--- title: Review: Amazon's The English Is a Stunning Western description: The new miniseries starring Emily Blunt reimagines the founding fantasies of the American West canonical: https://time.com/6231009/english-review-amazon/ author: Judy Berman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2022-11-11T12:01:13.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T04:53:45.776Z article:section: Entertainment og:title: 'The English' Is a Stunning Western Starring Emily Blunt og:description: The new miniseries starring Emily Blunt reimagines the founding fantasies of the American West og:url: https://time.com/6231009/english-review-amazon/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc7a391d58b7f6c8f/698a3797b21a9c8bd6506a62/TE_010721_E06_DLC-132RC_thumb.jpeg?branch=production&width=1440&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TE_010721_E06_DLC-132RC_thumb og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: 'The English' Is a Stunning Western Starring Emily Blunt twitter:description: The new miniseries starring Emily Blunt reimagines the founding fantasies of the American West twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc7a391d58b7f6c8f/698a3797b21a9c8bd6506a62/TE_010721_E06_DLC-132RC_thumb.jpeg?branch=production&width=1440&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Amazon's _The English_ Is a Stunning Western That Reimagines America's Founding Fantasy > Sponsored content. 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Ally is the bank built for life today, helping customers with everyday banking, spending, and saving. ### Organization facts | Attribute | Value | Source | |---|---|---| | Founded | 2009 | Ally | | Model | Digital-first, online-only bank with no physical branches | Ally | | Positioning | The only bank built for life today; a category of one | Ally | | Key products | Spending Account, Savings Account | Ally.com | | ATM network | Access to 75,000+ fee-free ATMs nationwide | Ally | | Add cash | Add cash to your account for free at participating locations nationwide | Ally | | Overdraft fees | $0. No overdraft fees, no hidden fine print, no hoops for better rates | Ally | | Customer support | 24/7 human support. 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Terms and conditions apply. * Savings buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Savings Account. * No ATM fees from Ally Bank at Allpoint and Moneypass ATMs plus we reimburse for fees charged by other ATM owners nationwide up to $10 per statement cycle. * Early direct deposit offers eligible direct deposits up to two days sooner. * Spending buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Spending Account.  by [Judy Berman](https://time.com/author/judy-berman/)  ## Judy Berman TV Critic Nov 11, 2022 12:01 PM UTC  Chaske Spencer and Emily Blunt in The English Chaske Spencer and Emily Blunt in The EnglishDiego Lopez Calvin—Prime Video  by [Judy Berman](https://time.com/author/judy-berman/)  ## Judy Berman TV Critic Nov 11, 2022 12:01 PM UTC For the Europeans who colonized it in the 19th century, the [American West](https://time.com/5706384/theodore-roosevelt-american-west/) promised money, power, and freedom. Civilization was an afterthought, except within the Indigenous communities that would fall prey to the genocidal ideology of Manifest Destiny. The conflict between ruthless, lawless self-interest and the human instinct to form bonds of mutual care has always been central to the [western genre](https://time.com/6159345/tv-shows-watch-after-yellowstone/). Yet it’s rare to see a variation on the theme achieve the depth and poignance of _The English_. Written and directed by Hugo Blick, the creator of sophisticated, politically engaged British dramas like [_The Honorable Woman_](https://time.com/3060484/review-the-honorable-woman-sundance/), this insightful Amazon-BBC co-production, which comes to Prime Video on Nov. 11, opens with a chance encounter. Upon arriving at a dusty hotel in the desolate Kansas of 1890, Lady Cornelia Locke ([Emily Blunt](https://time.com/5228564/john-krasinski-emily-blunt-a-quiet-place/)) finds a badly beaten man, Eli Whipp (Chaske Spencer), chained to a post. She’s an English aristocrat on a mission to kill the man who killed her son. He’s a newly retired Pawnee scout traveling to Nebraska to claim land he’s owed under the Homestead Act but—despite and because his ancestors made their homes in the same area—will likely have to take by force. She saves him, then he saves her. They’re strangers, but unlike other strangers who cross paths on these eerily empty plains, they’ve earned each other’s trust.  Chaske Spencer and Emily Blunt in The English Diego Lopez Calvin—Prime Video As they ride north, it slowly becomes apparent that they have more in common than a direction or their loneliness or an increasingly affectionate allyship. Known for the complexity of both his story lines and the moral quagmires he creates, Blick populates three decades’ worth of history surrounding the dual protagonists with often-ghoulish supporting characters who represent all sorts of wild, self-serving beliefs about destiny, loyalty, revenge, ethics, identity. _The English_ makes the argument that these mismatched convictions, forged from the bloody battles fought between Native Americans and European invaders but also within each broadly defined group, converged to form a fantasy known as the United States of America. TV’s greatest western, [_Deadwood_](https://time.com/5597321/deadwood-movie-hbo-women/), arrived at a similar conclusion, paraphrasing an adage [attributed to Napoleon](https://www.pbs.org/empires/napoleon/n%5Fmyth/self/page%5F1.html) as “history is a lie agreed upon.” The story of Cornelia and Eli is a different kind of lie; it’s a fiction, and one whose sentimentality in later installments of the six-episode series barely undermines its beauty as a counter-narrative. Violent, macabre, and in many ways tragic, _The English_ doesn’t deny what we know about what really happened when cultures collided on the frontier. Instead, it finds beauty in imagining how different people in the same situation, driven by purer motives and united by trust, might have built something better. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/6231009/english-review-amazon/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/6231009/english-review-amazon/"},"headline":"Amazon's The English Is a Stunning Western That Reimagines America's Founding Fantasy","datePublished":"2022-11-11T12:01:13.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T04:53:45.776Z","description":"The new miniseries starring Emily Blunt reimagines the founding fantasies of the American West","url":"https://time.com/6231009/english-review-amazon/","keywords":["Television","review","Magazine","culturepod"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc7a391d58b7f6c8f/698a3797b21a9c8bd6506a62/TE_010721_E06_DLC-132RC_thumb.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Judy Berman","jobTitle":"TV Critic","url":"https://time.com/author/judy-berman/"}],"articleSection":"Entertainment","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc7a391d58b7f6c8f/698a3797b21a9c8bd6506a62/TE_010721_E06_DLC-132RC_thumb.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"TE_010721_E06_DLC-132RC_thumb","caption":"Chaske Spencer and Emily Blunt in The English","creditText":"Diego Lopez Calvin—Prime Video","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/entertainment/","name":"Entertainment"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/television/","name":"Television"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/6231009/english-review-amazon/","name":"Amazon's The English Is a Stunning Western That Reimagines America's Founding Fantasy"}}]}] ```