‘Lawmen: Bass Reeves’ Adds a Unique Twist to the ‘Yellowstone’ Formula

Bass Reeves used to be the kind of deep-cut Wild West hero known only to American history professors and people who own complete sets of Time-Life books. A fascinating figure, Reeves was enslaved on a Texas plantation before the Civil War, then escaped and reportedly lived among the Indigenous people in what is now Oklahoma, before spending much of the latter half of the 19th century serving as a U.S. Marshal based out of Arkansas. He’s a unique American hero: the Black frontier lawman.

It took awhile, but Hollywood has recently discovered Reeves’ story, dropping fictionalized versions of him into TV series and movies as wildly disparate as Watchmen, Legends of Tomorrow, Wynonna Earp, and The Harder They Fall. These depictions have been fun but fairly shallow, using Reeves mainly for symbolic effect, without dwelling too much on what the man actually experienced.

The Paramount+ miniseries Lawmen: Bass Reeves, on the other hand, thinks very hard about its hero. The accomplished British actor David Oyelowo (also one of the show’s executive producers) plays Reeves as a righteous man, riven with interior conflicts. This Bass Reeves tries his best to take care of his family by serving the cause of justice, even if it means working alongside ethically challenged racists and against the kind of poor and marginalized people he’d prefer to be helping.

Read more at The Daily Beast.