The Abandons (Netflix) has an inviting plot. There’s a superb cast. But there is one problem that can be hard to ignore.
The story is old school western. We’re in a 19th century mountain town, built around a silver mine. The owners, the wealthy Van Ness family, are trying to force four farmers to sell up their land so they can expand.
The four families are refusing to budge, even when the Van Ness crew try to kill all their cattle. It’s greed versus passion, establishment (Van Ness) vs immigrant farmers from Ireland, Mexico and Africa.
Constance, the head of the Van Ness family, is played by Gillian Anderson. She brings her Margaret Thatcher energy (from The Crown) to the part, all haughty and relentless as she tries to crush the pesky foreigners.
The farmer families are led by Fiona Nolan, played by Lena Headey, who brings her Cersei Lannister energy (from Game of Thrones) to the part. She does this in a passable Dublin accent.
Nick Robinson as Elias Teller and Aisling Franciosi as Trisha Van Ness
Actually, it’s more a trace than an accent, in the way you might spot a trace of vanilla in red wine. Thatcher vs Lannister, who wouldn’t want to watch that?
Nolan houses a small group of misfits and orphans she assembled after a childless marriage where she secretly murdered her abusive husband. When one of the awful Van Ness boys sexually assaults Dahlia (one of Nolan’s charges) she kills him too, and the four farmers hide the body.
Constance Van Ness suspects hires a brutal man called Roche to find her son. This is going to turn grisly. In case you don’t spot that, an actual grisly bear walks into town at the start of the second episode and kills a guy with a hangover. So there is plenty here to keep you engaged. If only most of the actors didn’t have perfect skin and teeth. There’s the problem that’s hard to ignore.
There isn’t enough gritty brutality in the show to make it feel real. There isn’t even a piano player to stop playing when a gunman walks into the saloon. It needs to be more Western.
But you’ll get over it. The pacing is good here, so the story branches out unexpectedly, with Romeo and Juliet style romance between younger memories of the warring families.
