Lawmen: Bass Reeves Review – This very specific western is a rare treat Television

TThere is a challenge, practically a moral obligation, when a play is set in the era of American slavery for black people. That is: finding a way to drive home its underlying horror to an audience accustomed to its depictions.

Lawmen: Boss Reeves, which begins in Arkansas in 1862 during the American Civil War, finds him in a scene set around a card table. Boss (David Oyelowo, who stars as well as produces) and his slave, George Reeves (Shea Whigham) play for her freedom. This opportunity, this flip of the card, is Boss’s reward for acquitting himself gallantly in the Confederate army, into which he was effectively drafted when George enlisted.

The scene combines terrible tension – the boss is shaking and almost crying – and an even more terrifying demonstration of what it means to have another person dominate you. It captures how horribly unfair and inhumane it is and illustrates the reality – it’s based on a true story – of living in a country built on such an extraordinary foundation.

The outcome of the game means that Boss must flee the state in fear of his life, leaving his wife, Jenny (Lauren E. Banks, who has such a presence that it’s almost hard to watch), to take refuge in Native American territory. Should be taken. He is taken in by Sarah (Margot Bingham), a Seminole woman whose husband was killed in battle, and her son, Curtis (Riley Locke). The Seminole nation “never surrendered, never made a worthless treaty”, and is still – technically, at least – free.

But Law Man is a play designed at every turn to interrogate what freedom means to a colonized or enslaved people. The boss lives there quietly for a few years, learning the language and occasionally acting as an interpreter between storekeepers and visitors to the local trading post. There he meets a former soldier from his Confederate days, now a prisoner, and learns that the Union has won – that freedom has officially arrived. On the heels come difficult events that prove how futile formal victory can be. The boss must move again.

A decade or so later, as a father of many and a farmer suffering from bad harvests, he shows us how poverty liberates a man, despite the many warnings of Reconstruction. When a U.S. Marshal Sheryl Lynn (Dennis Quaid) offers her a job helping track down Native American outlaws, she must take it for the sake of her family.

This is the beginning of what became Bass’s life’s work. In 1875, he was made deputy chief marshal for western Arkansas by a judge, Isaac Parker (Donald Sutherland), and served for more than 30 years, arresting at least 3,000 people. One of them was his son, who was accused of murder.

So, Oyelowo has a lot to get his teeth into. He’s fantastic at covering anger, despair, hope and suffering at the core of the boss – which, as Lynn says by watching him pray over the corpse of a victim while Lin strips the corpses of the killers, is “The most sincere man I have ever met.”

The Western is such a storied form that there are many familiar tropes. Bass escapes from predators by swimming in a river. Endless grizzled men staring at the sun. At times, it threatens to comically tip the lawmen over — especially given that the script usually alludes to a grim tradition (“He died brave.” “He lived brave.” was”). But the rare perspective and care taken with the story, to say nothing of its grounding in real-life achievements, save it.

It also has scope for expansion. Jenny, watching her daughter play the piano, tells her that she was taught by her mistress as an expression of the great lady’s kindness. “The piano was hers, but the music was mine. Always have something with you, child. This is a particularly feminine piece of wisdom.

At the other end of the spectrum, there’s room to enjoy Quaid, whose gift for slow charm and secretive menace has become more concentrated with age and works perfectly here. “It’s hard for a man to put fear and hatred behind him,” says the boss when faced with Lin’s brutal brutality. “Oh hell, boss,” Lin says, leaning into him with that smile. “I’m not even trying.”

Based on a trilogy of historical novels by Sidney Thompson and primarily written by Chad Feehan (Ray Donovan, Banshee), Law Men was originally intended to be a spin-off of 1883, itself a spin-off of Yellowstone, but now He acts as an opener of one. The anthology series is about personalities trying to impress the idea of ​​a just destiny on a lawless country. On this evidence, it is something to look forward to.