As I look through Netflix, a subscription streaming media service, I cannot help but think that there is an overall lack of entertaining content. After finishing multiple seasons of Breaking Bad, I was in need for a new show. Just a week before, I had finally finished the three seasons of The Walking Dead that I had neglected to watch to the astonishment of my peers. In short, I was unable to find what I wanted: a well-written drama that kept one thinking, but wasn’t too predictable or made to appeal to a mass audience. My searching finally led me to the drama Hell on Wheels.

Hell on Wheels is a fictional story following Confederate officer Cullen Bohannon (Anson Mount) as he navigates the United States during the Reconstruction period following the Civil War. As America tries to the divide from such a terrible and costly conflict, Bohannon wrestles with a conflict of his own. Bohannon searches for the group of Union men that killed his wife and child intent on avenging his loss. After a string of murders, Bohannon finds himself searching for the last two men who were involved with his loved ones’ deaths.

Bohannon finds himself at Hell on Wheels, a moving railroad-workers town for which the series is named. Hell on Wheels is microcosm of the vices and grime that were associated with working on the railroad. Prostitution, gambling, and drunkenness were generally accepted, as long as railroad company president Thomas Durant (Colm Meaney) got a cut from the illicit activities. The Swede, also known as Thor Gunderson (Christopher Heyerdhal), enforces a twisted sense of order on the town as Durant’s personal head of security. Another character is Elam Ferguson (Common), who is an educated freeman pursuing the equal rights of white and black men, even at great danger to himself and other characters.

Through its depiction of Reconstruction America played out on the western frontier, Hell on Wheels captures the intensity and energy of other serial television dramas such as, Breaking Bad or The Walking Dead. Hell on Wheels explores the true and often violent nature of redemption and division in post-Civil War America. At the same time, multiple back stories provide a viewpoint to every voice of the story: the rich, the poor, and the prejudiced. With considerable favorable reviews, this is a great show that doesn’t get the attention that it so richly deserves.