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TV

Texas man

[Photo provided to China Daily]

AMC's Western series The Son, based on the best-selling novel by Philipp Meyer, stars Pierce Brosnan and young Jacob Lofland as Eli McCullough, who is captured in 1849 and raised by Indians, and becomes a powerful and often ruthless patriarch of a wealthy cattle-ranching family in 1915. It is filled with action, violence and some great writing and performances. The show has the novelist's sense of depth and nuance. The story of how young Eli became old Eli is told along parallel lines, which is not usually how TV makes drama. It will take a while to fully understand what turned a young man into a hate-filled, ambitious "first son of Texas", but you'll be willing to wait.