PAGE 2 • TV
THE BULLETIN • APRIL 21 - 27, 2022
EPIX dives deep into the
legend of ‘Billy the Kid’
BY JAY BOBBIN
Stories of Billy the Kid are bountiful,
but a new series is aiming to be the
definitive one on screen.
The legendary outlaw born Henry
McCarty – but also known by the
pseudonym William H. Bonney – first
ran into trouble as an orphaned teen,
and he wouldn’t live many years beyond
that, killed at age 21 by lawman Pat
Garrett while a fugitive charged with
committing several killings in the
Lincoln County War. The saga is
recounted in the eight-episode EPIX
series “Billy the Kid,” premiering
Sunday, April 24, and casting Tom
Blyth of HBO’s recent “The Gilded
Age” in the title role. Daniel Webber
also stars as Jesse Evans, whose lethal
gang was enlisted to oppose Billy in
that war, with Eileen O’Higgins as
Billy’s mother.
The drama’s writer, Michael Hirst
(“The Tudors,” “Vikings”), says he’s
been “fascinated by Billy ever since I
was a kid, actually. He’s like a rock star
of the West. I thought I knew things
about him, but when I started doing
the research, I realized that I knew
very, very little indeed. I had cliched
ideas about him that he was probably
psychopathic, that he was a born killer,
that he was a roughneck. What I didn’t
know about was his background, born
of Irish immigrants ... very devoted
to his Catholic mother, who taught
Tom Blyth has the title role in
“Billy the Kid,” premiering
Sunday on EPIX.
him to respect women, to read, and to
empathize with the underdog.
“He had a beautiful singing voice,”
adds Hirst, also an executive producer
of the series, as are Justin Falvey and
Darryl Frank of Steven Spielberg’s
Amblin Television. “He played musical
instruments. He was incredibly
sensitive. As he said himself, he was
more sinned-against than sinning. He’s
a wonderfully attractive character.”
Blyth believes much of Billy the Kid’s
relatability lies in the outlaw’s effort to
make a life for himself, even a largely
illegal one. “I think we’ve created such a
brutally honest show,” the actor reflects.
“You can see the kind of blood, sweat,
and tears and mud that went into
creating a life here, all these different
societies all trying to build their own
life in this kind of messy landscape.”
Still, Hirst keeps a spotlight on the
lawlessness that marked Billy’s iconic
yet relatively brief existence.
“He was absolutely fearless,” the
writer-producer maintains. “He would
work out ways of escaping, which is a
great joy of writing about him because
we put him in this situation where
it seems totally unlikely that he can
escape it, and he always finds a way
to do it. It’s part of his charisma. Pat
Garrett even talks about that, with deep
respect for the Billy it took him a long
time to catch.”
Guide to the TV grids
TV Ratings:
‘G’: General audience
‘Y’: Young children
‘7’: Children over 7
‘14’: Children over 14
‘PG’: Parental guidance
‘M’: Mature audience only
PA: Parental advisory
DVS: Descriptive video service
EI: Educational/instructional
D: Dialogue
L: Language
S: Sexual situations
V: Violence
Common symbols :
HD scheduling, please
note:
’:I n stereo
Å: Closed captioning
iTV: Interactive TV program
N: Program is new
Schedules are based on standard-
definition (SD) channels. High-
definition (HD) channels may vary
by three hours when a West Coast
programming feed is not available to
your TV provider. Please refer to your
provider’s interactive TV guide for
detailed HD channel schedules.
For a list of cable and over-the-air
channels by zip code, as well
up-to-the-minute TV programming,
please visit www.bendbulletin.
com/tv. For questions or feedback
please call The Bulletin Circulation
Department at 541-385-5800.