THE BASTARD EXECUTIONER: (FX) If you're going to steal ideas, steal from the best and that's what the Bastard has done. It out-bloodies Game of Thrones, it has the atmosphere and spectacle of Outlander and a plot devise taken straight out of The Return of Martin Guerre / Sommersby. and a cast of thousands. However, the show captures all this with a certain degree of success, if not excess. It is bloody (worth mentioning twice), gruesome, brutally violent (not for the squeamish) and all filmed in excruciatingly close close up. Basically, a good man from the 1400's turns vengeful when his family is massacred and his village is destroyed by the minions of the oppressive Baron when the people rebel against unfair taxation. He takes on the identity of another man and the wife of that man vouches for him because he displays a kinder version of the real SOB husband she had. His first duty is the execution the one man who knows who he truly is. And thus the tail begins. All the elements appear to be there. The language sounded a little artificial at first, but I guess that's the way they talked in 1400 Wales. Score: 8. It has potential.
