So after last night’s episode of Hell on Wheels, I felt forced to accept that Lily was sleeping with Durant.   In the first episode, she seemed to be living on the train again, but I was ready to explain that away.   The location of Hell on Wheels is moving, right?  They are building a railroad so they go to where the track needs laying and the tent town moves with them.  It would be a practical matter for Lily to live on the train instead of moving her tent.   And even the scene where Durant was obviously waiting for her at night, in his train car,  I was able to pass off as maybe she was doing something else, or doing someone else (my husband’s opinion).   But last night in the second episode of Season 2, we see Durant in a robe first thing in the morning and Lily in bed.  She’s not naked but still.  Okay, then.  I don’t like the fact, think it goes against her character and her noble Robert, not to mention she obviously lusts after Cullen, but there it is.   And then I see the clip for next week.  Episode 3

So I’m not digging that she’s with Durant in the first place and her lying to Cullen about it only makes it more shady, IMO.   I could see why she wouldn’t want anyone to know she’s sleeping with “the boss,” but it seems to fly in the face off all her efforts last season to be independent, sloshing in the mud and eating with the workers and whores.  The fact that she is wearing men’s clothes is doing nothing for me.  I liked seeing her deal with all that crap in a corset and enormous skirt.   That’s not easy.   She seems so unsure of herself this season.  Even when she pays Elam to deal with the killer she seems timid.  What happened to the women who killed a brave with a piece of freaking arrow and then sewed up her wound with another piece of that same arrow?  The good news is Cullen is looking kind of clean in episode 3 clip.  Liking that.

The changes in Cullen’s character has also been hard to accept.  I was surprised that he would join with those train robbers when he was such a loner.   And yes, he is obviously a murderer but he had huge motivation.   Now he just seems sort of broken and lost.  Of course, he was twisted last season, but he had a mission and his own morals.  He didn’t let Joseph take Lily back to the town or let Elam hang, though he clearly didn’t want to get involved in any of it.   Perhaps this change is because he did kill that innocent man and that probably doesn’t set well with him.   Still, I wonder if he’s given up on getting the man who actually strangled his wife.  Either way, I’m definitely anxious to see where the writers are all going with this.

Elam’s character is really working for me.  Eva, too.   My favorite line of the night was delivered by Joseph, who I also really like.  In the scene where he and Ruth are tending the refugees from the Indian attack on Durant, Nebraska in the church, Joseph says something like: “This is a tragedy for our church. ”  Ruth responds:  “God is at work here.   His ways our mysterious.”   Joseph: “Your god works too hard.”

True that, Joseph.  True that.