© 2021 EPIX Entertainment LLC. All Rights Reserved. Credit: Chris Large
Henry McCarty, aka William H. Bonney, aka Billy the Kid, has been depicted onscreen before, primarily in movies, including Sam Peckinpah’s Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, where he’s played by Kris Kristofferson, and in the Young Guns series, where he’s portrayed by Emilio Estevez.
He makes the move to television in the eight-episode EPIX series Billy the Kid (Sundays at 9pm ET/PT beginning April 24), where British actor Tom Blyth (The Gilded Age) saddles up as the notorious 19th century gunslinger.
Michael Hirst, creator/writer/executive producer of The Tudors and Vikings, handles the same duties here. The series chronicles Billy’s journey from a child in New York City to his fugitive days as a young man in New Mexico after his family travels west looking for better opportunities. They are perpetually poor, and he tries different schemes to help them, especially his overworked, underappreciated mother (Eileen O’Higgins): playing poker, rustling cattle, stealing horses, committing robbery.
The series covers a lot of ground in its quest to explain how the title character became a famous outlaw, from the death of his father in Kansas and his mother’s second (terrible) marriage, to other family tragedies and his early brushes with the law. Familiar Western tropes are plentiful and fans of the genre will find much to appreciate, including excellent production values, striking landscapes, contemptible villains and tense shootouts.
