The English turns a promising story into a beautiful wasteland

Prime Video and BBC’s new Western drama, The English, starts with an unhurried voiceover from Emily Blunt’s Lady Cornelia Locke. As the camera pans over a tidy room that doubles as a shrine to her former adventures, she softly narrates, “Without you, I’d have been killed right at the start. That’s how we met. That’s why we met. It was in the stars.” She steps out of her Victorian London mansion, dressed in garb fit for a funeral, clearly reflecting on her past crusades with a special someone. The monologue acts as a harbinger of the dark story about to unravel, promising intrigue, suspense, action, and romance.

Unfortunately, the six episodes rarely evolve beyond their labyrinthine narrative. The English cares frustratingly little about following a streamlined arc, providing meaningful answers, or connecting dots until the end. That’s rough because, evidently, it has all the makings of a classic Western saga. But the pacing and plot development take a backseat to lingering scenic shots. That said, series creator Hugo Blick’s direction, aided by cinematographer Arnau Valls Colomer and production designer Chris Roope, is hypnotic, and the show is visually gorgeous as it jumps from the dreary hues of 1890 London to a sunnier, arid American desert in 1875 to fill in the blanks.

But back to the problematic plotting. Cornelia, who belongs to a wealthy aristocratic family, arrives alone in the newly created territory of Oklahoma with a mission to avenge her dead son. How, when, and where he died, how old he was, what he looked like—none of that matters until the finale. What’s important is Cornelia’s maternal devotion, which drove her to travel all the way to the United States to find and kill the man responsible for his demise. For the most part, her unflinching love is the only trait she gets, and boy, does Blunt sell the hell out of it. The actor is in top form, and catching her immersive performance—from briefly breaking down to sharp fight scenes—makes it worth sticking with the messiness of the show.

The English tries to build tension, as is essential for any mystery, but dulls the suspense with a structure that lacks any excitement or even context. The first couple of outings, especially, are painfully slow and boring. It’s a chore of the highest order to keep up with an overload of character introductions and their motivations because it’s all left up in the air. You can either try to decipher it or sit back and hope it eventually makes a lick of sense. Thankfully, all six episodes will release at the same time to binge.