The English is big on vibes. And its favourite vibe is menacing. Even when it’s not entirely clear what's going on in Hugo Blick’s ambitious, six-part Western, you know it's probably not good. That atmosphere – teamed with some intriguing landscapes and soundtrack (this week features Mazzy Star’s “Into Dust”) – results in some captivating, if occasionally muddled, TV.
And so, Episode 2, ‘Path of the Dead’, which aired last night, we come to Caine County, an area in the newly-formed state of Wyoming, where Englishman Thomas Trafford (played by Tom Hughes, either evil or misunderstood) has just learnt about the slaughter of his pregnant cattle. He’s blaming “homesteaders”, a mix of foreigners who have arrived in what he deems his space, but complaints to the rough and ready Sheriff Marshall (Stephen Rea) fall on deaf ears. We’re beginning to learn a little more about these characters’ allegiances, even if, like this show’s vast geography, it's all a little hard to pin down at this point.
A month’s ride away in Kansas, Captain Clegg (a gruesome villain, played by Jan Knightly) stumbles upon a German man and his very pregnant wife. It’s an unbearably tense scene, with shades of a Tarantino slow-burn, because this German is very clearly doomed. Clegg, hostile to foreigners who have come to this land (people are very territorial in The English), clearly has no intention of letting the German live but lets him run back to his family, before commanding his bushwhacker to kill him. “When you put an arrow through his heart, at least it will be full of hope,” Clegg cheerily announces. The very next scene, Clegg has another showdown, this time with our unlikely pair of heroes Eli (Chaske Spencer) and Cornelia (Emily Blunt). A little gunfire and arrow-shooting later, Clegg is dead. Perhaps this is just how things work in the Wild West – one day you are murdering Germans, and the next you are shot off your horse – but it doesn’t always make for a particularly engaging narrative. The carousel of villains is entertaining, and shows how dangerous this land is, but the routine introduction and instant disappearance of these bad guys does make them feel slightly throwaway.
If it were not already clear that this land is treacherous, there’s more horror to come. They find the dead German, and discover his wife has died too. Eli cuts the baby out of the mother (this happens off-screen, though it’s probably a scene House of the Dragon would have delighted in depicting), while Cornelia finds another child hiding underneath the carriage. They learn, from a couple who live nearby on allotted land, John (from the Kickapoo tribe) and Katie Clarke (Cherokee), that the family were probably Mennonites heading south to Oklahoma. This quieter scene, one without the imminent prospect of bloodshed, draws out the characterisation a little more. We see Eli’s mistrust and hesitance to give too much away, clearly formed from his tumultuous years living (and surviving) in this brutal landscape. And Cornelia’s occasional clumsiness – offering the couple money to look after the children, when Eli warns her not to – is especially well developed.
Cornelia’s plan is to take the children back to their people, a journey that Eli refuses to join, partly because he is heading north. Through Eli’s reluctance, we learn a little more about his backstory, and the tragedies that link this odd couple. Like Cornelia, Eli has lost his family; his wife died while they were travelling on the same route as the Mennonites, and his daughter died from illness a couple of years later. Though Cornelia’s history is still largely a mystery (as is her accent, which veers between American, English and somewhere European, sometimes mid-sentence), Blunt reveals just enough about the character – her steeliness, that wry humour – to draw us in.
Two episodes in down, and The English is still luxuriating in a slower pace. Blick has hit gold with Blunt and Spencer, and their scenes are the real heart of this show: witness the early, liltingly romantic conversation spent star-gazing. At the end of the episode, they split up on their respective journeys, though you hope they will reunite sooner rather than later – for the show’s sake, if anything else.
‘The English’ airs weekly on BBC Two, and all six episodes are available on iPlayer and Amazon Prime now
Henry Wong is a senior culture writer at Esquire, working across digital and print. He covers film, television, books, and art for the magazine, and also writes profiles.
