Lateralus

That scene with the McCoy flipping off the Hatfields from across the river was awesome.

mickey65

And Cap being a crack-shot was even better.

starman9000

Broken Trail with Robert Duval from 2006 was the previous one.

Dr Mabuse

'Crossfire Trail'. I had to look it up just now. I own all Selleck's western on disc, and knew that one of them held the all time record.

No it was the Selleck western's record that this broke. I just looked it up.

'Broken Trail' had very high ratings though.

Gunde

Tom Berenger is amazing in this.
Based on his high billing I was wondering when he'd show up, only now noticing that he's been there the whole time!

starman9000

Yep, you're right. The 2 articles I read earlier both said Broken Trail for some reason.

Red Dog

Whoever termed that "CW" spot on. And Johnsie has appeared in at least 2 CW shows.

I have no idea how accurate this miniseries is. It's reasonably entertaining though. But if it's 25% accurate, it's a wonder how we survived as a human race to this day.

I wonder if the reality is that the Hatfields were much smarter than the McCoys because McCoys appear to be a bunch of idgets in this.

dino88

I'd have to go with either Cap or Jim Vance. I think Tom Berenger deserves an Emmy nomination for this.

Dr. DVD

"Bad Frank" Phillips is the bounty hunter, correct?

dino88

Yep

Red Dog

Yeah - I vote for the bounty hunter, who's trying to clean up on the foolishness.

MrX

Drunk Randall McCoy just became mine

Lateralus

Fantastic.

The captions at the end ran much too fast I couldn't read what happened to them all!

Sonny Corinthos

Same here. What was up with that? After watching this for the last three nights, the least they could do is run the captions at a slower pace. Does anyone know what happened to them?

DJariya

Official ratings numbers for Part 1

Hatfields & McCoys, Part 1 - History
13.866 million viewers, #1; 4.772 million adults 18-49 (3.7 rating), #2


Read more at http://www.thefutoncritic.com/rating...Uhkl4aS87TG.99

TheKing

What I find even more amazing is that the ratings actually held up for part 2.

13.1 million viewers for part 2, while also doing 4.7 million in 18-49 again. I thought retention would be high, but not that high.

will travel

Very good mini-series. B+
Felt sorry for Cottonhead. He never should have been put into that situation.
Where they are now went by way too fast.
According to Wiki, Johnsey romance with Roseanne and marriage to Nancy really happen.
Mare Willingham sure has aged badly.

dino88

Randall McCoy 1825-1914
Sally McCoy 1829-189?
It's said that Sally McCoy died in a mental hospital...Randall McCoy was buried next to his beloved wife.

Wall Hatfield 1834-1889
Wall Hatfield never lived to appeal...He died in prison a few months after sentencing.

Johnse Hatfield 1862-1922
Johnse Hatfield, upon his return from Oregon, was sentenced to life in prison. After saving the Warden from a knife attack, Johnse received an early pardon...He married four more times.

Cap Hatfield 1864-1930
Cap Hatfield became a lawyer...then served as Deputy Sheriff.

Elias "Good Lias" Hatfield 1848-1927
Elias Hatfield left Mate Creek to raise a family...His son Henry D. Hatfield, became Governor of West Virginia and a U.S. Senator.

Perry Cline 1845-1891
Perry Cline died two years after the trials.

Nancy McCoy 1865-1901
Frank Phillips 1861-189?
Nancy McCoy-Hatfield-Phillips died several years after Bad Frank's death...She is buried alongside him.

Devil Anse Hatfield 1839-1921
Anse died peacefully in his sleep...His funeral attended by over 5000 mourners. Levicy passed away eight years later. A statue of Devil Anse, sculpted in Italy, marks their double gravesite.

The Valeyard

Holy crap! I didn't realize that was Tom Berenger! Wow!!

dolphinboy

Liked part 1, really liked part 2 and thought part 3 was just okay. Overall, it was worth watching, but I'd rather read some books on the feud (which I plan to do) than watch it again on blu.

creekdipper

Me, neither. I'm quite ashamed, being a Berenger fan & having seen dozens of his movies and tv appearances. He deserves award consideration for burying himself (NPI) in the role.

Powers Boothe was his usual silky-smooth self. Nobody does that better, whether he's playing Jim Jones or the pimp from Deadwood.

Internet research reveals that pretty much all of the main events happened (although maybe not exactly in the way portrayed) including all of the deaths shown and characters portrayed. One exception was that I couldn't find anything about Bad Frank's demise...even in viewing it first, that part seemed tacked-on to let the audience see a villainous character get his comeuppance.

Some interesting variations on the Johnse-Roseanne story. One source indicated that Roseanne was older than 17-yr.-old Johnse and that she seduced him (and had quite a reputation for being 'loose'). In fact, that source speculated that her bad reputation might have been the reason Anse refused to give his permission for them to marry, while saying that Anse did permit Johnse to marry Nancy McCoy.

Other variations portrayed Johnse in a much darker light than the series, having him being the one to abandon a pregnant Roseanne to marry Nancy. A published confession from Ellison Hatfield AKA Ellison Mount had Johnse participating in the beating & kicking of Sally McCoy & testified that Johnse bragged about being the one to shoot Calvin (although others claimed credit). I think it even said that they were shooting into the loft where the children were. On the other hand, some accounts described Devil Anse as a fun-loving practical joker while describing 'Ol Ran'l' as dour & morbid (similar to Paxton's portrayal).

Mare Winningham did a great job as Sally. As far as her 'aging', she's looked kinda older for a few years now (like Sissy Spacek, these gals are starting to get some serious mileage on them. Then, so is Tommy Lee Jones).

Overall, it seemed that they did stick to the basic facts although they pumped up the love story & made some characters more villainous/virtuous than their real-life counterparts . Actually, most of the sources indicate that everybody was pretty much bloodthirsty and that there weren't any real peacemakers around. Some sources said the feud pretty much ended with the hanging of Cottontop while others said the feud continued for a few more years, resulting in a few more casualties.

Nice job overall & very entertaining even if it did get a bit melodramatic (as if they needed to invent drama for this tale).

Lateralus

What happened to Cap during the battle that he could not shoot well? I glanced away for not more than a couple seconds and I missed it!

Don Homer

FYI, the History Channel is showing a new documentary about the feud at 4:00 PM on Saturday ("America's Greatest Feud: The History of the Hatfields & McCoys").

Dr Mabuse

This really was fantastic.

Andrew Howard was terrific. That guy gets villain roles in b movies mostly, but I think he could handle being a lead easily.

It was hard seeing Paxton turn in to a sniveling coward that would run out on his family to save himself, then run around crying about it like it was someone else's fault.

To bad Johnse didn't get one in the back of the head while fishing. That sickening puke and all his cowardly crap had earned him a killin'.

Beringer was on from the beginning of the series. He really delivered in this.

Costner was terrific as producer and in the lead.

Dr Mabuse

He stumbled around in the firefight and dropped his rifle, breaking the rear sights on it. The missing was exaggerated for dramatic effect, a good marksman who knew his rifle could have compensated for it better than that.