TURN: Washington’s Spies

    It took me ten seconds to get hooked on TURN: Washington’s Spies.  Literally, it was ten seconds.  Except, unlike what you may expect, those seconds did not happen at the start of the first episode.  They came at the end.  To be honest, until I came upon those ten seconds at the very end of the first episode, I planned on stopping the series right then and there.  There was not going to be any second episode for me, much less the rest of the season.  The show had too many vulgar parts and the male egos drove me up the wall.   Then I saw the very end of the episode and there was something that told me to keep going.  I can’t tell you what the something was because I don’t know for sure.  There was just something that told me there might be more to the series than what initially meets the eye, and it was right.  As I continued to watch, I discovered that each episode was better than the one before it.  Yes, there are still vulgar parts and male egos, but so much of what goes on around all that is really good.  Now that I’ve seen these other parts, I find this show is not to be passed up.

    Abe Woodhull (Jamie Bell) is a Revolutionary War era farmer.  His main concerns are providing for his family and paying off the debt he owes, not politics.  Unfortunately for Abe, it is difficult to stay out of the political arena.  His father, Judge Woodhull (Kevin R. McNally), has befriended the British military.  In fact, not only has Judge Woodhull befriended the military, he works hand in hand with them as they live in the town and plot how to fight the Patriots. 

    His father’s relationship with the British does not sit well with Abe.  While he may not vocally state his position on the war, Abe has friends who are fighting for General Washington.  He quietly supports the Patriot cause until one day Abe is accused of a crime he did not commit.  His father manages to get the charges dropped, but Abe is forced to watch another innocent man punished by the British military.  It is at this point that Abe decides it is time to take a stand and do something.

    That something is to become a spy.  With the help of his childhood friend, and former love, Anna Strong (Heather Lind), Abe passes on information he learns while pretending to be loyal to the British cause.  The information is passed to another childhood friend, Caleb Brewster (Daniel Henshall), who in turn brings it to a third friend, an officer in the army, Ben Tallmadge (Seth Numrich).  It would seem that at this point the scheme could be considered a success since the information has reached the military.  That, however, is not the case, because Ben’s commanding officer wants nothing to do with the information Abe has collected.  He doesn’t believe what it has to say and refuses to pass it on to General George Washington (Ian Kahn).

    The whole spy plan could have ended right then and there, but Caleb and Ben know the information is good.  They figure out a way to get the message to General Washington and believe once he reads it he will act.  Their efforts will not have been for nothing and the military will succeed in their advancements.

    That’s not exactly what happened.  With so many tips and letters on his desk, General Washington doesn’t pay much attention to the information that Ben and Caleb managed to get to him.  He does, however, notice it, because when the information in their note turns out to be true, General Washington decides that Abe should become a spy in a more official capacity.  As great as this is, the advancement, and expectations, put Abe and Anna in even more danger than they were before.      

    While there are many great parts to this show, I think my favorites are when Ben and Caleb are involved.  No matter what the combination of characters, when one of them is on the screen I know I’m going to get a pretty good scene.  This can usually be said for Abe and Anna too, except they have the whole overused storyline of how they were together but ended up marrying other people even though they knew they belonged with one another, so now they have to decide if they’re going to act on their feelings or not.  Blech.  That’s my opinion on all that.  Anyways, when Anna and Abe aren’t dancing around their forbidden romance storyline they have really good scenes too.  I like that Anna is a strong, intelligent woman who isn’t going to be run over by anyone.  She may lose her battles, but she will always go down fighting.  Abe, on the other hand, I think is a little lost.  He is stuck between so many people and sometimes has a hard time deciding what to do, but always believes what he is doing is right in the end.

    Something that is really interesting about this show is how they show everyone on both sides as humans.  No one is completely evil, which would be really easy to do as the main characters do have an enemy.  It would not be hard for every British military person to be portrayed as the worst possible of human beings, but they aren’t.  Some are more pleasant than others, but that can also be said for those on the American side.  Not all of those people are exactly the most likeable either.

    Actually, one of the kindest and sweetest characters on either side is from the British military: Ensign Baker (Thomas Keegan).  It is clear Baker has feelings for Abe’s wife, Mary (Meegan Warner), but as she is a married woman he does not act on them.  In fact, Baker is such an honorable man that instead of sabotaging Abe when he catches Abe and Anna together, he encourages Abe to go back to his wife.  He also stands by Abe’s side when Abe gets into unpleasant situations, even after the Abe/Anna incident.  Baker always tells the truth no matter who is asking.  He will not color things one way or the other to make one person happy or hurt another.  The truth is the truth, and that’s it.               

    Another character that is a good person, at least some of the time, is surprisingly John André (JJ Feild).  One would think since he ends up working with Benedict Arnold (I haven’t gotten that far in the series yet) that he would be portrayed as a bad man.  He isn’t.  Instead André is shown as caring and compassionate.  When he could have easily taken his new housemaid, Abigail (Idara Victor), a freed slave given to him despite his dislike of slavery, to task for not doing things as he would like, he doesn’t.  Instead, André takes the time to show Abigail, who he employs as a servant, how he likes things and then asks what other ways Abigail learned from her former mistress.  If it’s not the same as he prefers, he calmly explains the difference to Abigail so she knows.  Then on top of that, André is concerned about Abigail’s well-being.  He wants her to be genuinely happy and smiling while she works for him and even suggests helping Abigail get a present for her son’s birthday, which he follows through with.  This is not normal treatment for the time.  I highly suspect the other men André is acquainted with would never even consider doing such things.  That shows there is a good side to this man that goes against his conniving ways.  I will admit, so far there hasn’t been too much conniving from André, but knowing history, I’m pretty sure it’s coming.

    While most of the characters are off on missions and trying to help the war effort on either side, there is one character left behind, and I feel badly for her.  That character is Mary, Abe’s wife.  She tends to get lost in everything being so quiet in the background.  Once engaged to Abe’s brother (not fully by choice from what I understand) Mary is married to Abe because of his sense of duty.  She knows this, but instead of making everyone’s life miserable, Mary tries to be the best wife and mother she can be.  Even when she finds out about Abe’s and Anna’s relationship Mary quietly does whatever is in her power to keep her family together.  Mary has a strength that everyone, except for Baker, dismisses.  This is especially true of Abe.  While he does not hate his wife by any means, she is not Anna and has a tendency to push Mary to the side.  There was one scene where he was leaving town and I don’t think he even said good-bye to Mary.  It was difficult to watch because Mary is an innocent party in all of this.  She is the one everyone takes advantage of and one day it will be too much.  Everything Mary has been holding inside will come out, and Abe in particular better watch out.

    I am very tempted to peek ahead and see what happens in the rest of the series.  There are two characters I would like to see gone, but I’m being good and not taking a look.  I would rather watch what happens than read it.  Since I have one disc left of season one and the season two discs aren’t out yet, I’m going to have to be patient for awhile.  I don’t know what I’m going to do after that because the third season hasn’t even been filmed.  I foresee my patience being tested quite a bit in the near future.    

Edited 4/27/2021 for clarity.