The legend of Billy the Kid, aka William S. Bonney, aka Henry McCarty, is a vast and varied one. Many interpretations and exaggerations have appeared on film and in literature and comics, with the lines between good and bad often getting blurred when it comes to the seminal, Old West figure.
The latest, Billy the Kid incarnation has run two seasons on MGM + (the same studio behind Sam Peckinpaugh's classic, Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid). Billy the Kid: the Series is a swell one, even if it was disrupted by an infuriating, six-month, second-season hiatus.
In structure, the series follows the Kid's known life, but as with any legend, the fictional fodder pads the tale. All the same, one gets a view into Billy's early life and for a substantial chunk of the series, his involvement with the Regulators in New Mexico's Lincoln County War.
Some of my acquaintances believe that the seasons, in particular the second, act as a parallel to current events, due to Billy's Mexican ties and tastes, but I'm not prone to accept this notion, any more than I'm inclined to place stock in Billy's Irish roots causing him uncertainty in the John H. Tunstall conflict. It's all historical melodrama in any case and therefore, a mere, speculative sequence of cause and effect.
The series' events, whether accurate or embellished, are strengthened by Tom Blyth's titular performance. He looks the part, especially if one compares his features and stature to the famous photo we all know, or even the "croquet" and "poker" ones that some call genuine and others call bull. Blyth also has the right intensity for the long-alleged left-handed lad, though for the series' sake, he's ambidextrous since that validated photo was, as later discovered, printed backwards.
The rest of the cast is good, too, in particular Alex Roe as Sheriff Pat Garrett (another example of an actor matching photos). Daniel Webber as Billy's wily friend-turned-foe, Jesse Evans (based on the true-life desperado with whom Billy rode for a spell) also adds lots of spunk to the plot. Shaun Benson, Eileen O'Higgins, Luke Camilleri, Dakota Daubly, Benjamin Sutherland, Sean Owen Roberts, Linus Roache, Vincent Walsh, Reilly Coleman, Horatio James, Nuria Vega, Ian Tracey, Brendan Fletcher, and Gary Kanin (et al) are comparably effective, solidifying the mounting melees.
The series excels, above all, because it's character-driven, but not to the extent of distilling the action. That's thanks to producer Michael Hirst and his cohorts, who never bog the saga down with unnecessary romance or verbosity. There's just enough of both to fill the occasional gap, with the Kid always sticking to his guns (pun intended) to get the job done.
I don't know if there will be a Season 3, though there should be. That dang hiatus hurt the flow, so with the momentum broken, it's hard to say if those who got hooked early on returned for the rest, thus justifying an extension. I sure hope there's a Season 3, since there's so much more to tell, and it would do viewers, as well as its eponymous outlaw, a great disservice if his legend was left dangling.
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