Kurt Sutter's 'The Abandons' Broke Netflix

The Abandons, Kurt Sutter’s Netflix western, may be the worst show I’ve ever seen on the platform, and I am positively giddy about it. In an era of streaming where storylines often feel dictated by an algorithm, it’s genuinely refreshing to see a show this awful slip through the cracks. It is appallingly bad -disjointed, wretchedly written, terribly acted (save for Gillian Anderson, sort of), and plotted as though by a drunk with a concussion.

And yet it’s decidedly human. AI couldn’t make something this bad. It’s the opposite of algorithm paste. And unlike a terrible show like All’s Fair, which feels almost intentionally bad, The Abandons smacks of actual effort. Real actors and real writers put their hearts and souls into this, and it fails spectacularly. It’s not lazy. It’s just woefully misguided, pieced together by humans making one egregious mistake after another — in the writing, directing, character choices, and even the music. It is shockingly bad, and I kind of love it for being such a genuinely awful piece of television, like a one-eyed, misshapen teddy bear with stuffing poking from its ears.

Kurt Sutter and company botched the living hell out of it, and it may be the most odiously mesmerizing POS of the year. God bless.

I’m not sure what the brief to Kurt Sutter was, but I suspect it was something like, “Make a Taylor Sheridan-like show, but for Netflix,” and Sutter — being the egotist he is — responded, “I’m going to make the Deadwood for Netflix.” Kurt Sutter is no David Milch, and the attempt to capture his own 19th-century language is beyond cringe. I don’t know how he managed to get Lena Headey and, especially, Gillian Anderson to sign on, but I can only assume they did so before reading any scripts.

Set in the 1850s in Washington Territory, Anderson plays Constance Van Ness, the matriarch of an old aristocratic family who controls the town of Angel’s Ridge. She speaks in a stern, clipped manner, which might be a choice or may be Anderson’s not-so-subtle way of expressing her disapproval of the writing. Still, Anderson is like Meryl Streep performing in a middle-school play, though the contrast doesn’t do her or the production any favors. Van Ness and her family want to seize the land of Fiona Nolan (Headey) because there’s apparently silver on it, but Nolan — who has raised a family of orphans on the property — has no intention of giving it up.

The series tracks the feud between the Van Nesses and the Nolans, escalated when Fiona’s orphan daughter Dahlia (Diana Silvers) drives a pitchfork through the eldest Van Ness son after he violently sexually assaults her. Fiona’s entire family — and the neighbors, including Ryan Hurst’s Miles Alderton — try to cover it up to escape Constance Van Ness’s wrath.

It does not go well, though obviously one of the orphan kids, Elias (Nick Robinson), falls in love with the Van Ness daughter, Tricia (Aisling Franciosi), which complicates matters. Because it’s a Kurt Sutter show, the surviving son, Garrett (Lucas Till), also clearly has a thing for his own mother, which he attempts to exorcise by sleeping with a brothel owner played by Sutter’s wife, Katey Sagal. Obviously.

Patton Oswalt is also hilariously miscast, though he’s mauled by a bear in the second episode. It’s bad TV at its finest. Michiel Huisman also shows up as an outlaw hired by Constance Van Ness as her henchman. Why not?

The series plays out mostly as expected, aside from the fact that Kurt Sutter actually left the show before filming wrapped after a dispute with Netflix. We don’t know what the dispute was about, but my guess is Netflix saw some footage and accidentally uttered out loud, “We paid you how much for this?” and Sutter walked off in a huff. They managed to finish the season, but it feels like a show with gaps, missing backstories, and abandoned storylines.

But by God, they soldiered on without Sutter and made a complete mess of it. Or maybe they salvaged what would have been even worse. Hard to say. What’s undeniable is that it’s a disaster — one that hilariously ends on a cliffhanger. Hilarious not because I wouldn’t watch a second season (how often do we get pure, unfiltered suck!) but because Netflix will never in a million years renew it. It’s borderline humiliating that they even released it, though they probably hoped to bury it in the wake of Stranger Things and pray no one noticed.

But how could we not? It’s Kurt Sutter. Say what you will about the man, but he takes huge swings. He misses more often than not, but at least he’s not boring (except for The Bastard Executioner). I even love that Netflix took a chance on Sutter after he was basically exiled from FX when Disney took over — he’s like that talented but messy wide receiver who burns bridges with every team in the NFL, but there’s always one coach who thinks he can tame him. Netflix learned the hard way that no one tames Kurt Sutter. For better. And for worse. In the case of The Abandons, much much worse.

But thank you, The Abandons, for restoring my faith in humans to completely and fantastically s*** the bed.