3 out of 5

Created by: Chad Feehan

While dressed in the visual dross and tonal dourness of the Sheridanverse of Paramount+ shows, it is one of his productions that is otherwise free of his direct touch, and thus escapes much of the tragi-porn and generally unnecessary violence that bemarks his work. It is still framed with a general audience “the wisdom of stern men” and “the inherent goodness of motherhood” safety net narrative, which really gets in the way of it digging too deeply into what felt like a potentially emotionally complex tale, but actors David Oyelowo, Lauren E. Banks, and Forrest Goodluck fill in a fair amount of that extra room with engrossing, weighted performances. As with many dramatized bios, however – this covering the post-slave life of the titular lawman: the first Black deputy to serve west of the Mississippi River (quoting wiki) – Lawmen: Bass Reeves has to cut a lot of corners in order to fit into a narrative box with a beginning and ending, and a little shallowly crafts a clear villain for Bass to face off against, as a kind of attempted summary of overcoming internal struggles.

…Struggles which are affected perfectly by Oyelowo as Reeves, and narratively stronger in the opening episodes, with Reeves fighting for the South in the Civil War, and showing the still-repellant realities of living in a post-Civil War South, where Reeves-then owner, Colonel George Reeves (Shea Wigham) treats Bass as a chess partner one moment, and then a pawn in a power game the next; it’s a dynamic and framework that looms behind Reeves’ every decision thereafter, as Oyelowo presents him.

A telltale sign of the show’s shortcomings occur when we skip ahead: Bass is trying to tend a small farm with his wife, Jennie (Banks), when he’s recruited as a marshal by Deputy Sherrill Lynn (Dennis Quaid); a past experience being a posse man for Lynn has earned him an uneven friendship – the Deputy has passed on positive word of Bass’ abilities and behavior to the judge Parker (Donald Sutherland). While the show has done its due diligence in outlining preceding events, it’s all a bit too linear and clean. Again, Oyelowo fills in some gaps – Quaid is amusing, but is rather just playing a character; Sutherland, similarly, is the wise old white man, not much room for more in his part – but the subtleties suggested by Reeves poking at / seeing the racial imbalances of the system don’t go much further than showing them. The show is eager to get us off to the races of Reeves as a lawman. 

It’s competent at doing that, and it’s undeniably thrilling, watching the character try to juggle fairness with a religious moral certitude and the morays of the time, which are that much more complex for a black man operating in a white, white world. He recruits ex-criminal Billy Crow (Goodluck) as his deputy, an opportunity to core out the good he sees in him. And episode by episode, Lawmen chinks away at Reeves’ armor, until he’s a pretty cold enactor of justice himself, his wife questioning where the man she married went, and the unnerving musings of Esau Pierce of the 1st Cherokee Mounted Rifles (Barry Pepper) causing Reeves to wonder at the lines between right and wrong.

There’re a lot of good in these episodes, brought forth by – yes, this a bias statement – the lack of Sheridan allowing main writer / creator Chad Feehan to not have to overglorify violence and masculinity, and stepping beyond the usual Sheridan cohorts for a moving, emotive score from Chanda Dancy. Then there’s the acting which is, as mentioned, given layers by our leads, though a character like Crow – even if capably represented by Goodluck – spotlights the inherent shallowness in the overall story structure, which has to make leaps and bounds to evolve Reeves along his arc, leaving Goodluck’s, his wife’s, and others’ parts down to single episode asides, rendering them either rather pointless or frustratingly stunted, as with a giant chunk of story left drifting involving Jennie’s friend, the persecution she faces when Reeves isn’t around, and the attempted establishment of a black-centric town.

Lawmen: Bass Reeves is not a failure by any means, but it’s somewhat as disappointing as it is successful. You have an incredibly interesting person’s history to explore, how that history intersects with gigantic racial issues interwoven into America and history in general, and then you have a need to package that for (let’s assume) a Yellowstone demographic, who maybe don’t want to be overly challenged by their accessible entertainment TV. Also: boil this down to eight episodes.

Thankfully, some strong themes and presentation – moments that succeed at asking some questions – and especially strong acting, balance the show out to be worth its runtime.