things like that become hard for today's audiences to believe) and the attack on McCoy's house and the burning of it was actually at night....but that doesn't really take away from the story of fermenting hatred that some of the characters had.

Kevin Costner as "Devil" Anse Hatfield is a stern rough country man who at first tries to mend fences with Randall McCoy. Tom Berringer as the Hatfield's "Uncle Vance" was a real nasty character that instigated much of the trouble. Bill Paxton as Randall McCoy did an excellent job of portraying a man ravaged by war and incarceration in a POW camp during the Civil War, who can't forgive or forget any transgression (whether real or imagined) against him. Add in a bunch of Stupid, or mean, or stupid and mean characters on both sides and you get a nasty situation.

I liked all three nights, my wife almost gave up on it the first night (she said it took too long setting up all the characters) but really liked the next two episodes. I recommend it to everyone.

 

[DACrowe]

I think it did a job of making them all sympathetic, but ultimately they're all at blame in the pointlessness of it. Just a well done series, in my opinion. Kind of surprised so few around here gave it a watch.

 

[Soapy]

I might try and watch it on demand or something, but it's not a priority.

 

[DarthSkywalker]

I didn't see it quite the same way. I really liked how the whole thing started, but I think the show lost a lot of momentum as it went on. I really didn't like the final hour at all.

Couldn't really feel sympathy for the McCoys outside of Nancy and Roseanna either. I couldn't get past their bitterness.

 

[Call Me Darkman]

It was a good mini series, the type of thing the big 3 networks used to do, but now rely upon unscripted reality shows.

It got record-breaking ratings, so it might encourage networks and basic cable channels to make more like it.

 

[Sawyer]

A bunch of unlikable *****ebags killing eachother for no good reason? It's like Game of Thrones, except no one has any real desire for power.

Good miniseries, though.