It’s always interesting to see where a television series is willing to let itself go in its second series. The Red Road was an easy risk to take for Sundance. It had a couple of recognizable but not massive stars in Martin Henderson and Jason Mamoa. The one thing it couldn’t find was a good sized audience to justify its existence, even on Sundance TV, and thus its second season (where the bad guys get the final advantage) leaves it feeling incomplete by the end.
There’s a third season where there’s some measure of a happy ending for all involved that feels like should’ve happened. Unfortunately the show has been cancelled and thus we’re left with this.
We catch up with Kopus (Mamoa) and Harold (Henderson) after the violent shoot out that ended season 1. Kopus is on probation, having spent some time in prison once again. Harold managed to get a promotion out of the deal, finding himself as a Lieutenant. The two now have to deal with two major events about to happen: the poisoning of local water by parties unknown and a potential Indian casino coming to the lands of Kopus’s people.
Set over six hour long episodes once again, you can see where the show is building towards. There isn’t magic here … but there’s good, interesting character stories being told.
And it feels incomplete because we don’t have that third chapter that feels like gives us a better conclusion than the Pyrrhic one season two ends on. It’s similar to the ending of the second season of True Detective; it’s a conclusion, and you can end the series on that note, but it doesn’t feel like it’s the right one. It feels like there’s more story to tell that’ll never come.
There are some EPK pieces but nothing else of note.
Starz presents The Red Road. Created by Aaron Guzikowski Starring Martin Henderson, Julianne Nicholson, Jason Mamoa. Run Time: six hours. Released on DVD 9.22.2015
