"In a vacuum, the logline for Netflix's latest series "The Abandons" is gangbusters: An old-school oater set in the 1850s, created by Kurt "Sons of Anarchy" Sutter, starring Gillian Anderson and Lena Headey as two mama bears pitting their respective clans against each other in a classic Hatfields vs. McCoy scenario. Sutter, after all, loves an outlaw almost as much as he loves the innate melodrama of found families clashing against the values of modernity out in the wilderness."
"To its credit, "The Abandons" sometimes clops along with the same kind of over-the-top hokum that made "Sons of Anarchy" such a deliciously trashy watch. But that kind of pablum can't sustain itself even over seven short-ish episodes (chopped to pieces in a structure that belies Sutter's own firing by Netflix mere weeks before the end of production), leaving its game cast adrift in a dizzying, dull "Deadwood" imitator with half its nuance and dirtball charm."
"The setting is Angel's Ridge, Oregon, a one-horse town kept afloat by the mining operations of the aristocratic Van Ness family; its matriarch, Constance (a withering, one-note Anderson) sees profits dwindling, and feels an obligation to the town and her family-which includes loyal son Garret (Lucas Till) and daughter Trisha (Aisling Franciosi)-to expand. The best path for that is Jasper Hollow, whose silver deposits could save the business."
The Abandons is a Western set in 1850s Oregon that pits aristocratic Van Ness matriarch Constance against Irish homesteader Fiona Nolan over valuable silver deposits at Jasper Hollow. Constance seeks expansion to save the family's mining enterprise and keep Angel's Ridge solvent, while Nolan refuses to cede her home, protected by her religious faith and four adopted orphans who form her makeshift family. The series leans into melodrama and outlaw tropes familiar from Kurt Sutter's work, delivering occasional trashy pleasures and heightened hokum. Production complications, including Sutter's firing and a chopped seven-episode structure, undercut narrative cohesion and nuance.
Read at Roger Ebert
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