Line #8 YMMV/LonesomeDove


1	* SugarWiki/AwesomeMoments:
2	** Capt. Woodrow F. Call is normally stoic and grouchy, the sort of man who loves his boy Newt so much, [[RealMenHateAffection he almost told him]]. However, when he sees an Army scout whipping young Newt while trying to seize their horses, he goes full PapaWolf, riding in and beating the living ''fuck'' out the scout. Not one [armed] man in the scout's detachment dares to interfere, and it takes Gus riding up with a lasso to pull Call away before he can kill the sorry son of a bitch. [[{{Understatement}} The Captain hates rude behavior in a man.]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5vskCOPEeg Watch!]]
3	** Angry over Newt being chosen to lead the drive to market once they reach Montana, [[JerkAss Jasper]] trips the boy and picks yet another fight. Newt, by now as fed up with Jasper's bullshit as everyone else, challenges him to a fistfight. He doesn't win against his bigger, meaner colleague, but he nevertheless dusts himself off and takes charge of the drive as Captain Call ordered, with his dignity perfectly intact.
4	* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic: The score by Music/BasilPoledouris, which won an Emmy.
5	* CompleteMonster:
6	** ''Literature/ComancheMoon'' prequel novel: Ahumado is a Mexican [[{{Bandito}} bandit]] and slave trader [[TheDreaded known far and wide]] as the "Black Vaquero" ("Black Cowboy") for his infamous cruelty. [[TortureTechnician Ahumado]] has a special inclination for torturing his victims to death, from leaving them in cages to be slowly eaten away by wild animals, to having them [[FlayingAlive skinned alive]] by his personal flayer Goyeta, earning Ahumado a trophy wall lavished with fifty individual skins. Ahumado also likes making trees "grow" through people, having them [[ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice impaled]] on the top of trees shaved into stakes in such a way the victim will slowly slide down the trunk and stay alive for days. Ahumado has made entire "forests" of people rotting alive in agony through this method. When he meets Texan captain Inish Scull, Ahumado resolves to cut off Scull's eyelids and force him to stare into the searing heat until he goes insane. Ahumado makes no discrimination in his targets, from the young to the old to his own allies to entire villages full of people, and even after being fatally bitten by a brown recluse Ahumado still makes the time to personally flay Goyeta over a years-old petty grudge.
7	** Original novel: Blue Duck is a half-breed Native American who prowls the wilderness outside the towns. [[TheDreaded Feared by all who know him]], Blue Duck is a [[HumanTraffickers slaver]] who kidnaps those he can and sells them for a tidy sum, especially women. Blue Duck kidnaps [[HookerWithAHeartOfGold Lori]] and allows his companions to rape her on a daily basis, splitting her between his Native and cowboy followers. When one of his men is shot in the gut, Blue Duck refuses to let any other put the henchman out of his misery and allows his Native followers to castrate and scalp him, with barely concealed amusement. Blue Duck murders several other people, including a luckless [[WouldHurtAChild child]] who crosses his path, and after his initial escape, he is found in a jail later sentenced to hang. Unwilling to die without at least [[TakingYouWithMe taking someone with him]], Blue Duck seizes a guard and throws the two of them out of the window.
8	** ''The Streets of Laredo'' sequel novel: Mox Mox the [[ManOnFire Manburner]] is a former associate of Blue Duck's who despises everyone in the world for reminding him of himself and what he cannot be or have. Having once desired to burn Lori alive, Mox Mox contented himself with torturing an [[WouldHurtAChild lighting a little boy on fire]] instead when Blue Duck refused. Traveling with a band of murderers, Mox Mox kidnaps numerous innocents and burns them, never sparing any for any reason while being hunted. When finally tracked down, Mox Mox has kidnapped two children and is torturing one with a quirt, intending on soon burning them alive as well.
9	* EnsembleDarkhorse: Resourceful WildChild Janey, who spends a section of the book accompanying July and Roscoe, is pretty colorful and beloved character despite only being a tertiary character.
10	* JerkassWoobie: Jake Spoon is not a man of good character; he's lazy, self-absorbed, conniving, and disrespectful to women. But he's not an evil man, making his fate a tragic one when [[spoiler: he falls in with a gang of actually evil men and is unable to break off once he discovers he's in too deep. He is hanged by his own friends when the law catches up to them all]].
11	* NightmareFuel:
12	** At the end of the first episode, as the cattle drive is crossing a river, they encounter a swarm of water moccasins which attack and kill one man. The last shot of the episode is a snake biting his cheek. The novel deepens the horror by pointing out that although the company has decades of experience, collectively, with river crossings -- including multiple trips across that very river -- no one on the drive has ever seen such a large and aggressive nest of snakes.
13	** Pretty much everything having to do with [[CompleteMonster Blue Duck]], a murderer, slaver and rapist feared by everyone who knows about him and for very good reason. Some standout moments include [[spoiler:handing Lori over to be raped by his men]], and then ambushing and effortlessly murdering [[spoiler:Roscoe, Janey and Joe, a little boy.]] The last one he even laughs about.
14	* RetroactiveRecognition: Creator/MargoMartindale plays the whore Newt ends up with.
15	* SpecialEffectsFailure: This was a very big-budget miniseries, and everything the cameras picked up looks terrific. However, the few post-production effects used in the series are pretty terrible, like the lightning storm during the cattle drive or the obviously matted-in vultures flying overhead in one shot.
16	* TearJerker: [[AnyoneCanDie You'd better believe it.]]
17	** [[spoiler:Sean]] being bitten by water moccasins and dying almost immediately afterwards. His brother tries to sing his favorite song at the funeral, but he's too overcome with grief to finish it, only getting a little in before breaking down crying.
18	** July [[spoiler:burying Roscoe, Janey, and his stepson, Joey, after Blue Duck murdered them all. The poor man even blames himself because he ignored Gus's advice to stay behind to watch over them, and accompanied Gus to save Lori instead. It turned out Gus didn't even need July's help, as he gunned down all the kidnappers on his own.]]
19	*** July finally tracking down Elmira and breaking the news about [[spoiler:Roscoe and Joe]]. Her reaction? She doesn't have one, instead ignoring the news and only lamenting that her ex-husband Dee had been hanged a few days prior. The viewer has already seen that Ellie is one hell of a selfish woman with no regard for any one or anything outside her tiny sphere (made most evident when she thoughtlessly discards her newborn child and leaves him with Clara), but poor July actually ''loved'' her, and the realization of what sort of person she really is hits him hard.
20	** A traumatized [[spoiler:Lori]] breaking down crying in Gus's arms after she'd been raped by Blue Duck's men.
21	*** A more subtle one is when Jake slaps her over a minor argument early in the first part. Her almost total lack of a reaction suggests that she has gotten very much used to this kind of harsh treatment.
22	** [[spoiler:Gus loses a leg to gangrene, and when faced with losing the other leg, [[TheHeroDies he chooses to die of infection rather than live as an invalid]].]]

Context YMMV / LonesomeDove