EPIX premiers Billy the Kid on April 24. The series is the work of Michael Hirst, known for The Tudors and Vikings. Based on the trailer, it looks good visually, and seems to incorporate the actual arc of El Chivato’s short and violent life.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bPVzXG6KW8
The epic romantic adventure charts Billy’s life from his humble Irish roots and early days as a cowboy and gunslinger in the American frontier, to his pivotal role in the Lincoln County War and beyond.
Hirst described the show as “more intimate, lean, lyrical and character-driven” than his previous work, which has included Showtime’s The Tudors, History’s Vikings and several other historical pieces.
“I’ve loved this deeply and I’ve loved Billy since I was seven so I’ve redeemed my childhood,” he added, during a one-hour career masterclass.
“People think they know something about Billy but they don’t know he was a sensitive guy and someone who took his moral compass from his mum. So the drama is about immigration, Americans kicking out Mexicans from their land and all sorts of things but above all it’s a human story and Billy is at the core of it.”
Hirst heaped praise on lead Tom Blyth (The Gilded Age) and the “rare” opportunity to cast someone who looks similar to the historical figure he’s playing.
“We looked in many countries but Tom kept coming back into our consciousness,” Hirst added, saying he “kept throwing stones in [Blyth’s] path and he kept responding,” such as when he told Blyth Billy the Kid needed a good singing voice and Blyth responded with a “video of him singing beautifully and playing guitar.”
The eight-episode season comprised of hourlong episodes tells the story of Billy the Kid from his humble Irish roots, to his early days as a cowboy and gunslinger in the American frontier, to his pivotal role in the Lincoln County War and beyond.
Viewers will also meet Jesse Evans (Daniel Webber), another famous outlaw and leader of the Seven Rivers Gang. When they meet, Jesse has already embraced a life of crime: robbing stores and cattle rustling. Billy is attracted to his wild and reckless character and becomes Billy’s doppelganger of sorts — his shadow self, forever inviting him over to the dark side of life.
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Fame is capricious. Thus, Billy the Kid is one of the most famous of frontier figures, while Tom Fitzpatrick is virtually unknown except to serious aficionados of the Rocky Mountain Fur Trade. (He was known to fellow trappers as “Broken Hand” because his left hand was mangled in a firearms accident). Fitzpatrick is not even as well-known as men he worked with directly — Jim Bridger and Jedediah Smith, to name a couple.
It’s hard to say why that is. He was one of General William Ashley’s originals, among the men who truly kicked off the Rocky Mountain Fur Trade. He (re)discovered South Pass, one of the most important moments in Western frontier history. He was partners with Bridger in the Rocky Mountain Fur company. He guided some of the first emigrant trains on the Oregon Trail, and he helped negotiate the 1851 Treaty of Fort Laramie with the tribes of the northern plains. Yet, he’s scarcely known. Weird.
INSP’s Into the Wild Frontier gives him his due with the episode Tom Fitzpatrick: Trapper, Trader, Legend, which drops on Thursday, March 24.
As usual with the format of the docuseries, the episode homes in on a couple of salient episodes from Fitzpatrick’s career: the (re)discovery of South Pass, and his epic 1832 escape from Blackfeet, when he was cut off while leading a supply train to Rendezvous. That harrowing experience gave him a new nickname — “White Hair.”
This is another worthy entry in a worthy series — all the more so because it shines a light on a career that should be remembered as one of the most significant of all the Mountain Men.
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