May 31, 201201:29 PMThe Telegraph
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Recap: 10 Things You Need To Know About Part 3 of 'Hatfields & McCoys'
History.com
If you missed Part 3 of the History miniseries Hatfields & McCoys, here are the Top 10 things you need to know about the final chapter.
1. As Part 3 begins, Roseanna McCoy (Lindsay Pulsipher) is making funeral arrangements for the child she bore by Johnse Hatfield (Matt Barr) – who’s now married (albeit not happily) to Roseanna’s duplicitous cousin, Nancy McCoy (Jena Malone).
2. Frank Phillips (Andrew Howard) – a.k.a. Bad Frank – continues to lead bloody attacks on Hatfield kinfolk in West Virginia. He kills some men, and brings others back to Kentucky.
3. To end the aforementioned attacks, Uncle Jim (Tom Berenger) insists on launching a New Year’s Eve assault on the secluded Kentucky farm of Randall McCoy (Bill Paxton) and his family. Unfortunately, Devil Anse Hatfield (Kevin Costner) is unable to oversee the assault, due to incapacitating illness. Even more unfortunately, the attack leads to collateral damage. As Jim tells Devil Anse after the fact, “It didn’t turn out so well… Our foray against old Randall was interrupted by family members.”
4. Specifically: While Randall himself manages to escape, his son is mortally wounded – and one of his daughters is fatally shot by Ellison “Cotton Top” Mounts (Noel Fisher), the mentally challenged illegitimate son of the late Ellison Hatfield (Damian O’Hare). Sally (Mare Winngham), Randall’s wife, never fully recovers from the trauma of these tragic events, and is last seen being shipped off to an asylum.
5. While hunting another McCoy, Jim is impeded by Nancy, and angrily thrashes the young woman when she attacks him. Since Nancy already has cause to hate Jim – after all, he did kill her father way back in Part 1 – she doesn’t hesitate to inform Bad Frank when she later learns of Jim’s whereabouts. Nor does she hesitate to cheat on her husband with Bad Frank.
6. Bad Frank and his men kill Jim in a woodland clash. But William (Boyd Holbrook), Devil Anse’s sharpshooter son, manages to escape capture during the melee.
7. Devil Anse suspects – with ample justification – that Johnse told Nancy (inadvertently or otherwise) where Uncle Jim and William (a.k.a. Cap) had been hiding. He seriously considers killing his son during a fishing trip, but opts to let the dangerously careless young man leave the area and seek his fortune elsewhere. Levicy (Sarah Parish) – Devil Anse’s wife, Johnse’s mom – is greatly relieved.
8. Lawyer Perry Kline (Ronan Vibert) remains smitten with Roseanna, and offers to marry her. When she drops dead – evidently, she never fully recovered from a broken heart and a painful childbirth – he is deeply grieved.
9. After lengthy legal battles, some Hatfields who were arrested in West Virginia are brought to trial in Kentucky. Ironically, the only defendant given a death sentence is Cotton Top. For all practical purposes, the family feud is ended.
10. Randall dies in a house fire. Bad Frank is shot during a barroom confrontation while promoting his self-aggrandizing book. The closing credits inform us that Devil Anse lived to a ripe old age, and died in 1921 of natural causes.
Note: If you had trouble keeping track of the family trees in Hatfields and McCoys, you can trace the branches here. If you want to view segments of the miniseries in their entirety, check this out. You also can read the C&I recaps of Episode 1 and Episode 2.
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