Starting at 10pm, you can see Damian O’Hare as Declan Toole in “The Search”, the Hell on Wheels episode where everybody is looking for Eva’s baby, in all the wrong places. CSI HOW, of sorts.
Psalms (Dohn Norwood) and Declan Toole (Damian O’Hare) in Episode 5 Photo Credit: Chris Large/AMC
This just in:
The Western was moved to Saturdays in season three under new showrunner John Wirth and will expand to 13 episodes and return to the slot in summer 2014
That’s fantastic news! Now keep your fingers crossed that Declan Toole will return to Hell on Wheels, because it’s highly likely he’ll bring Damian O’Hare along (that aside, we all want to know whatever happened to Baby Jane Rose!)
AMC blog posted a Q & A with Damian O’Hare.
“Think we’ll see a spinoff series, Declan & Rose?”
“Working with Dohn was incredible…”
Damian O’Hare, who plays Declan Toole on AMC’s Hell on Wheels, compares the show’s themes to Shakespeare and talks about bonding with fellow Irishmen Phil Burke and Colm Meaney.
All fingers crossed now for a fourth series (because let’s face it, if that episode should become the show’s finale, it would be right up there with the last episode of Lost), and if you have any extra fingers, please cross them for a return of Damian O’Hare as Declan Toole. I’m pretty certain that I’m not the only one who’d really like to see him return to Hell on Wheels.
Q: What was it like to shoot the scene where Psalms beats up Declan Toole?
A: Damian [O’Hare] is a great actor and when he came in, he was solid. He had been watching the show, and he was just so tight, it allowed me to really really focus… As a person, he’s a funny and lovable guy, but his character was so stimulating because he was such a nemesis… There was also a scene we did together where we’re arguing in the saloon and we kept it going between takes. We’d argue and yell things back and forth and it really kept everyone in it.
OK – “recently” being 1776 and “New York” being Williamsburg. Nevermind.
While Mr Toole is tackling the task of feeding a baby on his journey home to New York (how long does that take, anyway – two weeks? Maybe he should purchase a goat somewhere), the internet is abuzz with discussions of Hell on Wheel’s last week’s episode “Cholera” and the fate of Eva, Rose and Elam.
And Mr Toole, of course. Who, judging by the audience’s reactions, would be very welcome to return to Hell on Wheels. I’d just like to put this out there, in case of a fourth series.
He’s still alive, he’s not a baddie and even if he didn’t get the girl, he got the baby. All things considered, we can’t complain. And Rose is such a cute wee little girl!
The gallery for episode 7 of “Hell on Wheels”, “Cholera”, is now online:
Eva sent off her baby without food (Rose was still being nursed, are we expected to assume she tucked into spam on the journey to NY?), clothes and any basic information. New York also had several cholera outbreaks. Declan Toole is a policeman, not Rockefeller. And then – Elam!? I’m all for drama, but that was a bit too much Coronation Street for me.
TV.com seem to share my view. And they upgraded Damian to “hunk” status.
This tweet sums up the general reaction quite neatly:
As we wave our hankies after Declan’s train out of Hell on Wheels, the question remains if we’ll see him (and wee Rose) again. And wouldn’t Elam go after the child he considers to be his?
Don’t we all want to know!
Wait – next week’s episode is called “Cholera”?
Uh uh uh uh uh…
No, it’s Louise Ellison in uptown Hell on Wheels, and today, she’s writing about
Hell on Wheels Stalled After Search for Missing Infant
Herschel Colton, the blacksmith’s apprentice, even claimed to have witnessed a kidnapping during the chaos. “A couple of them black fellas hit a skinny Irishman over the head and dragged ‘im off,” said Herschel. When pressed for details about the victim or the perpetrators, Mr. Colton couldn’t provide any, admitting to occasional trouble with his vision. Corroborating evidence of a kidnapping was never found.
Maybe they weren’t looking in the right places…
Psalms (Dohn Norwood) and Declan Toole (Damian O’Hare) in Episode 5
Photo Credit: Chris Large/AMC
Next episode: “One Less Mule”, Saturday 7 September, 8/9c, AMC.
With or without Mr Toole, we don’t know yet.
It goes without saying that the following and the link to the gallery contain spoilers.
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Still there? Good. You may watch the episode without fear; while your man Toole gets a bloody nose, he lives to see the end of the episode.
The gallery for episode 5 of Hell on Wheels, “Searchers”, is now online:
The good people at TV.com have much praise for the performances of Damian O’Hare as Declan Toole and Dohn Norwood as Psalms (deservedly so, very intense performance). Read the full review here.
They also call Damian “handsome” for the third week in a row. Heh.
Psalms’ more rough-and-tumble approach towards likely suspect Declan resulted in the episode’s greatest dramatic pairing, with Dohn Norwood delivering a riveting speech to a captive authority figure about his relationship with the “white man.” Damian O’Hare proved in his scenes with Eva that he could bring a new shade of handsome intensity to the railroad town, and even in bloody confinement on the disadvantaged end of Psalms’ powerful threats he still made being beaten in a railroad car look good. Like Cullen Bohannon good. More of both of these guys please.
Meanwhile, elsewhere on the internet…
So, will Mr Toole continue to try and convince Eva to come with him to New York?
Will he go after Psalms despite having promised not to?
Will Mr Toole be in future episodes at all?
Only time will tell…
While you watch the preview for “Searchers”, I’ll go and get the first-aid kit…
Declan Toole, so the script tells us, lost his wife and his son Patrick to influenza, and has now come to Hell on Wheels to marry Eva, his deceased brother Gregory’s wife, and raise the child as his, “as it’s custom in Ireland”. Whether he does it because it’s custom, because he’s seriously concerned for his SIL and niece or wants to replace his own family, we don’t know (yet). I hope for a noble motivation rather than a sinister one, though.
Marrying your brother’s widow only became legal in the UK in 1921 (“Deceased Brother’s Widow’s Marriage Bill”, 1924 in Northern Ireland the “Deceased Brother’s Widow’s Marriage Act”. The more you know!) I couldn’t find anything about Ireland or the USA, but as with so many things, people probably didn’t give a fig for the law and married, anyway.
Religion aside, the reasons were of a practical nature. For one, land, money and kids were kept within the family (hence this kind of marriage being mainly found in clan-based, patriarchal societies), for the other it’s an insurance for widows and their children if their husband and provider dies. Plus the whole “one blood, one family” thing. It’s all very archaic, yet still happening around the world. And it makes for great TV drama.
