AMC's The Son
AMC's The SonTwitter/ The Son

The Son, AMC's new western starring Pierce Brosnan, dismayed the critics on its premiere as Variety compared the series with The Walking Dead, another hit series on the same network. "For AMC, which boldly dove into the genre world with "The Walking Dead" to great success, it's unfortunate that they haven't quite figured out how to master the Western," the Variety said.

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Based on the New York Times best-seller and Pulitzer Prize-nominated novel of the same name by Phillip Meyer, The Son follows the transformation of Eli McCullough's (Pierce Brosnan) good-natured innocence to calculated violence. Young Eli is captured by Comanches who slaughter the rest of his family in front of his eyes. Eli, who happened to be the first son of Texas, (hence the name The Son), is raised by the Comanche warriors.

The Son deftly explores how Eli's ruthlessness and the quest for power trigger consequences that span generations as the McCulloughs become one of the richest families reigning in Texas.

AMC's The Son features Pierce Brosnan as Eli McCullough, Jacob Loftland as young Eli McCullough, Sydney Lucas as Jeannie McCullough, David Wilson Barnes as Phineas McCullough, Henry Garrett as Pete McCullough, Zahn McClarnon as Toshaway, and Paola Núñez as María García. The adult Eli eventually becomes the most powerful man in South Texas.

The Son has premiered on AMC on Saturday, April 8, 2017. The series will air a new episode on every Saturday at 9 pm ET.

Here's what critics have to say about the series:

Variety

"If the mechanics of "The Son" seem awfully familiar, it's because it seems poised to be a sudsy primetime drama in the vein of "Dallas" or "Dynasty," with feuding families, love triangles, and snappy one-liners. But the series strays away from anything that could be considered soap opera-adjacent or simply fun."

USA TODAY

"The larger problem is that Brosnan's adult Eli never seems even remotely connected to the barely civilized child being raised by Comanches. He's too wry, too sardonic, too, well, British. (A scene where Eli fantasizes of a particularly gruesome form of revenge is so out of character, it provokes unintended laughter.)"

The New York Times

"The opening episodes feature a lot of violence and not many characters you can latch onto... The female characters are not given much to do in early episodes other than have sex."

Entertainment Weekly

"The opening credits seem to promise an even more expansive vision of American history. And I admire the show's democratic vision of Texas as a never-ending culture clash. The Son will rise — if it can live up to its ambitions, if it can more convincingly explain how young Eli on the frontier became old Eli at the dawn of civilization, and if it can be even half as wild as the West it wants to explore."

IndieWire

"Two episodes don't provide enough evidence to completely write off the beautifully shot series. The supporting acting is quite strong, and I really do want to believe there's more to both stories than meets the eye... There's potential here, but "The Son" needs to be a bit quicker on the draw."