Summary
Billy the Kid Season 3 veers away from history in Episode 6, delving into more conspiratorial fantasy territory as we approach the climax.
Billy the Kid is alive. I feel I should point this out since technically, Billy is supposed to be dead. Pat Garrett shot him twice, in the same place that the real Pat Garrett shot (and killed!) the real Billy the Kid. But in case it wasn’t obvious that Season 3 of MGM+’s surprise hit was going to be indulging in some of the more conspiratorial corners of the Kid’s legend, Episode 6, “The Chain Gang”, very much confirms it.
To be fair, Billy’s survival in context is plausible enough. After shooting him, Garrett had to hurry out of Pete’s house before the Mexicans got wind of what had happened. He didn’t see Billy gasp awake, or see the Mexicans take him away, and in the absence of a body, he had to accept Pete’s claims that Billy died on his floor and was taken away to be buried with dignity somewhere secret. It’s a lot for Garrett’s ego to take. He had staked his entire reputation on catching Billy the Kid, and in the absence of a corpse, rumours immediately began to circulate that he had failed.
There’s nothing Garrett can do, though. The Mexicans he hauls in are tight-lipped. Pete isn’t saying anything either. While Billy recovers in isolation over a period of months, Garrett becomes increasingly obsessed with proving his death and his own bona fides in the absence of that. But nothing works. Catron doesn’t buy his story – Pete’s story, really – about what happened to Billy’s body, and both denies paying out on the bounty and strips Garrett of his sheriff’s badge. To strike back in the only way he can, Garrett tells Emily that he heard on the grapevine that Edgar’s death wasn’t a suicide. She believes him and wants to meet the informant who supposedly told him so, but Garrett overplays his hand by trying to use the information as a way to force himself on Emily. She demands he leave, at gunpoint, and even as he’s clearing out his personal effects from his office, he’s given the final indignity of a journalist asking him about the rumours of Billy’s survival. Garrett promises to write a book about it – something that he actually did, albeit with a ghostwriter’s help – but has no other options for the short term. He’s ruined.
Billy himself, meanwhile, enjoys his convalescence, meeting his child and getting his strength back in relative peace. But he still has something he wants to do, something he’s cagey about, and this mysterious thing can, apparently, only be accomplished with the help of Jesse Evans. There’s just a small problem with that – Jesse was arrested in Texas for killing a Ranger, and is serving time in a heavily fortified Federal penitentiary.
George travels to Texas to get the lay of the land – which involves openly asking questions about Jesse and the prison, naturally earning himself some unwanted attention in the process – and learns enough, especially through a seeming ally named John Selman, whose life Jesse had supposedly saved, to put together some kind of rescue plan. Jesse has been assigned a work detail helping to complete a road construction project, which means he and his chain gang – which is, for what it’s worth, the title of Billy the Kid Season 3, Episode 6 – are outside of the prison’s walls for several hours at a time, under light guard. It’s the perfect opportunity.
Selman rides with Billy and the remainder of the Regulators to free Jesse and the other prisoners. In the process, one of their number, Juan, loses his life, but at this point, Billy has become such a cult figure that his insistence on continuing to risk his own life and that of his friends, despite several near-misses with death and a family waiting back at home, has just been blithely accepted. In every regard other than this one, the mission is a success, and Jesse is free to help Billy with whatever no-doubt risky plan he has in mind.
What is that plan? Since the story keeps reminding us that Catron exists, I suspect it’ll involve him, and given how Emily got enough from Garrett to be convinced that he ordered Edgar’s death, she’ll have an opportunity to switch sides. We may be heading towards the complete dissolution of the House. The bigger question is perhaps whether Billy will fall foul of Garrett again in the remaining episodes, and how close MGM+ will hew to history in this regard.
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