With so many movies and television series working that vein over more than a century, it\u2019s no surprise that the same material turns up again and again. \u201cThe Abandons,\u201d a new western premiering Thursday on Netflix, is thick with old plot points and character types. (Seven episodes out of 10 were available to review.) Admittedly, creator Kurt Sutter has given the tropes a bit of a spin, making two women \u2014 played by Gillian Anderson and Lena Headey \u2014 adversarial matriarchal leads, but the nuts and bolts come right off the shelf.<\/p>\n
We are in the town of Angel\u2019s Ridge in Washington Territory in the year 1854. Constance Van Ness (Anderson) and Fiona Nolan (Headey) are widows \u2014 but not \u201cwidder women\u201d \u2014 each in charge of her business, turf and adult children. Constance is upper-class, cold, refined, ambitious and the owner of a silver mine. Her brood consists of Willem (Toby Hemingway), the problem child; Garret (Lucas Till), the younger but more capable son (he wears a suit), trouble in his own way; and Trisha (Aisling Franciosi), a fair flower who will nonetheless curse like a sailor at times. She plays Schubert on the piano, a character detail that feels tacked on, but at least it is a character detail.<\/p>\n
Fiona is her almost mathematically conceived opposite, an earthy rancher with four adopted grown children; there\u2019s a horrible dead husband in her backstory. Elias (Nick Robinson) and Dahlia (Diana Silvers) are brother and sister, whose late father left the money for the land upon which Fiona has built their ranch. (Guided and gifted, in her mind, by God.) With them are Albert (Lamar Johnson) and Lilla Belle (Natalia del Riego), \u201ctwo angels alone and hurting\u201d Fiona met along the way. They are \u201cfive abandoned souls, now kin,\u201d and so call their ranch the Abandons.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Michael Greyeyes as Jack Cree, Gillian Anderson as Constance Van Ness, and Michiel Huisman as Roache in \u201cThe Abandons.\u201d<\/p>\n
(Michelle Faye \/ Netflix)<\/p>\n
Production is down at the mine, which Constance fears will make \u201cmy primary associate, the esteemed Mr. Vanderbilt,\u201d as in Cornelius, withdraw his investment, which in turn will make Angel\u2019s Ridge slide \u201cback into the mud\u201d and won\u2019t do Constance any good either. (The town, as even the sheriff describes it, belongs to her.) And so she lusts after a suspected vein of silver running under Jasper Hollow, occupied by Fiona\u2019s ranch and three other families, none of whom are in a rush to leave, despite A) her offers of money and B) acts of sabotage to force them to go. They debate whether to \u201cgo to the law\u201d or handle her themselves, and because they are democrats, vote on it.<\/p>\n
The collision of wealthy, often industrial interests with humble workers on the land has been the basis of many a Western; we are meant, as feeling humans, to side with the farmers and the ranchers against the mine owners as custodians rather than despoilers of the Earth. That Willem calls Isaac the blacksmith \u201ca dirty little Jew\u201d doesn\u2019t speak well for the Van Nesses, either, but we\u2019ll see much worse from him before the opening episode is out \u2014 and then we won\u2019t see him.<\/p>\n
On the other hand, Fiona is more than a little crazy and Constance, in her icy way, can seem almost reasonable. At times it seems that the two, as mothers, might be about to make some interesting connection, even common cause, but they are driven apart by mutual antipathy and the fact that each will be guilty of some awful stuff against the other.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur struggle, Fiona,\u201d says Constance, \u201cis a matter concerning property, not children.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAll matters concern my children,\u201d replies Fiona.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut do our children need such concern or do we slyly foster it clinging to our motherly purpose?\u201d Well, that is the question, and you do wonder why these kids don\u2019t just light out for Portland. (Constance, whom one would not exactly call maternal, believes her motherly purpose is superior to Fiona\u2019s, \u201cit being one of blood\u201d; Fiona responds, \u201cLove is not shared through blood.\u201d)<\/p>\n