Damnation is an American period drama television series. The series was ordered on May 12, 2017. The series is a co-production between Universal Cable Productions and Netflix. Netflix streamed the show worldwide outside the United States, where it aired on USA Network. The series premiered on November 7, 2017. On January 25, 2018, it was announced that the series had been cancelled after one season and was removed from Netflix in 2023.
Plot
Set in 1931 amidst the American labor wars of the Great Depression, Damnation follows Seth Davenport, a man with a violent past who poses as a preacher as he rallies townsfolk to stand up against greedy industrialists and the corruption of the local bankers and businessmen. He is opposed by Creeley Turner, an ex-con and Pinkerton detective brought in to stop Davenport's strike. Neither the townsfolk nor the industrialists know that Seth and Creeley are estranged brothers.
According to creator and showrunner Tony Tost, Damnation is "1/3 Clint Eastwood, 1/3 John Steinbeck, 1/3 James Ellroy. That is, it takes some characters you’d normally see in a tough western, plops them in the world of Grapes of Wrath, and places them in the sort of pulpy paranoid narrative you see in Ellroy’s novels."
Background
The Farmers' Holiday Association campaign for a farm strike in the early 1930s was the event on which the story is based; the Iowa locale in the series is based on Plymouth County, Iowa, during this time, the strike and related events in the county seat of Le Mars, Iowa, and rural areas of the county beginning in early May 1932. This was also the period when the penny auction became a common farmer tactic.
A coal miners' strike at the same time in Kentucky, known as the Harlan County War or Bloody Harlan, is the basis for that element of the plot. The Sheriff J. H. Blair and Florence Reece are historical characters, with Reece's folk song "Which Side Are You On?" (performed in the second episode) being inspired by Sheriff Blair's actions during the Harlan County War.
The Pinkerton Detective Agency, which employs Creeley Turner and the William J. Burns International Detective Agency, which employs Connie Nunn, are real agencies that focused on strikebreaking in the 1930s.
The villainous Black Legion vigilante group in Damnation is based on the 1930s militant fascistic paramilitary group of the same name. The Black Legion terrorized ethnic, political and religious minorities throughout the Midwest, targeting labor organizers and striking workers in particular.
Cast
Main
Killian Scott as Seth Davenport, an enigmatic preacher with a mysterious past who is behind the strikes in Holden County. Logan Marshall-Green as Creeley Turner, Seth's older brother, a convicted murderer, and a Pinkerton detective. Sarah Jones as Amelia Davenport, Seth's politically radical wife, who writes inflammatory sermons under the alias "Dr. Samuel T. Hopkins." Chasten Harmon as Bessie Louvin, an African American prostitute at the local brothel, who is literate and cunning, and is hired by Creeley to be his secretary. Christopher Heyerdahl as Don Berryman, the amoral sheriff of Holden County who runs the town's bootlegging and gambling operations. Melinda Page Hamilton as Connie Nunn, a cold-blooded and murderous agent of the William J. Burns International Detective Agency, who believes that Seth Davenport killed her strikebreaking husband. Joe Adler as D. L. Sullivan, a reporter for the town's local newspaper, who nurses literary ambitions and comes to sympathize with the Davenports' labor crusade.