The Devil Bass Reeves Knows Is Worse Than He Thought — Read Lawmen Episode 6 Recap
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If you’re at all invested in Lawmen: Bass Reeves, you definitely want to know how Bass’ run-in with Esau Pierce — which started just as Episode 5 was ending — turned out.
MANY UNHAPPY RETURNS | Pierce, who’s now a Texas Ranger, is traveling with another white man and a wolf in a cage; Pierce tells Bass that he’s “reintroducing the beast” to its “rightful home.” Pierce goes on about how they both have authority conferred upon them, but if they crossed the river in front of them, there’d be a whole other set of laws at stake… and they wouldn’t favor Reeves. Bass ignores that, asking Pierce to make sure that Jackson Cole, the prisoner we met in the previous episode, gets a fair trial. “My prisoners always get what they deserve,” Pierce replies, not at all comfortingly. He goes on to give Bass the ghastly details of exactly how Cole killed the plantation owner. “No man deserves to die that way,” Pierce says, “not even a Yankee.” Not sure you’re the arbiter of what is and isn’t decent, dude, but whatever. Then he taunts Bass with a reminder of how many Yankee soldiers he offed while under Maj. Reeves’ power.
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Bass tells Cole he’ll pray for him, makes sure he has a donkey so he doesn’t have to make the long trek walking behind Pierce’s wagon, then parts ways with Pierce’s party.
BASS MEETS A FAN | With that business tended to, and Bass feeling rather unsettled, he and Billy Crow swing by Sara’s house. But there’s no sign of her, and the place looks abandoned.
They continue on to Checotah, where Billy is able to see Calista, the young woman he met when Bass pursued an outlaw into the brothel a couple of episodes back. He brings her a book; she’s happy to see him. During a stroll together, she tells him that she served 18 months in a house of corrections for helping her father assault some drovers who were messing with their herd. (Her dad died during the attack.)
Meanwhile, Bass drinks a little too much at the saloon and picks a fight with a loudmouthed jackass… who turns out to be Braxton Sawyer, Texas Ranger. They’re about to step outside and duke it out when Sawyer realizes who he’s talking to and instantly starts fangirling. They wind up sharing more booze, and the normally reticent Bass gets to talking about how the weight of his badge can feel as heavy as the chains that once kept him enslaved. Then Bass questions whether God even exists in the Territory, but Braxton comforts him. “God is present, and He knows your good work,” the Texan says just before he heads back to Austin.
‘THAT’S HOW YOU AIM, BILLY CROW!’ | Calista brings Billy back to her room so she can clean his neck wound; they eventually wind up sleeping together. In the afterglow, he asks her to marry him. “You can’t afford the ring it would take to hitch me,” she says.
Outside, an inebriated Bass is set upon by Jim Webb’s gang, who take advantage of his drunken state to beat the snot out of him. “Where were you two hours ago when I was spoiling for a fight?” he manages to quip before getting a second wind and managing to land a few good blows. Still, there are far more of them than there are of him, and pretty soon he’s on the ground and completely at their mercy. One of the outlaws, a woman, notes that the bounty on Bass’ head pays the same, dead or alive. So she removes all but one of the bullets in her gun and plays Russian roulette… until a quick-thinking Billy shoots the man who’s about to shoot Bass. “Now that’s how you aim, Billy Crow!” Reeves hoots, getting to his feet and instructing his assistant to help him chase after Webb’s men.
A shootout in the middle of the crowded street ensues. There’s some chasing and some more beat-downs, but Billy and Bass eventually get the outlaws. By dawn the next day, they’re on their way home with their
DADDY’S HOME | Arthur meets with Sally and tells her that he has to take off, because surely those white kids (and maybe some reinforcements?) will be coming for him. When she reassures him that he has nothing to worry about, he scoffs. “Maybe you don’t, but my last name ain’t Reeves,” he says. He wants her to come with him, but she steadfastly tells him that “Reeves don’t run.” So he promises to send her a poem everyday, then he leaves.
Days later, Sally is in the yard with her siblings when she sees one of the boys that attacked her and Arthur lurking at the edge of the Reeves’ property. She yells at him that he doesn’t scare her. But still, the way he’s just watching? Unsettling.
Edwin and Esme are at the house the same night, so they’re around when Bass returns from his trip. Reeves isn’t pleased to find Edwin sitting in his chair, and Jennie isn’t pleased that her husband is less than polite to their guests. But that doesn’t stop Edwin from making his pitch for all-Black communities. But Bass doesn’t want to hear it, and he brings up that Native Americans are bound to lose their land in this new push of Edwin’s. “I have to ask, respectfully: Which master do you serve?” Edwin says. He encourages Reeves to join him. “Ride with me,” he says. “Together, we can build a place where everyone can live free.”
Before Bass can say anything, Jennie speaks up. She says that Bass isn’t just another famous face for Edwin’s pamphlets, “another show pony for you to trot around.” Edwin apologizes, then he and Esme make a hasty exit.
When Bass comes to bed, Jennie winces as she sees the bruises all over his torso. He apologizes for leaving, and for not telling her until right before he had to go again. But she’s more worried about how “every time you come back, you bring less and less of you.” He immediately gets defensive, suggesting that she changed. “How dare you? Where’s my husband? Where’s that light in your eyes?” she wonders, hurt.
‘CINCO PESO’ | The next day, Bass goes to the courthouse and is dismayed to learn that the Texas Rangers reported that he only brought Cole’s boots — and not the living, breathing man — to the prisoner hand-off. He storms down to the jail and finds Ramsey, the outlaw who talked about Mr. Sundown, to demand that he tell him who’s killing Black men. “Who is Mr. Sundown?!” Bass says. But as he’s marched to the gallows, Ramsey won’t tell him.
The brothers Bass brought in after hanging out with their momma are hanged. And then right before the hood is slipped over Ramsey’s head, he calls out: “Mr. Sundown is Cinco Peso. Cinco Peso is Mr. Sundown.” Bass recalls that Pierce said his badge was “cut from a cinco peso piece.” He asks Sherill Lynn, who’s also watching the executions, if Judge Parker will give him a warrant for a Texas Ranger. Lynn’s answer: Likely not.
At the end of the hour, Bass imagines Pierce in his cabin, telling him how they’re both killers of the same type.
Now it’s your turn. What did you think of the episode? Sound off in the comments!
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