Waiting for a Spark That Never Arrives
Plenty of shows start slow. Slow pacing never scares me. Slow pacing only works when tension simmers under every line. The Abandons moves from scene to scene like someone shuffled the script out of order. Gunfights pop up out of nowhere. Emotional outbursts jump in without groundwork. Characters reveal trauma before viewers feel any connection to them.
I kept waiting for that aha moment, where everything clicks, where the show earns the grit it keeps shoving into every frame.
No moment arrived.
The Cast Deserved a Better Script
Every actor brings presence, energy, personality. Zero issues there. The problem hides in the writing. Every line feels pulled from a Western phrase generator. Motivations slide around like loose gravel. Relationships built from nothing collapse just as easily.
A strong Western needs clear emotional engines driving every gunshot and every bruise. The Abandons offers fragments. Characters walk through scenes looking ready for depth, but the story never gives them the soil needed to grow.
I wanted to care. Caring never activated.
Grit Everywhere. Meaning Nowhere.
Grit can feel powerful when it grows from conflict. The Abandons treats grit like an aesthetic choice. Dust on clothes, blood on faces, pain in voices, misery in the air. Grit without meaning turns into background decoration.
Violence hits the screen often, yet no punch lands. Characters suffer, yet no moment carries emotional consequence. A western can break hearts when the heartbreak develops slowly through choices and consequences. Here, heartbreak appears without warning and fades without impact.
Checking the Internet for Validation
After finishing the season, I went straight to Rotten Tomatoes to see if the world shared my confusion. Low critic score. Lower audience score. A rare moment of unity on the internet. Review after review echoed the same idea. Beautiful scenery. Great cast. No pulse.
Viewers mentioned waiting for the story to start. Waiting for tension. Waiting for an emotional connection. Waiting for anything.
Plenty of waiting. No payoff.
Netflix keeps chasing the dream of The Next Great Western. Sometimes the dream delivers. Sometimes viewers get a show like this one, where ambition suffocates under weak structure. The entire production looks expensive. The entire world feels vast. The story never uses any of it.
The frontier should feel alive. The frontier fades into wallpaper.
That Sinking Feeling When You Keep Hoping the Next Episode Fixes Everything
Every episode ended with the same reaction from me. Maybe the next one finds focus. Maybe the next one shows the spark. Maybe the next one delivers depth. A season filled with maybes turns into an exhausting experience.
The potential hides everywhere. Execution hides nowhere.
The show never collapses in a dramatic flameout. A dramatic failure at least entertains. The Abandons drift quietly into forgettable territory, which feels even worse.
A western without fire leaves only smoke.