Summary
Billy and the Regulators move into Lincoln, leading to a flurry of gunfights and tense negotiations as everyone – including the U.S. Army – has to figure out where they’ll stand in the upcoming war.
The war for Lincoln County begins in earnest in Episode 6 of Billy the Kid Season 2, which is a flurry of gunfights and testy conversations. War, it turns out, is an administrative nightmare, and “The Plea” gets to the heart of that with so much bickering and toing and froing that it’s easy to wish everyone would just line up in the street and get on with it already.
Don’t get me wrong, the episode’s fine. Good, even. The arguments are tense, the dynamics are dangerous, and the shootouts, when they occur, are pretty well orchestrated. That build-up of antsy energy is intentional; you know what’s coming, and the only matter left to iron out is who will survive and whose side everyone will be on when the bullets start flying in earnest.
Picking Teams
Here’s what we know for starters. In the blue corner, you have Billy the Kid and the Regulators, with a healthy contingent of Mexican support, and in the red corner you have the House, the Santa Fe Ring, and Sheriff Pat Garrett (who is an extension of the previous two).
As of “The Plea”, you have the military in the middle. The military’s job is to keep the peace, but since that’s a lost cause, what side will they end up on? This is one of the big questions lingering over the final few episodes of Season 2.
Even Pat seems caught in the middle. He has an existing relationship with Billy, he is being leaned on by the villains, and he clearly has some lingering sense of morality. But self-preservation usually overrides that, and if Pats spends too long trying to decide who’s right, he’ll end up having the decision made for him.
If history is to be believed, we know what he’ll choose. But with artistic license being what it is, we can never quite be sure.
The Takeover
The structure of Billy the Kid Season 2, Episode 6 is easy enough to understand. Emboldened by the events of Episode 5, Billy and the Regulators, with the now-enthusiastic support of Dulcinea, decide to take over Lincoln bit by bit, capturing key locations and setting up a HQ in McSween’s house.
At the same time, Pat and his overlords attempt to repel them, both with violence and by petitioning Colonel Dudley for assistance from the neutral U.S. Army.
This excuses several gunfights, as hired guns and corrupt local lawmen attempt (unsuccessfully) to stave off Billy’s advances, and multiple negotiations, as both sides try to sway key players to their cause. By the end of the episode, little fundamentally has changed – it’s still a standoff, just with both sides a bit more depleted than when they started.
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