Basically a good mini-series. A few of the accents and portrayals rankled, but by and large they did a better job than most. Some good acting and the story-line was engrossing. Thumbs up (in the air, not their butts.) 
Johnse and Roseanna were real. Their romance also began on a Election Day, and her brothers did leave her there when they couldn’t find her. According to family records, her sisters retrieved her from the Hatfield household, and she was sent to live with her aunt. Johnse and she resumed their affair while she was there. The whole part of her brothers taking him and her running to Anse is also recorded. After that, however, Johnse didn’t see her again. Their baby died in 1881, and Johnse married Nancy 4 months after that. Roseanna died in 1889. I have photos in my mom’s book of both Johnse and Roseanna, and Sarah Elizabeth’s tombstone with them listed as the parents.
I haven’t watched all of tonight’s yet - did they go all the way to the deaths? They were both of men by then, so they must have rushed through a lot.
On my holiest oath, so have I! 
I was going to mention it but didn’t know if anybody else would know what I was talking about it. For those who don’t know, it’s a reference to a classic movie video.
I loved it. Very accurate historically* in parts one and two; slipped a bit in part three.
*Holy crap, there was a lot of killing going on IRL!
The repeats are cutting entire scenes from the first airing. Episode 1 had Roseanne cutting Randall’s hair, him telling her she is his favorite and giving her his uniform button that fell off years ago as a special payment. And they deleted Frank Phillips scene in the bar when he was looking for Jack Vance, the one where he got shot in the leg, hence the unexplained limp for episodes 2 and 3. So apparently, if you didn’t catch the original airing, the only way to get the show as originally seen is to buy the DVD. Commercially: Genius. Culturally: A hard punch in the gut.
Okay, so I looked up facts about the feud and turns out the show is mainly historically correct. Makes me like it even more.
I watched a later showing of the final episode and the “afterwards” parts went by so fast it was impossible for anybody without an eidetic memory to read them. Does anybody know if it did this on the initial showing?
No, those parts were very readable.
You could tell watching (particularly part 1, I thought) where they were going to stick in additional commercials. I guess if they want to keep it as two hour chunks, then scenes have to go (especially since I think parts 1 and 2 actually ran 2:06 (maybe 2:03) initially).
Tried to watch the 2nd installment, but fucking comcast screwed me over again. The feed would pixilate and lose sound for a few seconds every 15 seconds or so. It drove me crazy, so I’ll have to wait and record it again some other time. The image problems I could live with, but not the interruptions in the dialog.
I saw the figure $500,000 in the speed-by afterward for Anse Hatfield. For anybody who was able to read it, was that the value of his estate or how much it’s estimated the feud cost the state or what exactly?
I think that was 5,000 mourners at his funeral.
You can see the episodes on the History Channel site - which is where I found the info.
If you go to the third episode in Foalcin’s link the scroll starts at about 1:26:35
So how did Devil Anse stay free until his dying day? He was guilty of, at the very least, multiple counts of accessory to murder, and surely at some point during the last 30+ years of his life somebody could have arrested him without a bloodbath. Plus even if he was pardoned for particular crimes, you could always find something else to pin on him.
Very well done. I enjoyed the entire series. The way the people were portrayed was excellent, and the accents were pretty good. I have a huge amount of extended family that live in Logan, WV and there are times I can hardly understand them. It’s not so much a southern accent per se, but something distinctive about some of their pronounciations.
They fully expect a huge influx of tourism trying to rediscover the Hatfield-McCoy feud which is good for the town and area, which is still extremely poor. They were all very concerned about things being done historically accurate and my cousins said they were pleased about how it was portrayed.
I’d guess because:
[ul]
[li]assuming the show was accurate, he called the truce with his letter to the editor[/li][li]attempting to arrest him could have set the whole thing off again[/li][/ul]
Per the news its ratings were through the roof: 14 million viewers, which you just don’t get for a TV miniseries anymore. Maybe that will inspire some other decent TV historical miniseries. (More likely it will inspire a Hatfields v. McCoys Hunger Games style reality show, but even that could have its enjoyment.)
I really enjoyed it, and apparently by the ratings so did a lot of other people. My wife was really into it even though it isn’t even close to the kind of thing she would normally watch. Heck our niece who is visiting liked it, too.
Just finished watching this off my DVR over the last two days. I enjoyed it a lot. I thought the actors were mostly very good, especially Costner, Paxton, and Berenger. The actress who played Costner’s wife was excellent as well. I had to look her up on IMDB: She is Sarah Parish, a British actress, and it appears she’s done a lot of UK television work.
The guy who played Cotton Top played a similarly mentally-challenged character in the sappy Hallmark Christmas tv movie A Dog Named Christmas.