Into The West

Episode 2 of Into The West was even better than last week's Keri Russell stars in this episode as the young-rasict wife who will embrace the native American ways, in a way. The Wheelers are back together under one roof but Jacob Wheeler and his wife Thunder Heart Woman are not as welcomed as the other family members. They soon decide to head for California. They take his brother and their cousins along for the 3 year ride. Along the way they go with Stephen Hoxie a level-headed wagon leader played by Beau Bridges. Before you get to attached to any of these wagoneers they all die. The only reason the Wheelers survive is that they luckily got the deadly cholera and had to be left behind. The Cheyenne slaughtered the wagoneers for the same fear of cholera. When they came to attack those left behind Jacob was seriously wounded and had to be left even further behind again. We skip ahead five years and the Jacob's wife is married to his brother, Jacob after going mad living alone is now in the military and America has grown by leaps and bounds. Naomi Wheeler(Russell) survives the attack and gets abducted by her attackers, she stops the chief's assualt on her body by chanting nursey rhymes, if I ever go to prison I'll see if that works. Eventually she grows to like the chief, have his baby and not seem to hate non-whites.
The whole episode moved extremely fast, I believe ten years may have passed. There were no slow moments unlike last week and the sense of doom for the Lakotas is getting heavier with the introduction of alcohol.

Raised on the history taught in school you get a brief look into the pioneers and the troubles that they face. Watching this series you get the fact that this is an adventure instead it was a struggle that would cost lives if not years. The average lifespan of early Americans was only about 40 years and these wagoneers would spend 1/4 of that travelling.

Also knowing that not all native American tribes got along with each other and they treated women like property was not something that public schools ever taught me. These people still had honor as did the white-men but you can't judge them on what we consider right. That is why the western genre in movies and TV has died out. The Missing was the last big hit western and it relied more on one family and still fell into a bit of the old only the main characters are good and the women have lots of power. Although it may have been true in some cases the majority of women in the west were less gunslingers and more housekeepers, this was true for natives and newcomers.