Brosnan targets ‘The Son’ in somber tale

Actor’s performance dooms adaptation of Philipp Meyer novel

Go West, young viewer, go West. Unless, of course, you’ve ridden this dusty Old West trail before. In which case, AMC’s tediously somber

The Son (Saturday, 8 ET/PT, out of four) doesn’t offer many incentives for a return trip.

To be fair, Philipp Meyer’s adaptation of his own best-selling saga does have one major new twist. Or at least it does in Sunday’s two-hour premiere, which bounces between 1850 and the turn of the next century to bring us the sprawling story of a threegeneration Texas family.

There was a time in Hollywood when a story like The Son‘ s would have been built around a noble white settler battling Indians and Mexicans to protect his Texas homestead. There was a more recent time when those roles would have been reversed, with nobility conferred on the Native Americans or Mexicans beset by selfish, feckless settlers. The Son, however, takes a more au courant approach: Everyone is equally rapacious, brutal and awful. Whether that’s more in line with the historic truth, it’s certainly more in line with TV’s affection for hero-free stories.

If The Son has no heroic figure, it does have a central pivot: Eli McCullough, played as an adult by Pierce Brosnan and as a young teen by Jacob Lofland. The first boy born in the new Texas Republic (hence his title as Texas’s First Son), young Eli is captured by Comanches who slaughter the rest of his family but raise him as their own. (It’s amazing how quickly he gets over the death of his mother and siblings.)

Over the next 10 episodes, as we watch young Eli grow, we also watch the man he’s become. The adult Eli is now the most powerful man in South Texas, the master of a large cattle ranch that he’s determined to turn into an oil empire. He’s got two major prob- lems: the ranch is bleeding money, and he’s at war with a local Mexican-American family (led by Carlos Bardem and Paola Nuñez) and with Mexican rebels who want Texas back.

At Eli’s side is Phineas (David Wilson Barnes), the son he trusts (though Phineas has a secret that could change all that); and Pete (Henry Garrett), the son he de- spises. Pete is weak and philosophical and squishy, but he has given Eli his favorite grandchild, Jeannie ( Fun Home’s Sydney Lucas) — who, if The Son continues on for future seasons, will eventually take over the story.

Unfortunately, that won’t happen soon. Which leaves us with the show’s central problem: Brosnan’s unfocused, unconvincing performance.

Part of the problem is a nowhere-in-Texas accent that seems to wander between between Southampton and New York like an old steamer, with a stop now and then in Boston. But the larger problem is that Brosnan’s adult Eli never seems even remotely connected to the barely civilized child being raised by Comanches. He’s too wry, too sardonic, too, well, British.

But then, outside of Lucas, Nunez and Fargo’s Zahn McClarnon as Toshaway, no one fares very well. The characters get lost in a tale that meanders between violent episodes ( beatings, scalpings, and the occasional ear removal among them), interrupted by dialogue that may have read well in the book, but clunks and sputters when spoken aloud.

Well, as a ranch hand says, “We’re born in a certain time and place, and there ain’t nothing we can do about it.” The downside is that shows like The Son are our current lot in life. The upside, however, is that no one is making us watch them. Go elsewhere.