I enjoyed MGM+'s Billy the Kid. Season 3 wrapped everything up in a nice, belligerent bow, even if the content was a good deal more speculative than not.
That especially goes for the series' conclusion, covering as it did whether Sheriff Pat Garrett allowed Billy the Kid/William H. Bonney (aka Henry McCarty/Henry Antrim) to be let off the hook (i.e. live). Tom Blyth, as the titular figure, and Alex Roe's Garrett, in this regard, settled their friction in the end, as did Daniel Webber's irascible and stubborn Jesse Evans. Their swirling, twirling confrontational components gave the finale (the final two episodes) a nervous quality and as such, left this show one of the most spirited and satisfying adaptations to tackle Billy's perennial legend.
However, the events prior to the last two episodes were no less important. How could they not be? We're talking the Lincoln County War, after all, which is nothing to sneeze at in the annals of American history. Like other parts of the MGM+ production, which incorporated modern allegory to redefine the past, the war's succession tottered between accuracy and fancy. The depiction was, all the same, impossible to dismiss, for it presented potent melodrama.
I must admit, for the most part, the obvious, fictional filler was engaging, such as Billy's relationship with the make-believe Dulcinea (Nuria Vega). Something of this sort could have weighed the series with too much mush, but there was just enough strained romance to complement the continuous tension.
The darkening of Garrett's personality, however, didn't please me much. It's interesting in how it was rendered, but it's way off-kilter. It got to the point where Garrett seemed more in synch with Michael Shannon's Nelson Van Alden of Boardwalk Empire than what I've read of the historic lawman. What we got was an archetypical example of a righteous man who through unfortunate circumstance, rejects the virtue he once held close to his heart. That's not Garrett, not by a long shot. Granted, he may have let Billy skedaddle execution and reported otherwise (either for this series or in actuality). He may have also drank and gambled a lot, but was he ever abrasive to women? No, that just can't be, and there's not scrap of testimony to indicate he ever was.
With that said, is any biographical drama ever close to the bone? Even the most popular ones, like The Elephant Man, Patton, Lawrence of Arabia, Gandhi, Ed Wood, Man of a Thousand Faces, Tolkien, J. Edgar, Dillinger 1973, Bonnie and Clyde, Serpico, Elvis 1979, Elvis 2022, Bohemian Rhapsody, A Complete Unknown ... the aforementioned Boardwalk Empire (in regard to Nucky Thompson) aren't a hundred percent on the mark. (Others examples, like Professor Marston and the Wonder Women, are nothing but slapdash propaganda. The less of their self-serving likes, the better.)
Ah, well, it's just the way these things go. One must take the interpretations for what they are and learn to discern reality from "creative license." And so, on this basis, I adapted such a rationalization for MGM+'s Billy the Kid, just as I long ago did for Sam Peckinpah's Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, which might be my favorite of all the theatrical offerings, and even in that revered case, the content sure ain't gospel, right?
There'll come a point when I'll revisit MGM+'s Billy the Kid. It's an engrossing melodrama made in a time when westerns are at best a marginal diversion. Who knows? Perhaps, this Billy the Kid will be one of the current crop to press the genre's big comeback. I, as well all who admire sagebrush sagas, would welcome that and be darn tootin' proud of it, to boot.
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