In the vast canon of Western dramas, few series capture the raw brutality of America’s frontier legacy quite like “The Son,” a gripping two-season saga that traces the rise of a Texas dynasty forged in violence and ambition. Starring Pierce Brosnan in a chilling, career-redefining role as Eli McCullough—the ruthless patriarch who transforms from a kidnapped boy into a monstrous empire-builder—this epic dares to confront the dark heart of the American dream. “He was taken as a boy—he returned as a monster,” the tagline promises, and the series delivers on that ominous vow with unflinching intensity. Spanning decades of savagery, vengeance, and moral corruption, it poses a haunting question: when power is built on blood and inherited through generations, is there any escape from its curse?
Adapted from Philipp Meyer’s acclaimed novel, “The Son” unfolds across dual timelines that intertwine like barbed wire, cutting deep into the soul of Texas history. The story begins in 1849, on the eve of Eli’s 13th birthday, when Comanche raiders descend on his family’s remote homestead. In a visceral opening sequence of carnage, his mother and sister are assaulted and killed, his brother slain, and young Eli (played with feral intensity by Jacob Lofland) is dragged away as a captive. What follows is a harrowing immersion into Comanche life: Eli is stripped of his identity, forced to adapt or die, learning the ways of survival in a world where mercy is weakness. Under the guidance of tribal chief Toshaway (Zahn McClarnon in a commanding performance), he transforms from terrified boy to hardened warrior, embracing the brutal code that will define him forever.
Flash forward to 1915, where the elder Eli (Brosnan) has become the iron-fisted “Colonel” McCullough—a cattle baron on the cusp of oil dominance, presiding over a sprawling ranch empire in South Texas. Celebrating his 66th birthday amid whispers of Mexican revolutionaries and shifting borders, Eli is a man who has clawed his way to absolute power. Brosnan portrays him as a magnetic yet terrifying figure: charming in boardrooms, ice-cold in confrontation, his eyes betraying the lingering shadows of his Comanche past. He sees the future in black gold, ruthlessly maneuvering to secure drilling rights, even if it means shattering alliances and lives. His family bears the weight of his legacy—sons Phineas (David Wilson Barnes), a sharp lawyer hiding his own secrets, and Pete (Henry Garrett), the conflicted heir torn between duty and conscience; granddaughter Jeannie (Sydney Lucas), the sharp-witted girl who idolizes her grandfather; and daughter-in-law Sally (Jess Weixler), navigating the tensions of a dynasty built on compromise.
The neighboring Garcia family, led by the proud Pedro (Carlos Bardem), adds fuel to the fire. Long entangled with the McCulloughs through land disputes and forbidden romances—Pete’s affair with Maria Garcia (Paola Núñez) simmers with passion and peril—their rivalry explodes amid the chaos of the Mexican Revolution spilling across the border. Eli’s suspicion of oil beneath Garcia land ignites a chain of betrayals, massacres, and vendettas that ripple through generations. The series doesn’t shy from the era’s racial and cultural clashes: Comanches raiding settlers, Texans clashing with Mexicans, and the relentless march of industrialization devouring the old ways.
What makes “The Son” so savage and compelling is its refusal to romanticize the West. This isn’t a tale of noble cowboys; it’s a blood-soaked chronicle of how empires are born from genocide, theft, and unyielding will. Eli’s transformation is the core horror—he survives captivity not just physically, but by internalizing the Comanche ethos of dominance, then wielding it against everyone in his path. Brosnan’s performance is a revelation: shedding his suave James Bond persona for a grizzled, calculating tyrant whose rare moments of tenderness only heighten the chill. His Eli justifies every atrocity as necessary for survival and legacy, a man who believes weakness invites destruction. Yet beneath the monstrosity lies tragedy—the boy who lost everything, forever altered by the frontier’s cruelty.
The ensemble elevates the material further. Lofland’s young Eli captures the raw terror and resilience of captivity, his assimilation into tribal life both thrilling and heartbreaking. McClarnon’s Toshaway is a wise, formidable mentor, humanizing the Comanche perspective in a genre that often vilifies it. Garrett’s Pete provides the moral counterpoint, a decent man crushed by his father’s shadow, his forbidden love for Maria adding layers of forbidden desire and cultural conflict. Weixler’s Sally embodies quiet strength amid domestic storms, while Lucas’s Jeannie hints at the dynasty’s future—sharp, ambitious, perhaps doomed to repeat the cycle.
Visually, the series is a triumph of scope and authenticity. Filmed across vast Texas landscapes, it contrasts the sweeping plains of 1849 raids with the dusty, oil-rig-dotted ranches of 1915. Brutal action sequences—arrow-fletched ambushes, gunfights, tortures—feel visceral and grounded, never gratuitous but always consequential. The production delves into historical details: Comanche warfare tactics, early oil prospecting, border skirmishes during the Bandit War era. A haunting score blends tribal drums with orchestral swells, underscoring the clash of worlds.
Thematically, “The Son” is a meditation on the curse of inherited power. Eli’s rise mirrors America’s own—built on displaced natives, exploited lands, and cutthroat ambition. His sons grapple with the fallout: Phineas concealing his sexuality in a repressive era, Pete horrified by the family’s complicity in atrocities against the Garcias. Vengeance begets vengeance, betrayal poisons bonds, and the oil boom symbolizes fleeting wealth amid moral decay. The second season intensifies these conflicts, pushing Eli to new extremes as rivals close in and family fractures widen, culminating in a finale that offers no easy redemption.
Though it ran only two seasons, comprising 20 episodes of relentless momentum, “The Son” packs the punch of a longer epic. Its pacing alternates between the adrenaline of frontier survival and the simmering intrigue of boardroom machinations, building to revelations that reframe everything. Fans of gritty Westerns will find echoes of classics, but with a modern edge—unflinching on violence, nuanced on character, provocative on history.
Pierce Brosnan’s Eli McCullough stands as one of television’s most unforgettable anti-heroes: a monster forged in blood, whose empire demands souls in payment. This is a saga of absolute power’s corrupting allure, where survival means becoming the predator. Spanning the wild brutality of the Comanche era to the gilded greed of the oil age, “The Son” leaves you pondering the cost of dominance. In a genre full of legends, this one cuts deepest—a savage, unforgettable portrait of how monsters are made, and how their curses endure.
