Posted on 04/06/2014 9:42:14 AM PDT by afraidfortherepublic
The new AMC series Turn, which premieres April 6, is bewildering at first.
We’re dropped smack in the middle of British-occupied New York. The year is 1776, and Abraham Woodhull (Jamie Bell) is scraping by as a cabbage farmer and sometime innkeeper in Setauket, Long Island. He’s husband to Mary (Meegan Warner), and father to a young child. His father, Richard (Kevin McNally), is a local magistrate loyal to George III.
Then the scene shifts. We’re now in New Jersey. A stunning overhead shot reveals a sprawling field of bluecoat rebel bodies lying next to a pool dyed red with blood. It looks like a John Trumbull painting. A man, dressed in rags, stalks across the field, impaling the bodies with a bayonet. He approaches a corpse and raises his bayonet when—suddenly—the bluecoat flips over and shoves a dagger deep into the executioner’s throat, emitting a geyser of blood. Before you can chant “U-S-A!”, a pro-British militia is chasing the man through the woods, showering him with musket balls.
These men are the Queen’s Rangers, a ragtag Loyalist military unit led by Robert Rogers (Angus Macfayden, best known for backstabbing Mel Gibson’s character in Braveheart). The man returns to his battalion and addresses his superiors:
“These were not Tory militia or regulars… these were Queen’s Rangers.”
“Are you saying there’s a breach within our ranks?”
“I’m saying they have spies… everywhere, Sir.”
So, the rebels seek to give the Brits a taste of their own medicine and, on orders from General George Washington, establish a covert courier system from New Jersey to occupied New York.
~snip~
The cast...is aces all around and Turn, with its occupied territory setting, ex-lovers reuniting for a common cause, awe-inspiring staging and cinematography, and rah-rah patriotism, is ...well worth your time and/or DVR space.
(Excerpt) Read more at thedailybeast.com ...
Is there a possibility that the "Rangers" could have been established during the reign of QE I? There's no "Princess Patricia" in Canada, but there is a group of Rangers there that goes by that name. Just wondering...
Your priorities are WAY screwed up! :)
There's a very old tradition in UK of naming newly-raised regiments after various members of the royal family, not just after the ruling monarch.
I would also like to object to your characterization of the Loyalists as "backstabbing Quislings."
While some of them no doubt were, others were conservative and honorable men who held to their loyalty to King when others abandoned him, at the cost, in many cases, of all their property and even of their lives.
The Revolution was our first civil war, and in many ways it was much more bitter than our second one. Dissident Loyalists were treated far more harshly, for instance, than secessionists were in the WBTS, both during and after the war.
This was probably because Civil War I was a true civil war, brother against brother, while Civil War II was mostly a war between regions, except in the border states, where the fighting was the most bitter and the most atrocities took place.
Yes, I’m starting to think that too. :)
Google George Washington master spy. Alfred Poteat gives and awesome presentation on him
That was not my statement. I just asked about the possibility of "Queen's" being in reference to Queen Elizabeth the First.
My apologies. Sometimes I lose track of who was quoting and who originating a statement.
So far so good. They overdo the blood.
so far very pro- patriot....
Simcoe needs to be gutted like a pig.
Agreed.
Wow! His (Abe’s) dad is something else.
The show looks pretty good.
This promises to be a good show.
From the looks of twitter it appears a lot of younguns may accidentally learn something.
Quite shocking to see the constitutional abuses going on as everyday business during that time period. And now we sit on our hands while Washington runs over us.
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